Tami Rodgers addresses the Brownwood City Council Tuesday morning. [Photo by Derrick Stuckly]
The topic of feral cats was again brought before the Brownwood City Council during Tuesday’s meeting as Tami Rodgers with TNR Brownwood presented a petition regarding the cat colony in Riverside Park.
A more than two-hour discussion that drifted back and forth from the Riverside Park situation to the entire city itself occurred and featured multiple contentious moments.
Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes began the discussion by stating, “It came to our attention several months ago that we had people building structures inside our city parks for the cats, along with feeding the cats on a regular basis. We’re getting tons of complaints about the number of cats in our parks about feces in the playground equipment and other issues. We asked Tami to please help us remove the cats from the public parks and we believe that means remove housing and stop feeding the cats. No one has said or ma
Much of the Brownwood City Council meeting on Tuesday morning was devoted to a discussion about Brownwood’s feral cat population. For 90 minutes, representatives of the Corrine T. Smith Animal Shelter and Council members discussed an increasing number of feral cats.
Speaking on behalf of the CTSAS was Leona Cleveland, director. She was joined by Tami Rodgers with Feral Friday and Monica Frenden of American Pets Alive in Austin.
“I don’t think a person who lives in the city limits who has unwanted cats is being unreasonable in asking us to remove them,” said Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes. “When we remove that animal and then it comes back to the same location in a few days, I don’t think we’re addressing that problem.”