Over the past couple of months, the Kansas City Dog Advocates Election Committee has been sending out email questionaires to, and having telephone and face-to-face conversations with political hopefuls from around the metro. In my opinion, this is the most important thing we do at KC Dog Advocates. So the first part of this post is about KC specifically -- and the second part of the post will cover why we do it (and why your community should to).
On Tuesday, 8 communities will be having elections for local officials. Several of these cities are currently pet friendly -- a couple have more than a few laws that are making our goal of getting to No Kill in the Metro more difficult.
So if you live in the Kansas City metro, please head over to our website and check out where politicians stand. We have our political stance page that will tell you what all of the rankings mean, and all of the individual candidate information available for the elections for Gladstone, Independence, Grandview, Lee's Summit and Greenwood on the Missouri side, and Shawnee, Westwood and Prairie Village on the Kansas side.
Not all of the candidates are filled in - -some just have not responded to our multiple requests to fill out surveys. Sometimes they're just too busy, sometimes they forget, and sometimes it's because their own beliefs would be counter to our vision and there is no reason to roast themselves. We will be working on filling in the holes over the weekend and up through election day as we hear from more candidates. So keep checking back -- and make your voices heard at the polls on Tuesday. We have a lot of movement for strong, positive change in our community for saving the lives of animals throughout the metro....but having politicians that support pet friendly policies is going to be important if we are to take the next step forward. So vote wisely, and please pass along these political rankings to others within your local organization and encourage them to vote.
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So why are we tracking candidates?
In Kansas City, we are blessed to have a lot of great rescue groups and low-cost spay/neuter programs. They do great work, and together are working to control our animal population and find homeless animals homes.
Unfortunately, many cities in our metro still have WAY too many laws that are causing us to impound (and kill) animals that already have homes. Very restrictive pet limit laws, mandatory spay/neuter laws and -- our worst offender in KC - breed bans, are causing many well-behaved animals to be removed from their homes and killed in our shelters.
Many of these laws have been on the books here for 2 decades. And it's way past time we get rid of a lot of them. And it's way easier to change these laws if you have the right politicians in office than if you're constantly fighting them against their existing belief system.
So a few years back, we started meeting with politicians to try to get the right people in, and the wrong people out, of office. We've met a fair amount of success with it thus far -- with several pet unfriendly candidates getting removed just in last year's election alone.
We've even gone further this year -- by placing advertising in KC Metro Pet Magazine (ad top left of this section) and in the Johnson County Sun (due left) calling out our political rankings so that people can become more aware that they are out there. Pet owners make up 60% of our metro population -- and with only 10-15% voter turnout in most local elections, it is ridiculous that we cannot completely dominate at the polls and get the right candidates in office and change the laws that need to be changed.
So that's become our mission. And if your community is suffering from bad local politicians who are making decisions that are not in the best interests of the animals in your community, it is your responsibility to fix it.
Politics are not a spectator sport.
And if you are over the age of 18 and you are not involved in your local politics , you can no longer claim to be a victim - you are a participant.
Make an impact. We are. And spread the word.
Those laws that allow our so-called animal control to impound and kill animals that already have homes, they are not about public safety. They're about inflicting pain and loss on people.
Posted by: Tom | April 04, 2010 at 12:36 AM