The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Philadelphia is pretty much broke at this point. Over at PA Water Cooler we find out some lesser known parts of Nutter’s nutty plan to keep the city from going bankrupt, like laying off 1000 police officers, laying off 200 firefighters and closing 10 companies. Switching traffic signals to blink and shutting off all street lighting. What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe this is why they call him Nutter.
It would appear that the owner of the bassets recently seized in Philadelphia is speaking out. And the PSPCA isn’t very happy about it.
Good news is we got a very sympathetic article in one of the two major papers today. A reporter has also called from the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as the AKC and the Chronicle of the Horse (Molly Sorgi? [Molly Sorge] 804-994-2349). My problem is that if I respond personally, the SPCA has made it clear that I must “cooperate or multiple citations will be issued and there would be no PA Kennel Licenseâ€.So here is my response to the PSPCA website (www.pspca.org/news), first article about the Murder Hollow Bassets. I cannot respond to anyone in the media or even the PSPCA, but I can let you know. Whatever you chose to do with my information, oh well.
Wow. Thank goodness for new media. If the PSPCA is trying to intimidate this woman against responding to their public accusations, the state needs to come down on them. If a police officer were to try this, they would likely be suspended or fired. They would certainly be open to a lawsuit. Unfortunately, PSPCA seems to believe they are above such standards. (Note to Ms. Willard: They are not. You can sue them.)
Interestingly, PSPCA argued that they tried to reach out to Ms. Willard before the raid to work things out. Well, that’s not quite what the owner had to say.
The websites indicated that the SPCA left requests to be contacted. The ‘Humane Law Officer’ (her term, not mine) left a card in my door with no information, no requests for a call, no warnings or no citations a few days before the raid. Absolutely none. She could have left a note to call, because I get lots of cards from grass cutters to painters. No mention of any 12 dog limit in the city.
I don’t consider that to be reaching out. If I owned a small kennel, I would presume it was someone looking to buy a dog. If I’m not selling, I wouldn’t call back.
I won’t pull out every single response, but it does get interesting. She confesses she did refuse entry at first – because they had no warrant. When they returned with a search warrant, she cooperated and granted access. (Sebastian argues, and I would agree, that the second she refused access, she should have lawyered up. Oh, and keep reading to find out more about this warrant and why it may not have been legal.) The owner also confirms that some of the seized dogs were owned by someone else and that she informed PSPCA of this fact, including by providing the contact information. You’d think that as an organization with no more room in their shelters that they would be happy to call the owner and get the dogs returned home. Nope, they merely said she may have a right to adopt them back from PSPCA. Yes, you must adopt your own pets back from an organization that seizes them.
Interestingly, the City seems to have previously approved her ownership of the dogs. She reports that she kept up to date with licenses for all of the animals, and the City repeatedly approved them. Also of note is the refusal of the DA to answer questions about the definition of terms that would determine whether the ordinance PSPCA claimed power under really applies to Ms. Willard (relating to different structures on a property). So at this point, there is a legitimate legal question that may need to be answered. Yet, some reports by other basset owners offering to care for the dogs report the seized dogs may have already been spayed/neutered, and PSPCA willingly admitted to me the have approved the adoption of these dogs via a third party. So we don’t know that Willard ever broke a law, but her property has been taken and possibly damaged beyond repair and sold to others. (PSPCA is reportedly charging folks $200/dog.)
What makes this case even more interesting is that Ms. Willard claims she has never received a complaint before. This is relevant not because it implies PSPCA may have decided to pick on her, but because it raises legal questions about the warrant issued. (These would have to be verified by Willard’s lawyer, but this is what Sebastian found when reading through Philadelphia’s ordinances.)
“The penalty for the first violation of any provision of this Section shall be a minimum fine of $100; the penalty for a second violation of any provision of this Section shall be a minimum fine of $200; the penalty for a third violation of any provision of this Section shall be a minimum fine of $300. The third violation of any provision of this Section will result in the commencement of proceedings as provided by law for the removal of said animal and delivery of same to an appropriate area of confinement approved by the Department of Health.”
