Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute contracts, and any related documents, with The Michelson Found Animals Foundation, Inc., of Los Angeles, CA, and the Stray Cat Alliance, of Los Angeles, CA, to allow Long Beach Animal Care Services to provide a variety of services to decrease shelter euthanasia of cats, from April 1, 2016 through March 31, 2017, with annual renewal options through March 31, 2020, at the discretion of the City Manager or his designee.  (District 5)
Next item. Item 26 Report from Parks and Recreation and Marine recommendation to execute two contracts to allow Long Beach Animal Care Services to provide a variety of services to decrease shelter euthanasia of Cats District five. There's a motion and a second I'm actually going to have I've had a couple requests for a staff report on this. So think of a staff report, please. Sure. We have Ted Stevens, our bureau manager of animal care services, and also interim director of Parks and Rec, Steve Scott. Are you sure that's really Ted Stevens? I know he's disappearing before our very eyes. Okay. I'm not sure where to go with that one, but. But thank you. I guess it must be the stress of the coyotes. No, it's intentional. I would think the mayor and the council members. Thank you for having me here tonight for a chance to speak briefly on this. We're just formalizing some contracts with the Found Animals Foundation Foundation and Stray Cat Alliance to continue some life saving progressive programs here in the city of Long Beach that are aimed at helping one of the most at risk animals in our city. And that would be the community cat and the kittens that are born from them. And these these efforts have. Have had a significant impact in increasing life outcomes and reducing euthanasia and euthanasia in the shelter. And we're looking to continue those programs. Thank you. And can you can you talk about those programs are exactly. So just briefly, the programs that we're mentioning here would be Kitten Foster program. We're looking to transfer between 3 to 500 kittens to the foster program that the Found Animals Foundation runs out of their adoption shop in Culver City, where they will take over the care and feeding of the animals until they get old enough to be spayed or neutered and adopted into loving homes. And unfortunately, kittens are one of the most at risk animals at any animal shelter. And this is going to allow us to save several of them through this agreement. It also briefly, I can touch on the community cat program where we span neuter cats that are outdoor cats. Many of them are owned, some are loosely owned. Some don't necessarily have any identified owners that we know of, but somebody is taking care of them. These are healthy cats that have no illness, no injuries, but would not make good pets due to their temperament. But they are they do have a home may not be a perfect home, but it is a home that they know and the home that they have. And as long as they're healthy and happy, this program gives them the opportunity to live out their lives in a humane way without reproducing and having any more babies and kittens and reducing a lot of the negative impacts that they would have in the community. Thank you. Councilman Price, to have anything on your motion. I just want to thank Mr. Stevens and his team for doing excellent work. And we always look forward to your reports because there's always progress that you are reporting. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. I am so excited that found animals has put our trust in TED and our animal control services. Usually they focus on really large organizations and I know that we are growing, but compared to some of the bigger animal control agencies, to be able to receive this funding and to have these kittens and cats have this opportunity, it says a lot about you and how far you've brought the animal agency in the last few years. So thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, too, wish to thank Steven Scott and Ted Stevens for bringing this item forward. I suppose in a perfect world, we wouldn't have feral cats throughout the community and thousands of unwanted strays in our shelters and every animal's spayed or neutered and has a loving and safe home. As Ted talked about, the sort some of these cats do have home is just not perfect. And we wouldn't have the no kill versus kill shelters debate, which is painful. We can all agree that this is not a perfect world and this is a great progressive next step in expanding our efforts and our existing partnerships with these two organizations. I appreciate the feedback that our office has gotten from folks that are both against and for the item. But I do believe this is the right thing to do, both for feral cats and kittens. Our goal is to increase spay and neutering while decreasing euthanasia in our shelter. And that can't be said enough times. This contract and these relationships help us do just that in a very humane way. It's not perfect. We know that. I think you'll even have our staff share that. It's not perfect, but given the options, it really is the best way. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Mongo, I think. Is that Quebec up or no? Okay. Council Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I intend on supporting this item. I do have a couple of questions based on questions that were presented to me by constituents just over the weekend. I think this is very timely. The constituent reported a feral cat population in her neighborhood and states that we've actually. Animal Services has actually come out and picked up cats and and and and fix them one way or another. But also they return them back to the community. Is that is that the practice? Yes. That that's what this this program is. Okay. So you return them back to wherever you caught them, and. And they're just. Just out there. Yeah. We're if they are healthy, if they are not healthy, we will not rerelease them. If they come to us. Healthy of good weight in good condition. It's. The assumption is that there is someone taking care of them, someone's feeding them, providing them with shelter and food and water. And like I said, it's not the perfect life for them, but it's you know, they are in a healthy condition. Okay. Thank you. And I know that, Mr. Stevens I know that was not part of this report. But what kind of related is the animal care services just opened up a what's now its largest kind of secondary adoption center over in Councilman Austin's district at the new Pet Food Express, which is a great new service to the community as well. So congratulations on that. That's really wonderful. Any comment on the item, please? How are you doing? Hi, good to see you. Anna Wong, I am the program director for the Return to field program here in Long Beach. I have been since the inception. I wanted to address Councilman Austin's nervousness. And I understand many of you, your offices have contacted me directly when your constituents have had issues and have needed some help, especially during kitten season. We've been happy to go out and help them with that. This is not a program that's simply putting cats back out. We spent an enormous time and energy educating the city of Long Beach and the contract cities on the return to field program and its benefits. We've already seen a massive reduction in impound rates, which Ted Stevens can go over, if you like. Those numbers. We've seen a massive reduction in euthanasia and we have had a reduction in kitten in pounds so far this year being the third year, we expect to see a dramatic drop in those in pounds. Along with the return to field, we have done what's called targeted TNR, which is trap neuter return. So when kittens are impounded at the shelter, we get the addresses where those kittens came from. We go back, we trap those cats that the constituents did not trap, and we are fixing those cats as well. The fiscal impact is zero to the city. Basically. This is something that we are doing with the grant from the Richardson Foundation found animals and we would like to continue to do it and we appreciate all of the positive response that the Council has had on this. We thank you for your support and gone out to many of your neighborhood meetings and spoken to your people out there. And I'm happy to continue to do that with any issues that you guys may have. Thank you very much, Casey, and no other public comment on the issue. Thank you for all your work members. Please go ahead and cast your votes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Next item, please.