Katherine Varjian's Day in Court: Beverly Hills Woman Who Cares for Cats Could beJailed.

Beverly Hills, California. July 1, 2009.
Court reporting by Pam Holt.

[Katherine Varjian appeared in Court today to defend herself against a recently deleted Beverly Hills Ordidance which prohibits the feeding of "non-owned" animals; In this case, Ms. Varjian has cared for a colony of about 20 cats. Ed.]


The crowd (which I estimate to be 20+) which came to support Katherine Varjian (identified with red ribbon armbands) included Ed Boks, who offered to tell the judge about the agreement LAAS created with the city of Beverly Hills. This agreement matched the animal control laws in Beverly Hills with those of the city of Los Angeles, where feral cat care taking is legal, making the anti-feeding ordinance no longer in effect.

Believe it or not, the Beverly Hills City Councilmembers are voting on an "emergency motion" to REINSTATE the inhumane ordinance at their next meeting on Tuesday, July 7th at 7 PM, so we have to make a strong showing then. The prosecutor was saying that it was a "mistake" that the cruel ordinance got deleted! The judge was not ready to make a ruling today because she says she just got the paperwork 2 days ago and needed to absorb it more thoroughly. Katherine's daughter, who is an attorney representing her, wanted a ruling today because the city council may reinstate the ordinance. So, if the ordinance will be reinstated, the judge will hear the case and make a ruling on August 7th at 1:30 PM.

If the city council doesn't vote to reinstate it, then the case will be dismissed.

Only once was feeding ferals even brought up (and it was probably a good 35-40 minutes or so of back and forth legal jumbo). No chance was given to mention how Katherine practices TNR [trap/neuter/release] and adopts out any kittens or cats that can be socialized. The city of Beverly Hills should be giving her an award, not arresting her!

Anyone who would like to tell Beverly Hills City Council how they feel about their "emergency meeting" and quest to jail a kind-to-animals senior citizen should attend:

Council Meeting
Tuesday, July 7 , 2009

Beverly Hills City Council, Rm. 400
455 N. Rexford Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Mayor and City Council: (310) 285-1013
email: https://clients.comcate.com/newrequest.php?id=31

Pam Holt is an activist and advocate for animals, a Registered Veterinary Technician, Certified Animal Massage Therapist and founder of Buddah Dog Animal Massage. BW thanks Pam for her coverage of this ludicrous persecution.

Unhappy Update on Kim's Cat Cole

4/13 UPDATE: I was waiting for Kim to let people know about this but others have called the vet and posted this sad news elsewhere. Having a tough time with that one. Sadly, I must report that Cole has passed on to another life somewhere else. He died in his sleep on Saturday night after pulling through his 3rd surgery: Amputation of the leg. He will be missed and remembered with lots of love. His brother, Will survives him, so we hope Will will pass our love and messages on.

There is still a bill lingering and payments due to people who loaned us the cash to get Cole into surgery faster that we could raise the money required by the vet. Please help us clear this up, if you can.



4/11 UPDATE: Poor little Cole. The photo at left was taken just before Cole was admitted for surgery to mend his broken leg.
After the surgery, he seemed to be doing fine. Then after only one day, while still in hospital, he broke the leg again. This required a second surgery to repair the break with larger pins.

After the second surgery, he would not eat and was lethargic. The doctor told Kim that there was a lot of "necrotic" tissue around the leg and that it may not heal correctly; amputation may be necessary. Because Cole was not eating, they sedated him and inserted a feeding tube, but what came out of his stomach may be the worst news possible. A gold-ish fluid which the vet says is THE sign of FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis). Cats do not normally recover from FIP and Dr. Hahn broke the news to Kim that Cole may have to be euthanized due to the FIP which most often results in a painful death for kitties. More blood tests were done for FIP on Friday and we hoped to get the results back on Saturday but they did not come back from the lab. Dr. Hahn called Kim and said that infection in the leg (from the necrotic (dead) tissues was progressing quickly and that amputation must be performed immediately).

There was doubt that Cole would survive the third surgery in 5 days. He did, as far as we knew as of this afternoon. He came through and was stil sedated when Kim spoke to Dr. Hahn at about 2:30 PM. We're still waiting for the blood test re: FIP. Poor little Cole is by no means out of the woods. This is a tough long weekend for Cole and for Kim, so please send good thoughts and prayers for both.

