Fellow animal activist Tom Cushing told me the discussion on the cuts to the Haydon Act, which requires shelters hold stray animals for 4 to 6 days, would be held on March 14th, and the City Council's next meeting is March 13th. That would not give them much time to put it on the meeting agenda and prepare a letter for Buchanan, but it turned out Buchanan's subcommittee will be considering this on March 13th; so even if the Council is willing to write a letter to Buchanan, it would not get there before the 13th.
My readers, Tom's readers, and all animal lovers, should write to Joan Buchanan now urging her not to cut this funding, which won't save the State much money and would result in killing helpless lost pets without giving owners or rescue groups the time to save them. Cushing said animal groups will be demonstrating on the Statehouse lawn on the 13th.
I won't be at this demonstration. I plan to attend the meeting of the RDA Successor Agency on March 13th and maybe the City Council meeting. I plan to address Michael LeBlanc's request for a 90 day extension on his financial plans and I'll write my blog on that too.
The City Council meeting last Tuesday included a reception for Carol Rowley and Mayor Abram Wilson. I got there early for that. It was held in Dougherty Valley, and I've already written how much I hate driving to the Dougherty Station after dark. This time I took the long way, up Bollinger Canyon Road from Alcosta. It takes twice as long as using Old Ranch Road, but I wouldn't have to make the U-Turn to get into the Dougherty Station parking lot.
As usual I underestimated where to turn and turned too soon and had to turn around and continue on. I make that mistake all the time, but I got there without any other problems.
Lots of older women at the reception were wearing red hats. Shirley Ernest even came over to show me the visor she was wearing was red on top.
My cat hat is black and red with a checkerboard cat in the front. You can see it and me in the TV29 replay of the meeting at 7:30 am Friday morning or 7:30 pm Sunday or Wednesday nights. I thought I looked very good in my cat hat, but I stammered a lot reading Tom Cushing's email about the date of the budget discussions, which then turned out to be wrong.
I realized all of the other ladies wearing red hats were members of the Red Hat Society, and they thought I was one too. I could be, since the only conditions for membership are being a female over 50 and wearing a red hat. I certainly qualified for that.
So tonight I went to the Red Hat Society website and started to join. I found that Red Hatters have moved beyond merely wearing red hats. This is a big organization with a $20 annual membership. The website is full of cutesy names and graphics. Red Hat ladies are lots of fun, and I'm not much into fun. Maybe I should "lighten up," but I'm not ready for that yet.