Both Fairborn officials and TNR supporters lauded the effectiveness of the 10-year-old program, which officials said is getting $20,000 from this year’s city budget.
A recent petition states that the program has processed more than 8,000 cats after co-founder Charles McKenzie said his group and the city “formed a wonderful relationship” that resolved an ongoing problem. But Mayor Dan Kirkpatrick stopped short of guaranteeing annual funding.
“We have to look at funding for the future. We cannot promise that we’ll have the same amount of funding. We hope we do,” Kirkpatrick said.
“We hope ... we plan that TNR will be a part of that for the next years. But please don’t ask us to promise a certain amount every year,” he added.
Kirkpatrick’s comments came after nearly 20 TNR supporters addressed city council recently about the program and how it may be impacted by any contract the city signs with the county’s animal control.
TNR is a method endorsed by both the Greene County Humane Society and the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals (SICSA).
An online petition posted late last month supporting the Fairborn TNR group seeks to “stop the defunding” of the program. Among other issues, the program should “continue in their current building location under the current lease,” according to the petition, which had collected more than 1,100 signatures as of last last week.
The city then issued a statement March 30 after it “recently received numerous inquiries regarding the community’s feral/stray cat situation.”
The city’s goal was to “clarify the status of these matters and dispel any misconceptions and unfounded rumors circulating within the community,” according to the document.
The city has had talks with the county about resuming a comprehensive contract with animal control, Fairborn’s statement said.
After the posting of the petition and the city’s statement, McKenzie told city officials “we don’t ever want to be separate from you. We really don’t. We appreciate what we have going on.”
But “this is not about funding. This is about feral cats,” he told the council.
McKenzie said he has “some reservations” about contract talks between the city and the county.
The TNR, in any city contract with county animal control, “wants to have language, somehow, that is not ambiguous,” McKenzie said.
In the city’s statement “you mentioned it wasn’t synonymous between wildlife and feral cats. We disagree,” he added.
“Anytime you have ambiguous language in a contract it may negate certain parts of a contract,” McKenzie said. “It may enable animal control to actually take these cats and do something other than what their purpose was for.”
City Manager Mike Gebhart told Fairborn TNR supporters that “the most important thing is Fairborn has not decided on a contract” with the county animal control, and officials will include input from “several groups” before making a decision.
The city “will never ask them to do a roundup of feral cats or stray cats and euthanize them … Greene County never offered that service, nor do they have the staff to do that. So, I want to dispel that rumor,” Gebhart said, noting that he’s been in every meeting with the county about contract talks.
Kirkpatrick said that in a recent citizens forum, several Fairborn groups said they were interested in getting involved in the TNR program.
“To me, that just speaks to what this community is all about,” he said.
“We want to work with you,” Kirkpatrick said. “We want to have a meeting with you soon to discuss what we can do to make this work.”
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