Well, I guess that’s one way to address growing complaints about King County Animal Control and conditions at its Kent shelter… shut it down:
“This is a transition or evolution for regional animal care and control, not an ending,” said Executive Triplett. “We must phase out the county’s general fund support for animal control and sheltering because although protecting animals and protecting people from animals are both important, providing animal care and control as a contractor for 32 cities is neither a required nor a core business of King County, nor is it self-sufficient.”
Currently, providing animal care and control services requires $1.5 million of the county’s general fund dollars every year above the revenues collected from city contracts for those services.
“In an era where we are mothballing parks, eliminating human services programs and closing health clinics, we can no longer afford to subsidize animal care and control,” said Triplett.
Now if only King County would also get out of the business of providing roads, parks, libraries, courts, law enforcement, jails, elections, social services, buses, public safety, public health, emergency management and a few other things, we might eventually get county government down to the size where Susan Hutchison is actually qualified to run it.
Does this mean it’s legal to shoot unaltered Pit Bulls on sight in Kent now? Pretty please?
But seriously…we’re now getting closer to the Randian ideal that the government haters have been pushing for for decades. This has been their plan all along…destroy tax bases and the middle class economy until the government is forced to cease operating all services.
I say we start with the counties that hate the government the most. Taxes should be apportioned based on the most recent Eyman initiative vote, in reverse order of the percent of the electorate that voted for it. Then those counties that think government just needs to get more efficient can figure out exactly how to do that in THEIR counties.
Government funding problem solved. You’re welcome, Washington.
So I guess protecting people and rabbits from animal bites isn’t an activity worthy of our county tax dollars. Good, I’ll just shoot the fucking dogs myself, and expect to see a pro-rata reduction of my county taxes.
But hey, Mr. Triplett, don’t take the service away unless you’re also prepared to give me back the taxes that pay for the service. You don’t get to abolish the service and keep the money. That’s not how it works.
And don’t worry about my ability to defend myself from dogs. I’ve been expecting the righties to start a civil war for a long time now, so I’ve got a fat stockpile of ammo, enough the blow away a hell of a lot of off-leash dogs.
Buzzard food is the only thing dogs and righty traitors are good for, anyway.
@1 Hell, just stop subsidizing red counties with King County taxes, and there won’t be a fiscal problem. Let the rural Republicans pay for their own schools and roads. When I go to those places, I see they have better sidewalks than we do, and wonder why we’re still paying for it when we have so many unmet needs here at home.
I agree that our government services are suffering a death by a thousand cuts, and it’s not fair.
But I’m suspecting that they aren’t serious about closing down animal control. After all, who are the police going to call when they can’t get into a home to execute a search warrant when they are faced with a barking dog? This might be one of those instances when, rather than try to find one more way to cut services in the most inconspicuous way possible, they opt instead to do completely away with a very popular and necessary service. They can then rely upon the pet lovers around the county to rally to their support.
Um… How many lawsuits from dog bites and so on will it take before they’ve spent more on getting sued than they’ve saved by cutting the program?
I’ve taken to calling our current state budget “the budget that launched a thousand lawsuits”, but I suspect my number might be low.
King County should sit on their ass and do nothing but collect dividends from all their investments.
Maybe they should start their own Ponzi scheme just like Goldman-Sachs, and make a shit load of money by simply moving the money around so fast that nobody knows where it is at any given moment, and then just grab a big stinking wad of it for themselves.
What the world really needs is more people not producing one single thing of intrinsic value, just taking money as gouging middle men.
Think of all the headaches it will solve, not having to put up with the headache of managing anything.
In fact why don’t we all just commit suicide right now. Just think of all the money we will save. Just think of all the hassles we will avoid.
I don’t see how balkanizing animal control among 32 incorporated areas will save the taxpayers money. It may save the county money, but now you’ve got 32 times the administrative costs.
@7
Actually I think it is a gambit like the games with jail services to try to get the cities to fork money over to the county to run the service. Some of the larger cities like Bellevue might try to go it alone, but the small and medium cities really can’t replace regional services on their own.
The only thing Suzie can run is her mouth. A vote for Suzie means you want the BIAW to run King County.
Ron Sims mismanaged this department for years. And Dow Constantine and the Democrats did a piss-poor job of overseeing the management of Sims. Fuck you, Goldy, you fuckin’ dishonest bastard. You place a higher value on partisanship than the welfare of the cats and dogs and other animals.
