12/2/07
VVAW met at 11:10 am on Sunday, 12/2/07, at the office of William E. Wood Associate Real-tors, Port Warwick Office, in Newport News, VA.
In attendance: * denotes member of Virginia Voters for Animal Welfare Board of Directors
Dale Bartlett
Gary Brittingham
Colleen Brown
*Lillian Clancy
Mary Cooper Connell
Roy Crockett
Shirley Crockett
Vicki Goldrich
Janell Gregory
Bobbie Gribble
Debra Griggs
Sue Haycock
Cindy Long
*Don Marro
Deb Olech
Nancy Peterson
DJ Rice
Misty Saunders
Stephanie Scott
Strother Sharp
Jacque Smith
Margaret Traylor
Waverley Traylor
Diane Tyson
Betty Weakland
*Pat Weakland
Megan Zieger
NOTE: Gary Brittingham taped the entire meeting and in addition interviewed some attendees after the meeting was adjourned.
Don Marro brought the meeting to order and asked each person to introduce themselves. Each gave both their background and experience in animal welfare.
background of VVAW
Because a number of people had not been at a VVAW meeting before, Don provided back-ground.
VVAW is based on a 3-legged theme:
responsible government
responsible ownership
responsible breeding
Work started in late 2003, with the first foray into the legislative process in the 2004 session with SJR37, a study to assess the pet overpopulation problem. The study was defeated. Later we learned that a study with the same focus had been conducted only three years earlier. While this was not cited as a reason for defeating SJR 37, no one mentioned that it had been done, and when we ultimately located and examined all the stakeholders and the findings, it turned out this study had been totally ignored with not one recommendation from it being implemented.
“Baby steps” was then, as it is today, the overriding mantra, with animal welfare issues very low priority.
It was then decided, that rather than focusing on a single bill or two, many bills would be pro-moted in an attempt to raise the consciousness of legislators. Gas chambers stood out as the most visible and horrific of the array of problems. The biggest obstacles to banning gas cham-bers were the work of two people: Teresa Dockery, a person who had become well-known in animal welfare circles, and Del. Bobby Orrock, the Republican Chairman of the House of Dele-gates Agriculture Sub Committee. Del. Orrock’s committee gets first crack at most of the VVAW bills, and the bills have died with him.
It was in the 2007 session at 7am on a cold January morning when a hearing of Del. Orrock’s committee began with Del. Orrock admonishing the crowd to stop bothering him and his col-leagues regarding their stand on legislation. He indicated that he was getting too many contacts and he wanted that to stop, noting that having so many advocate for a given position would result in his taking the opposite viewpoint. Amongst the bills heard that morning was the VVAW gas chamber bill, and it was again defeated.
Don noted with great satisfaction that, for the 2008 session, Del. Orrock has himself filed HB5, a bill to eliminate gas chambers in Virginia, and on an emergency basis.
Don believes, therefore, that VVAW has been successful as a catalyst for change. Don believes there are few in the legislature who will pass bills simply because we (VVAW) asks, but the leg-islature will pass bills when their constituents want and require those bills. This means we all need to get involved in contacting legislators, pushing for change, notwithstanding Del. Orrock’s admonition.
Debra Griggs added that instead of the 30-some who were in Richmond that cold and early morning, her goal is to have 200 there.
Don noted that it is our constitutional right to petition and be heard by legislators.
Don briefly discussed the recent election, indicating that he received only 4.5% of the vote in the 27th senatorial district, but congratulated Kim Kincheloe for getting 27% of the votes in her run against Del. Orrock, and with the very little money that Kim spent. Don noted that his competi-tion – a Democrat and a Republican (Don ran as an Independent) – spent a staggering total of $3 million.
The remainder of the meeting focused on proposed VVAW legislation:
gas chamber bill
Del. Jim Scott will patron, again, our bill to outlaw gas chambers. Don wants to ensure that there is no opportunity for Del. Orrock to pull his bill at the eleventh hour with no fallback in place.
Lillian Clancy asked that each person at the meeting contact their legislators, asking them each to co-patron the gas chamber bill.
dealer permits and releasing agencies bills
Diane Tyson suggested working to get AKC on our side.
DJ Rice made several suggestions about reaching various breeders and said she would start col-lecting email lists, and would begin making contact with ethical, responsible breeders.
Dale Bartlett suggested recognizing that breeders are the enemy, and that frequently the benign words coming from breeders stand in stark contrast to the positions that are later taken by their lobbyists, saying that lobbyists do not promote the same philosophy as good breeders.
Don repeated the willingness of VVAW to talk with breeders but noted that language to accom-modate breeders was specifically included in the releasing agencies bill to meet breeder needs, but to no avail.
Deb Olech will help get VVAW information to breeder clubs.
Diane Tyson noted that breeder clubs are often getting information about VVAW but not from VVAW directly, and with a slant put on it that is wrong and completely different from the VVAW intent.
Debra Griggs asked as many as possible to share organization lists so that the word could get out accurately.
Waverley Traylor indicated there is a dealer permit requirement in his area.
Strother Sharp wondered if breeders wouldn’t be opposed to dealer permits because so many of them breed and sell without paying taxes.
Don suggested another way to curtail breeding is to work with zoning ordinances, ensuring any-one who breeds and sells has met the zoning conditions required to do so.
DJ Rice offered that reputable breeders do not make money but typically operate in debt.
dogfighting bill
A dogfighting bill will be the signature bill for VVAW. Other groups will have dogfighting bills as well, and the hope is that with so many wanting strong legislation here, the bills will pass.