That means the ordinance PSPCA was using to justify seizing the dogs does not allow for the dogs to be seized until the third complaint. Willard, if found guilty, should have been fined twice and informed about the law. That would make the entire warrant improper. Unfortunately, judges have complete immunity, but PSPCA does not. If it turns out that they did not follow the law, she could sue them as either an organization or every single individual involved in the process.
Like I said before, I called PSPCA to get their side of the story. They made one claim that blogs were simply getting it wrong, but they did not challenge anything I asked. In fact, they verified more than they argued. Now that there are legitimate questions as to whether they overstepped their legal authority and stole private property, I find their broad claim that blogs were getting it wrong to be highly questionable. While there are certainly some very impassioned bloggers who may be getting swept up and making a few assumptions, PSPCA is encouraging that by refusing to talk to folks. They won’t account for the health and whereabouts of the dogs to either of the owners, vets in the area, and other basset enthusaists. Yet, they confirm the worst parts of the story to the media. At worst, PSPCA is breaking the law and punishing pet owners outside of their authority. At the best, if they are proven right, they have an incompetent media strategy.
Almost as if they took my advice from this weekend, an armored car driver gets into a shootout with an armed robber in South Philadelphia. I guess armored cars aren’t quite the soft targets I thought. I figured there’d be no way those drivers would get into a gun fight if they could possibly avoid it, because they don’t get paid much, and the money is insured. Since criminals seem to be following my advice, and getting shot at, my next suggestion is to try to hold up a police station. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
This is a very troubling account of a Philadelphia animal rights group swiping pets and refusing to work with breed experts who want to adopt them. In a very quick search, I didn’t find any media accounts to back it up, but I’m sure that’s because on its face, a story about a woman with a few too many dogs doesn’t sound that interesting. So instead I received verification from Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Then it gets interesting…
The local SPCA raided Wendy’s Willard’s kennel where she keeps her Murder Hollow Bassets on Monday night. They arrived with seven trucks and two police cars & informed her that one of her neighbours had complained about noise.Neither the neighbour nor the SPCA had previously complained to her, yet she has been there for 22 years.
As it turns out, Philadelphia County had recently passed an ordinance where no more than 12 animals may be kept on any property. The Murder Hollow kennels contained 23 bassets, less than the requirement to obtain a (US) Department of Agriculture kennel licence, but the kennel is just inside the city limits.
Under this law, the local SPCA have managed to acquire the power to seize people’s dogs without warning, by force and by night, and then to take them away to an unknown destination without any accountability.
The police took 12 hounds and delivered them to an SPCA animal rescue “shelter†in Philadelphia. From there the hounds were dispersed amongst other “sheltersâ€.
When I contacted the SPCA, they claimed that other blog coverage (and this is the only other blog coverage I’ve found) is inaccurate. I didn’t dive into exact raid details with their spokeswoman, but I’m curious about what exactly is inaccurate. She did not challenge or attempt to correct my understanding that the dogs were seized in response to a relatively new Philadelphia ordinance without warning or an effort to cooperate with the owner. (A quick search for information on this seems to verify that there was little or no media coverage of this change, prompting reasonable concerns that a full on raid may not have been the best way to address a concern of too many dogs.)
According to the blog post, basset owners from around the area have stepped up to care for the dogs, but have so far been refused. Why would a shelter that has an “urgent appeal” out for adoption homes ignore offers of assistance from breed specialists? So, I inquired about this rather odd development. Again, it was confirmed that these other owners have been contacting the PSPCA, but to no avail. The PSPCA claims that they have already sent the dogs out to a rescue shelter, and the operators of the rescue shelter maintain full discretion over who may see or adopt the dogs.
