Friday, June 25, 2010

Politicians should do what’s right

My blogs are usually cool, calm and collected, conveying to those who read them what I hope to be helpful information about pets and issues that affect them.

But today’s blog is anything but calm. I am angry. I just learned that city officials of Brooksville, which is in Hernando County, are threatening to close down the county’s only dog park, the Rotary Centennial Dog Park, located in Spring Hill.

We’ve had this park listed on FloridaPets.net since it opened in January, 2009. You can read about it here. As you can see, yes, the county contributed financially, but that’s only part of the story. A lot of good, regular dog people made contributions toward the construction of this dog park and it took quite a while to make it all a reality. Now, rather than simply instituting a small fee-for-use of the dog park, which most park-goers would probably be happy to pay, these officials seem to think the answer to lack of financial resources is to block access to something those tax payers actually partially own.

The Hernando County Commissioners are also threatening to “leave dead animals on the road” by cutting operating funding for county animal control. Yes, you read right. Such action would also impact any kind of stray animal rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming efforts in jeopardy.

So, yes, I am upset. At typical political short-sightedness. At lack of caring for all of God’s creatures. At too much worry about getting re-elected and not enough doing the right thing unless there’s a camera around.

What can we do? I’m a big believer in speaking up for those who have no voice, including children, animals, or the very elderly. In this case, there are animals that need us; they need our voice. I hope you will join with me and write, email, fax, or call the Board of Hernando County Commissioners and tell them you are a voter with a pet and politely ask them to do the right thing, not just for themselves, but for those who elected them, and for all the animals those voters love and donate money to care for.

Why do this if you don’t live in Hernando County? Because counties follow the actions of other counties and if one does something, even a bone-headed something, others may follow and one of them could be the county where you are your family resides.

So, contact the Hernando officials and ask them to come up with a Plan B for the dog park. And ask them to not cut funding for a department that helps the most innocent among us. Hernando county contact info can be found here. And contact information for the rest of Florida’s counties can be found here.

No comments: