EDMONDS – After voting Dec. 10 to send to voters a petition ordinance requiring spaying and neutering of animals adopted in the city, the council reversed its decision and approved the ordinance outright at its meeting Dec. 17.
“I wanted to save the taxpayers $60,000,” said City Council president Dave Earling, citing the cost of conducting a special election in February on the matter.
The action was taken also at the request of Mayor Gary Haakenson, who included a note in council members’ information packets suggesting they pass the ordinance – “because I thought it (the election) was total waste of money,” he said.
The council vote went 4-3, with council members Earling, Michael Plunkett, Dave Orvis and Richard Marin voting yes, and Lora Petso, Deanna Dawson and Jeff Wilson voting no.
The petition, initiated by Plunkett and circulated over the summer, called for mandatory spaying and neutering of animals adopted at the city shelter and set up a $5,000 fund to pay for the alterations. The petition collected 5,100 signatures, 2,800 of them valid – well over the 2,150 needed.
The City Council had the choice of approving the ordinance outright or sending it to the voters. Five of the seven council members on Dec. 10 voted against approving the ordinance, citing concerns over how it would be administered and with the $5,000 fund. They also expressed dismay that this portion of the petition ordinance is illegal because voters cannot use the initiative process to appropriate funds. Only Plunkett and Orvis voted to approve the ordinance the first time around. Council members then voted 6-1 to send it to a Feb. 4 ballot.
Also discussed at both meetings was the possibility of approving a parallel ordinance requiring people who adopt pets to pay a spay or neuter fee to finance the alterations. The council cannot by law amend the petition ordinance but it could enact another and essentially use it to take the place of the funding mechanism outlined in the petition.
Representatives of the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), who helped with the petition drive, indicated they would not take action if the city were to replace the petition funding mechanism with the other, Earling said.
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