Palmerton cat advocates heading to council meeting Thursday

Feeding stray or feral cats in Palmerton may take center stage during Thursday’s borough council meeting.

Donna Crum of Palmerton, humane officer for Carbon County and Palmerton resident, said that animal rights activists and residents will attend the council meeting on Thursday to address Palmerton’s contentious Ordinance 728.

The ordinance bans outdoor feeding stations for unlicensed stray or feral cats.

Last week, FayeAnn Reiner of Palmerton was before Judge William Kissner concerning three citations for placing cat feeding stations outside of her home, which is in violation of the ordinance.

According to the Palmerton Cat Project Facebook page other people have also been cited.

Crum, who has taken issue with the ordinance since it was enacted, said the issue goes beyond the law and fulfilling her role as the animal enforcement officer.

“There’s more at stake than just the law,” Crum said. “The ethical treatment of animals is important.”

The goal of their attendance, Crum said, will be finding a middle ground between having and enforcing rules pertaining to the feral cat population and ensuring the welfare of the felines.

“I don’t want to clean up the mess that can be created from this ordinance. It does not make sense, and we would like to make sense together,” Crum said. “Palmerton’s a great community, it really is. And it could be greater if we could come to a happy medium and make it work for everybody.”

Barbara Greenzweig, president of the Palmerton Cat Project, plans to speak at Thursday’s meeting.

In her address, Greenzweig writes that she and her husband began dealing with the colony of feral, unneutered cats in 2014.

Using Trap-Neuter-Return, a program through which feral cats are trapped, neutered and released back into outdoors, the Greenzweigs dealt with multiple cat colonies in and around Palmerton, and administered shots to the felines caught.

Avenues to dealing with the feral cat population like this are a change residents will be advocating for at Thursday’s meeting. Greenzweig’s address describes this move as “compassionate, common sense engagement,

“We at the Palmerton Cat Project and its supporters have had our sleeves rolled up, doing the hard work,” Greenzweig wrote in the speech she plans to deliver. “Are you, elected officials of the Palmerton Borough Council, ready to join us?”

In the past, the borough council has defended the ordinance, saying that their concern lies with the public safety of Palmerton residents.

“When you’re dealing with the health, safety and welfare of the community, that’s the priority,” Borough Council President Terry Costenbader said in October. The Palmerton Borough Council meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the borough hall on Delaware Avenue.