A Batavia City Council committee is considering whether the city should amend its animal-control ordinance to require leashes on cats.
“There is a risk to this, and I’m not making fun when I tell you that the stray cats will have their own attorney,” Mayor Jeffrey Schielke said during a council meeting this week.
“People have very strong opinions. I have letters from residents hiring lawyers to represent the stray cats, and I also have had voice mail that I think of as vigilante messages saying if residents are concerned about their missing cats, not to worry because they’re not coming back,” Schielke said.
The City Council rejected a similar proposal in 1992, Judicial Services Committee Chairman Edward LaMorte said, “because it wasn’t worth the trouble that it would have cost the city.”