The VVAW bill will include a RICO provision.
Bobbie Gribble said that the gambling which takes place at dogfights is significant.
Waverley Traylor feels that only when dogfighting is “organized” does gambling become an is-sue. Waverley feels that a major problem is dogfighting with young people, teenagers up to those about 22 years of age, who fight to see “which dog is ‘badder’”.
releasing agencies bill
Pat Weakland is the point person on this bill again this year, and again this year Del. Wittman is the patron.
targeted (Pater Marsh) spay/neuter program
Pat Weakland is working on this as well, but says it will likely not take the form of a bill, but rather will start as a pilot program with four Northern Neck counties participating. A budget amendment had been discussed by Pat with Del. Wittman, but it was decided to work with re-turned DSS money to fund this pilot.
Don encouraged Pat to try for a budget amendment so as to get the required $3 million right away, noting that this amount is less than the state pays for the Museum of Frontier Culture, and there is, in addition, anticipated payback from the spay/neuter program.
Debra Griggs recalled and noted that Peter Marsh said that for every $1 spent on this in New Hampshire, over $3 is saved.
Don added that such a program pays for itself financially, morally, and philosophically, and pointed out how modest the start-up costs were in the context of an annual budget in Virginia that exceeds $70 billion.
lobbyists
The topic changed to lobbyists and those who are known to Virginia’s legislature.
Don asked the group to remember Bob Kane, Tom Evans and Walt Hutchens. Bob Kane has recently retired from serving as the head of Virginia Hunting Dog Association, and, as a resident of Madison County in Virginia, will be able to focus his work just on our state. Tom Evans is a lobbyist who has been the hired gun for several different groups including the Virginia Federa-tion of Dog Clubs and Breeders (VFDC&B). Walt Hutchens is a breeder who lives in Lexing-ton, VA, and writes a column called Virginia Pet Law.
Strother Sharp suggested VVAW consider hiring a lobbyist.
Don said that to do this, with all the bills we are promoting, it would cost in the $75K range.
Dale Bartlett said that to hire a lobbyist to do just a single bill – not all the VVAW might propose – would be in the $16-18K range for that one bill.
VVAW doesn’t have that amount of money, and Don’s efforts have been completely free.
Animal Welfare Coalition
Pat Weakland questioned some figures in a handout from the Animal Welfare Coalition which discussed animal statistics.
Don noted that our records show at least 39 agencies which reported in 2005 have not reported in 2006. In addition, the numbers posted, inaccurate as they are with so many places not reporting, are understated further because road kill, those killed by private vets, drowned or shot, or who die of starvation and exposure when abandoned are not counted all.
humane investigator bill
Work will continue to re-instate the program, with the Farm Bureau likely again to oppose it.
humane education
DJ noted that school janitors do not like hair, teachers do not like animals in their class, and par-ents don’t want their children around animals.
Don said there are some very good humane ed programs around.
Bobbie Gribble noted that one legislator says teachers already have too much on their plate. She asked for help in addressing that complaint.
Deb Olech said teachers must stand up and say they want to teach humane ed.
tax credits
Debra Griggs and Stephanie Scott described the postcard program they are conducting, trying to get vets to support the VVAW bills regarding getting a tax credit for pro bono work, and other aspects of the VVAW program. So far they have sent out 3-4 cards with different messages.
Don noted that the vet tax credit program can help in places where there is no vet in the jurisdic-tion.
other
Even lobbying resulting in having no bills pass is not necessarily negative. The effort raises con-sciousness both for those wanting the bills, and the legislators involved in working the bills.
Don noted that ACOs deserve stature, and that shouldn’t come in “baby steps”.
Don feels there will be a fundamental change in the legislature because of the recent election.
rabies surcharge bill (now to be called s/n funding bill)
Not getting rabies shots so as to avoid being identified in Virginia’s system was promoted by Bob Kane but is not an option.
Don noted that it may well be criminal to advocate against complying with the law.
He added that there must be sufficient incentive to follow up to get higher compliance for licen-sure and that means license fees must be high enough (or penalties steep enough) to make that compliance effort worthwhile.
tethering
Bobby Orrock killed both the Algie Howell and Kenny Alexander tethering bills last session.
Debra Griggs is working with PETA to get a tethering bill put together again this session.
She noted that VACA prefers not to have a time limit on tethering as that requires someone to monitor. She feels tethering will be difficult to do statewide.
Waverley Traylor said tethering would be an enforcement nightmare if it was not confined to an urban area. Debra countered by saying they have been able to have volunteers do the watch-ing/monitoring.
Dale Bartlett called tethering a “gateway” issue.
Debra added that it provides an opportunity to start a dialogue with dog owners and can be seen as an educational tool.
Waverley, still unconvinced, said he has had trouble getting something as simple as a tethering three times the length of the dog enforced.
various
Sue Haycock discussed the death of her dog at the hands of a vet-owned boarding facility.
DJ Rice said legislation is needed to regulate boarding, grooming, and other similar businesses where no certification is required and no inspection is done.
Don noted the whistleblowing bill VVAW promoted a few years ago and wondered if it could be retried next year.
privatization
Don admitted this is his favorite bill because he lacks respect for the efforts of the office of the State Vet. He wants this to allow a private contractor to undertake some functions of companion animal work that the State Vet appears loathe to do.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:15.