2012/07/25 Council Agenda Packet

Unfortunately, when public policy is passed in a panicked and rushed manner, it is unlikely that data and information on the costs, benefits, consequences or even the effectiveness of the proposed policy will make it into the debate. This is especially true when no government agency is tasked with maintaining comprehensive data on the issue. Consider a city council trying to decide if parking meters should be removed from a street. Even if residents and businesses were emotional about the issue, the council members would receive detailed information on the number of cars that park at each meter, how much money this raised, and how much sales tax revenue each firm on the block generated. There would be a team of civil servants writing reports with detailed data, analysis and recommendations. That same city council considering a breed ban — or frankly anything involving pets— would be faced with emotional mothers, animal welfare advocates, maybe a veterinarian, but absolutely no data on which to base their decision. The reason behind these differences is simple. Governments measure things that matter most to them. Since dogs neither vote nor pay taxes, there is a dearth of data on them. Few if any governmental bodies know even the number of dogs in their community, much less anything on the breeds of those dogs, nor their ownership patterns. Since animal control is generally a small part of government's budgets they may not even have good data on sheltering or enforcement costs. This lack of viable, actionable information provides an open playing field for emotion driven, panic policymaking. In order to address this disadvantage, it is essential that representatives of animal-welfare organizations be as prepared as possible with sound economic and fiscal argumentation. This argumentation should be geared toward the jurisdiction in question. In other words, bringing data from Los Angeles to a meeting in Memphis is not useful. State level data is rarely useful in a local hearing. Best Friends Animal Society took a major step forward in commissioning a study entitled "The Fiscal Impact of Breed Discriminatory Legislation in the United States."25 25 John Dunham&Assoc.,Inc.,The Fiscal Impact of Breed Discriminatory Laws in the United States,May 13,2009, http://www.guerrillaeconomics.biz/bestfriends/.