Donations have dried up and we want to be able to pay Dr. Hahn for his services and kindness. We're down about $900 total. A good friend of Cole put up, as a short term loan, the $450 necessary to get Cole into surgery but that wasthe friend's car payment which he absolutely needed to have repaid from donations by Friday 4/10. Well, the car payment is not made and this friend is in his own financial straights.
Please contribute what you can in the ChipIn boxes below. If you would like to donate via a 501(c)3 and receive a receipt for your taxes, Forte Animal Rescue has agreed to accept targeted donations which will go straight to Cole's surgery fund. Email us at Boardwatch@gmail.com to contribute this way and we'll set it up for you in a very easy manner. We were hoping that Cole would have been releases and recovering at home by now so that he could attend the blessing of the Animals at Olvera Street today. But no Cole, no Hambone and a very sad Easter all around.
Hereare the first two EXPIRED Chip-ins from Kim's site which tells more of her own story. We are putting all current/expired Chip-ins here for transparency. All donations go to the same account. Plese use the BLUE #3 ChipIn for donations. Thank you.
~Jeff de la Rosa (Stu's Dad).


4/7 UPDATE on Donations for Cole's surgeryActors and Others for Animals has donated $75 and has secured low cost surgery at East Valley Animal Clinic. We thank them both.

The goal is now reduced to $1669 including the initial exam at Animal Emergency Clinic from March 28. We have raised $767 . We are short $967. Please do what you can. Thank you.

URGENT- Donations Needed for Cat's Surgery.

Pictured: Mama Cat with her paw on Cole. Brother Will, sleeping in front.

All rescued cats.

The rescuer in need has rescued over 100 animals from L.A. City pounds and found them good and kind forever homes at the cost of thousands upon thousands of dollars. She's in a financial bind at the moment. Please give what you can.


The new estimate for the surgery is $2090. The initial exam at the Emergency Vet (AEC on Ventura in Studio City 3.28.09) was $469. We are now at a total of $2509 in charges. That's all we need. More info on the rescuers own Fundable page here.

On Saturday, adorable and faithful friend Cole was attacked by a dog living with him.
We were able to stop him from being killed but his rear leg is badly broken. Surgery will cost $3000 in Los Angeles. So far we have had him stabilized and he is receiving antibiotics, pain medication and 24-hour care.We are trying to raise funds for his surgery. The alternative are not what anyone wants: amputation (less expensive but not fair) or euthanasia (unacceptable). Please donate as much as you can, even small donations of $5 or $20 dollars will help. We have raised $469 so far but he needs surgery ASAP to prevent having to re-break the leg if it start to heal incorrectly.
Please cross-post a link to this post anywhere and everywhere you think will do some good.Absolutely ALL donations will ONLY go for Cole's care. Thank you.
Jeff (&Cole)

REWIND: 2008 January 14 Board Meeting

"The Board lacks the power and the will..." - fellow LAAS Critic, December, 2008.

Let's rewind through 2008 and see what got done and what didn't, shall we?
At the end we'll have a snappy spreadsheet and a performance grade for 2008.+/- Read more...

Well, let's see...why don't we start with the agenda of the first meeting of 2008.
BW Comments in italics

Drum roll!

Commission Meeting Agenda for January 14, 2008

10:00 a.m. City Hall

President: Tariq Khero, V.P.: Kathy Riordan;Glenn Brown, Irene Ponce, Archie Quincey, Commissioners.

There are no posted minutes nor cancellation notice for this meeting. Ross Pool's job.
Surprised?
Did it happen?
We don't know.
If it did happen, here's how they would have spent the meeting--

1. ORAL REPORT OF THE GENERAL MANAGER

No report filed on the Commission web pages. Ross Pool's job. It's okay, these are usually filled with skewed "euthanasia" statistics.

2. COMMISSION BUSINESS
A. Approval of the Commission Meeting Minutes for November 13 and December 10, 2007

That's it! That's all the Commissioners had planned to address at this first meeting
of the year. Minutes from 2 months ago from a meeting no one can remember. Ross Pool's job.

B.Oral Report by the Commission on Meetings and Events attended.
Oh, and this too. Sorry.

Here's Ed Boks's agenda:
3. GENERAL MANAGER RECOMMENDS FOR BOARD ACTION

(That's Ed Boks-"rhymes with 'hoax'"- for you newbies-sounds serious!)

