Santa Ana’s Cat Fanciers Bare Claws : 3-Animal Limit Proposal Triggers Petitions, Ouster Threats

The telephones began ringing Wednesday and continued on Thursday at Santa Ana City Hall, where officials had answered more than 100 calls by early afternoon. Most of the callers were irate; some said they would work to oust City Council members from office. Others said they would put an initiative on the November ballot.

Elsewhere in the city Thursday, volunteers plastered car windshields with flyers and went door-to-door with petitions.

What could make the people of this city so angry?

Cats.

On July 7, the City Council gave preliminary approval to an ordinance that would limit each household to three cats. Feline lovers were outraged.

And on Thursday, an advertisement appeared in the Orange County Register. “PLEASE HELP US SAVE OUR PETS,” it implored readers. “YOUR HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED!”

People for Pets, the group that paid for the half-page ad, urged cat owners to call City Hall in advance of Monday’s meeting, where the council is expected to take a final vote. The ad listed the names of the five council members who voted for the law on its first reading and the City Hall phone number where they could be reached. (Council members Patricia A. McGuigan and Robert M. Luxembourger voted against it).

“I’m very upset about it,” said Patti Chavez, who keeps six cats in her home on Diamond Street. “People shouldn’t tell us how many pets we can have. And there’s no way I could decide which ones to let go. To me, they’re like my children.”

Councilman Wilson B. Hart, who voted for the measure, stressed that the law isn’t really aimed at people who have five or six cats, although he conceded that animal control officers would have to investigate such pet owners if they got a complaint. It is aimed, he says, at residents with dozens of felines.

Specifically, the law was drafted following neighbors’ complaints about the “Cat Man of Santa Ana,” who reportedly keeps 35 to 50 cats at his north Santa Ana home.

Victoria Reinking, a spokeswoman for Animal Pro-Life, a Tustin-based group that works to place stray and abandoned animals in new homes, said she began to organize the People for Pets effort after the council vote two weeks ago. Her group sent out a “Pet Owner’s Alert” to supporters and members and then took to the streets with petitions.

By Thursday, they had collected about 300 signatures. For good measure, they translated their message into Spanish and canvassed homes in primarily Spanish-speaking areas of the city Thursday afternoon.

Despite Hart’s assurance that most cat owners wouldn’t be affected, some people who called City Hall weren’t convinced. “I don’t think they would have limited it to three if they didn’t plan on fining or prosecuting people,” said Patrick Blowers, who declined to reveal the number of cats he owns.

Reinking said she realizes that several other cities have similar limits, but she contended that Santa Ana’s is basically unfair and, in fact, could be catastrophic. “Some of the other cities in Orange County have such an ordinance and have for many years,” she said. “What we object to is that there’s no grandfather clause in this ordinance. Those of us that have four or more would have to dispose of some of our cats.”

Included in Reinking’s petitions is the name of outgoing City Manager Robert C. Bobb, who signed on his way into a supermarket the other day. Bobb said he believes that present owners with more than three cats should be allowed to “grandfather” their pets under the new law.

“I’m not pro-cats or anti-cats,” Bobb stressed. “And I do not believe that people should have 10 or 20 or 30 cats in their homes. Five would be OK.”

Meanwhile, neighbors of the “Cat Man,” Michael Fedoruk, said they would attend the Monday council meeting to see the law through.

“You smell it for houses and houses away,” said Fedoruk’s neighbor, John Kish, who spearheaded the drive for the ordinance. “And it’s not just one day. You smell it year after year after year.”

Fedoruk, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, said earlier that he started his collection of cats in 1972 out of sympathy for abandoned felines.

There are “definitely too many cats” in Fedoruk’s household, Reinking said. However, her organization has been attempting to place his excess cats since the controversy arose, she said, although she couldn’t say how many still occupy his home.