@3..fine, then stay the fuck off our land and let us do what we want with it. Take your CAO and shove it up your ass, along with your pussy-ass mountain bike.
We wont tell you how to decorate your 800 sf condo in belltown, you dont tell us how to use our acreage in the sticks.
What Triplett said is the county is contracting with cities to do the animal control job for them, and losing more than $1 million a year on those contracts. I can’t see how its unreasonable for the County to not want to do that anymore. The City of Seattle runs an animal shelter. The City of Bellevue could do the same, and maybe the smaller cities could collaborate on shelters. This isn’t some duty that the County is required by law to do instead of each community policing its own area. It’s a little different from courts, etc. Be reasonable, people.
@10 Sorry, but the people acting through their government have the right to regulate what you do with land. The nation and state, not you, are sovereign. Private ownership of land wouldn’t even exist without the government. Ownership, after all, is merely whatever rights that government chooses to grant, recognize, and protect. The “sovereign citizen” argument doesn’t cut it. When you live in this state, you must live under its laws, whether you agree with them or not.
@11 I expect the county to do it because I pay taxes to the county to do it.
@12…so says uncle vladimir….
@12..try reading the bill of rights and the constitution some time, you might learn something.
Damnitall … next to go????
Why in all hell should King Co pay for the former Boeing HQ site, inside Seattle’s city limits!
Inspired by the guv of Texas and his life pardner friend Glenna Beck, must take up our arms.
I suggest we, The Seattle Beck Militia, invade the enclave, declare ti an independent municipally, and then sell ourselves to the City Of Seattle!
Beck! Beck!
1 Fantastic. Finally someone on here makes sense. Government cocksuckers, leave us the fuck alone. Lets keep the roads paved and keep those towel headed cocksuckers on the run. Otherwise, fuck you and your global warming BULLSHIT.
@17 Yehhh!!!!!
Lets close the effin health dept, fire the cops, close the jails (shoot the perps!), privatize the water and electricity, sell the parks to the local billionaires, burn all thge stupid books in the liberries,
GREATTTT!
We of the GBM are ready to offer our protective services to mark and other KinCO citizens for a reasonable fee. The fee may be ocombines with your garbage pickup in a wonderful package deal that includes, at no extra charge, free pizza at the Soprano’s Authentic Adult Pizza and Pole Dancing Joint … formerly known as the County Courthouse!*
Deluxe package … $1000/mo. *
* offer good only for new customers and limited to the first three months of service.
Hooverism sucks.
@11 Sarah
Good post.
Doesn’t this raise a further issue … how much of a country govt do we need?
As unincorp land decreases, the main job of the County will be regional .. transportation, the port, courts??? Other than to support the courts why couldn’t the state patrol replace the sheriff’s office in regional police work?
Seems to SJ a much smaller Co. govt, augmented by some sort of council of municipalities or regional authorities ..eg Metro, might save a lot of money.
wrong location.
The problem with having municipalities handle the animal control service for themselves is (a) Aside from Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland, the rest of municipalities would not be able to handle the added expense, (b) unincorporated areas won’t have ANY services, (c) unrestrained animals have a tendency to not honor jurisdictional lines.
I’ve got this mental image of police cars from each municipality doing animal control “transport” – picking up stray or problem-causing animals, driving to the nearest neighboring municipality, opening the back door, and then leaving their problems behind them for the next guy to handle – except at the same time, another police officer is doing the same thing on the other side of the border.
“…we might eventually get county government down to the size where Susan Hutchison is actually qualified to run it.”
Is she capable of running a bath tub?
We’re all grown up now (the urbanization of the county). Most places I’ve lived, the county plays a small role in providing services, and the cities take care of themselves.
I would like to see a much smaller County government with dedicated taxes for those services it does provide: transit, libraries, courts, and parks. Unincorporated areas should not expect the same level of services as a city.
“we might eventually get county government down to the size where Susan Hutchison is actually qualified to run it.”
By direct analogy- that would mean that we would have had to shrink the Federal Government down to about 25 cents worth in order to put Darcy Burner into Congress. Then she could have challenged Patty Murray as the Dumbest Member in Congress.
It’s so funny when the minority losers who can’t get their candidates elected in most of the country, let alone King County, who have decided that their own electoral dumbassedness REALLY means that representative government is a big meanie to them! WAAAAH!
Cry me a river. Or move to Oklahoma; honestly you’d love it there. Ignorant, hostile global-warming deniers as far as the eye can see.
@25 Why even have unincorporated areas? Why is Boeing Field still unincorp?