A. Policy to Guide the Handling of Permit Applications which include Elephant Walks and Similar Events for the Public (Revised Report)
"Policy to Guide the Handling"? WTF is that if you translate from bureaucrat(EB) doublespeak?

Here's the summary:
That the Board adopt requirements for issuing permits for elephants or other inherently dangerous wild animals, as detailed in the body of this report, and direct staff (that's EB-he likes to be called "staff". It's works well when the blame finger swings around if he who fucked up was not Ed, but "staff.") to implement the requirements immediately.

Basically, this is aimed at the very controversial "elephant walks" staged by Ringling Bros. Circus which a lot of us despise. Lots of rules and regs for the Circus: IDs for each elephant, health records, "dangerous" history of the elephant, if any, etc. This is instead of banning the elephant exploitation because, hey, it's profitable!*

What did they decide?

Who knows? No minutes. Ross Pool's Job.

We'll see when/if they come back to this. Also Ross Pool's Job-to keep things on the agenda until they are disposed of.

4.DISCUSSION ITEMS

This is when they make a plan to talk about stuff they can do nothing about until they place it on the agenda for a vote or "board action." The "discussion" has to be placed on the agenda, prior to the meeting, too. No, it's good. They need to discuss things. This is when they usually ask "staff" (Ed) for more info or for a report to be generated which nobody has time to generate.
So, minimum time to get from discussion to voting= 6 weeks because Meeting 1 gets the discussion item on deck, Meeting 2, they discuss, meeting 3 they act --or not..maybe they need more info or forgot about the whole thing-it happens!

A. Update on City Attorney’s Draft of Revised Proposed Transfer Permit Ordinance
-Update report regarding Board’s modified approval to make Transfer Permit Ordinance apply to all animals.

Sheesh! That's Assistant City Attorney Dov Lesel, to you mister! This a new set of subsections in the L.A. Muni Code aimed at breeders and back alley animal peddlers. Pet stores and "other commercial" entities are exempt of course. Seems that the last time this was on in Nov. 07 (yes , 2 months ago), the board wanted to change it to cover "all animals, " not just dogs and cats. I sense Kathy Riordan in there. She's on top of it.

So, I guess this means that all non-commercial transporters of animals (who does that leave?) will be required
to purchase a permit and show where the animal came from and where its going. That little iguana has to be micro chipped, too. Yes, micro chip that snake and that little songbird in Santee alley.

• First offense-a warning.
• No permit 5 days after the warning-$500 fine.
• Still no permit in 45 days-A misdemeanor which the City Attorney will not prosecute and no one will go to jail or pay a fine.
• How will they catch these folks smuggling animals or selling pit bull puppies out of a pick-up truck? Why, it will be "complaint driven", of course, and those ACO's[Animal Control Officer] will rush right out there and ...give a warning.
• Then they'll follow up in 5 days and write a $500 citation.
• Then they'll follow up in 45 days and arrest someone. Right!
This is busy work for the Board to keep them distracted and another headline-seeking lame idea from Ed Boks that would accomplish nothing. He's good at that.

5. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD - (Comments from the public on items of public interest within the Board’s subject matter jurisdiction and on items not on the Agenda.)

This is you. Speaking your mind for the animals. You get 1 minute on each item and 3 minutes at the end to vent.
You got the cancellation notice, didn't you? Sorry, maybe Ross will pick up that $20 parking tab.

6. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS
Requests from Commissioners for future Agenda Items.

Did they make any? No idea. No minutes of this meeting, if it ever took place.

7. ADJOURNMENT:
Next Commission Meeting is scheduled January 28, 2008, at Los Angeles City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, California 90012.

[END OF AGENDA] (11:30 already?)
_______
Issues resolved: NONE (we don't count approving the minutes of past meetings).
Preview of 1/28/08: NONE of the above items are revisited.
BoardWatch Meeting Rating: F

We know, it's painful-- but stay with us. We don't get paid for this either.

*Care about Elephants?
Assembly Bill 777 which would have toughened the elephant cruelty lawin California died January 31, 2008- right around this meeting time. Ed Boks is a headline-seeker which is why, knowing that Sacramento would not pass this bill, he sought to be the elephant hero for L.A. Not a bad thing, but his motives are suspect. Remember the painted elephant for which Boks signed the permit ?



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