Cat Lovers Are Ready to Spit Over...

Cat Lovers Are Ready to Spit Over La Mesa Licensing Plan

There is some disagreement about whether cats are smarter or more socially useful than dogs.

However, there is no disputing that cats have much greater political clout than dogs.

Any burg big enough to have a stoplight and a pay telephone has an ordinance requiring dogs to have licenses. But woe betide the municipality that tries to license cats.

The San Diego City Council last mulled it in 1975. Outraged cat lovers protested en masse. It was not a pretty sight.

In San Diego County, only Coronado dares to license cats.

Until now, that is. The La Mesa City Council on Feb. 27 will consider a proposal to require all cats to have licenses ($12 a year) and to impose a three-cat limit per household.

Cat lovers are scratching mad: Government should leave well enough alone. Cats are wild things and won’t wear tags around their necks. Cats are not dogs!

Maxine Lynch, a La Mesa animal control officer, says cat lovers should realize that the three-cat limit will cover only cats born after the ordinance is adopted.

“We’re not going to peek into people’s houses to see if they have more than three cats,” she said. “We work on a complaint basis. You could probably have eight or nine cats, and, if your cats never bothered anyone, we’d never hear about it.”

Councilman Ed Senechal stresses that tags worn on collars will help reunite lost cats with their owners. And he believes cats can be civilized.

“When I was young, we put bells on our cats’ necks so they couldn’t sneak up on the birds,” he said. “Cats have to learn to live with the rest of us.”

And Another Thing . . .

Signs of the times.

* The newest fad for the purveyors of graffiti at the Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas is to carve names, initials and short messages on the inch-thick leaves of large plants from the cactus family.

Some of it is puppy stuff: “Brad Loves Laura.” Some of it tells us where visitors are from--as far away as Guatemala, El Salvador and southern Mexico.

Gil Voss, the gardens’ curator, calls it “desecration,” but has been unable to catch the culprits.

* Politics is so ennobling.

Ray and Dan Hamel, proprietors of Hamel’s Action Sports Center in Mission Beach, haven’t forgiven Mike Gotch for what the city did to Belmont Park: building a shopping complex rather than a park.

The Hamels say Gotch, now running for Assembly, sold out to developers when he was on the City Council. A large anti-Gotch sign sits atop Action Sports.

Gotch calls the Hamels the “small businessmen of the year.” They’re both about 5-foot-8, but they’re undeterred by short jokes.

“Sure, we’re in business for ourselves,” responds Ray Hamel, “just like Mike Gotch is.”

* Southern California Edison sure has interesting ideas about educating the public.

Edison is trying to pressure the federal government not to study whether the SDG&E; merger will mean greater air pollution.

At the same time, Edison has hired a man to impersonate Thomas Alva Edison and discuss the wonders of electricity this week at elementary schools in San Diego, Solana Beach and Del Mar.

Maybe the kids will ask about dirty air.

Don’t Say That Word!

Want to scare a San Diego City Council member? Just sneak up behind one and whisper, “Redistricting.”

Nothing frightens council members like redrawing district boundaries. Heck, you could end up with an unfriendly neighborhood in your district if you’re not careful.

Council members prefer that redistricting--which is required by the City Charter--be accomplished “in-house,” with city staff and maximum political pressure.

By a 5-3 vote, the council last week cut the $75,000 earmarked to hire an outside consultant. Voting to cut were Bernhardt, Filner, Hartley, Pratt and Wolfsheimer.

The consultant was supposed to ensure that boundary lines reflect population shifts rather than political gerrymandering.