bounty update

The Mayor of Randolph is still being a mean bean. He "didn't realize the cats would be returned?"
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080315/NEWS/803150333

Randolph repeals cat bounty, but trouble remains
By MIKE KILEN • REGISTER STAFF WRITER • March 15, 2008

The suddenly famous Randolph cats were given another life Thursday night.After animal advocates nationwide pummeled the town with e-mails and letter-writing campaigns, the City Council in the tiny southwest Iowa town repealed its $5 bounty on roaming cats.But the mayor said an alternative solution would keep the cats in town, something he said the city does not want.The controversy started when 50 to 60 feral and stray cats had become a problem, Mayor Vance Trively said.

He offered a solution that went into effect March 1: Pay $5 to people who catch them, and then he would either return the cats to their owners or have them euthanized.The nonprofit organization Alley Cat Allies of Washington, D.C., led a campaign to stop it, sending delegates to the council meeting Thursday and offering to help trap and spay or neuter the cats.The repeal by city officials came after state veterinarian David Schmitt learned that Trively had housed at least one of the captured cats and called the mayor Thursday with bad news.
"In essence, (the mayor) is creating a shelter, and you can't do that. It's against Iowa code; you have to be licensed," said Dustin Vande Hoef of the Iowa Department of Agriculture.Another captured cat died after it was taken to Trively.Becky Robinson, founder of Alley Cat Allies, which promotes the idea of fixing feral cats and returning them to cat colonies, was elated over the end of the bounty."
We had dozens of people across the country offer time and money to help these cats," Robinson said. "A woman from Indiana offered to drive out there and help."
She said the group Feline Friendz of Omaha will pay to trap and fix the cats.Trively said the town of 200 residents couldn't afford to do it.He remained perplexed at the reactions on Friday.He said a county sheriff visited his home to confiscate the lone captured cat and take it to a shelter while calls and hostile posts to a town Web site flooded in."Kinda hateful there in backwater Iowa," wrote one respondent."It's laughable," Trively said. "Go over to the elevator and it's the biggest joke we've ever heard of. I was just trying to stop people from shooting or poisoning them."
He said the cat controversy isn't over.He didn't realize the cats would be returned once they are fixed.Part of the trap-neuter-return program, Robinson said, is to place the cats back in the same location; otherwise, other feral cats will fill the void."We made it plain we didn't want these cats back in town," Trively said.