At this point, I’m more than a curious writer, but a concerned citizen. Why can a private organization come on to your property to enforce an ordinance, take your property, and then not be held accountable for the property? How can a rescue organization hold full determination over adoption rights for pets when even PSPCA admits they have not fully investigated the situation and alleged violations? Continue reading “Animal Rights Crusaders Taking Philadelphia Pets?”
The City of Philadelphia is talking about digging up I95 from the Ben Franklin Bridge down to the airport… and replacing it with? Nothing:
“The question we should be asking right now is: Do we rebuild I-95 as is, or do we rethink the whole thing?” said Harris Steinberg, who runs the nonprofit consulting firm PennPraxis, which developed a waterfront policy for the city in 2007. The Obama administration’s interest in urban areas, he said, “has given the city a license to do something bold.”
Actually, what Hack and Steinberg envision is less a Big Dig than a No Dig.
Instead of burying the highway in an expensive tunnel, they would entirely rip out a stretch of I-95 that runs south of the Ben Franklin Bridge and I-676. Traffic volume drops off there, proponents argue, because the bulk of the highway’s users are commuting into Center City from the north. Airport travelers, they point out, can take I-676 to I-76.
I think we probably ought to take all these “Urban Planners” and launch them into the sun. And once you have this delightful waterfront, what then?  The Rainbow Farting Unicorns are going prance along and suddenly Philadelphia will renew itself?  No. It won’t. It’s a crappy place to live, and a crappy place to do business or spend money. Fixing that is easier, and will do a lot more to revitalize the city than any crazy notion that if we just jackhammer enough highway, and inconvenience enough people, prosperity will return.  If I were paying taxes to that city, I’d be furious they are wasting time and money on this nonsense. The Underpants Gnomes would be proud.
UPDATE: Here’s the section of highway they are talking about digging up. I wonder how UPS, the City’s 12th largest employer, who’s east coast hub is Philadelphia International Airport, will think about this. Oh, but who cares about working class stiffs with jobs when yuppees want a better view of the waterfront.
Lately, Philadelphia has spent untold amounts of money on their own television stations running a PR campaign begging people to visit. They even include a pitch to people in the suburbs, asking them to stop mowing their lawns to come to the city.
Except it’s hardly convincing. In fact, mowing the lawn may well be better than going to Philadelphia. Consider the following: Continue reading “Philadelphia’s Failed PR Campaign”
Wyatt encounters a person who wants to drop charges because they feel sorry for the criminal. These are the same people to vote for judges who turn criminals back out on the streets to pillage. These are also the same people are are OK with cutting cops on the street first, rather than last. I expect Philadelphia will follow Toledo in this regard.
It appears a judge aquitted the Colosimo Five of all tresspassing charges. To the credit of the District Attorney:
In his closing statement, Assistant District Attorney Guy D’Andrea said the case was “about individuals going to a private person’s business to disrupt that business.”
This is why Philadelphia is a lawless city. But I suppose it’s fitting. In a city who refuses to prosecute and lock up people who do all manner of serious crimes, it would have been kind of odd to prosecute someone for trespassing, would it?
I would invite Mr. Colosimo to come out to the suburbs, where we still believe that disrupting someone’s business and tresspassing on their property unlawfully is a crime, but then the other side would win, wouldn’t they? In that instance, I’m sorry Mr. Colosimo can’t find justice, but that’s Philadelphia for you.
The city is upset that it, once again, has to fight with Harrisburg to get more money:
Some chalk up the expected fight over the city budget to the normal politics of cutting deals in Harrisburg. But others believe the battle will be complicated and fueled by an entrenched anti-Philadelphia bias among lawmakers from other parts of the state who believe the city is rife with corruption and mismanagement.
It’s all true, and unfortunately for the City of Philadelphia, the perception people have in the rest of the state is entirely correct. I can’t blame people in Altoona for not wanting to pay for Philadelphia’s inability to govern itself. How many operations has the state had to take over from the City over the years because the City proved incapable of managing it? The Philadelphia School District and the Parking Authority come to mind.