Feral, stray cat population said to be booming in village
A seemingly tame presentation about a proposed solution to the problem of feral and stray cats in Phillips erupted into a heated debate at the village board meeting last Tuesday night.
Shannon Goltz of Aurora, who is the current president of the Aurora Humane Society and has run that city’s Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) program for cats since 2023, was on the agenda to speak to the trustees and present an offer to oversee a similar program for Phillips.
“I have driven around your town and you have a serious problem,” Goltz told the board in reference to the number of stray and feral cats in the village. “I call them community cats.”
She differentiates between stray and feral felines by noting that strays are cats that are possibly former pets and are friendly to humans but that feral cats have basically been wild animals for generations.
Goltz offered to oversee a similar program in Phillips in an effort to stop the growth in the population of such cats because, she said, “your population is growing fast.” She explained how the cats are caught in live traps and then transported to Beatrice where a veterinarian will spay or neuter them, give them shots, notch their ears (to show they are part of the program) and insert a microchip in them for identification, all for a charge of $50 each. She said locally the cost to spay a female cat is $225 and to neuter a male is $175.
Goltz said funds would have to be raised in order to pay for the services and transportation would be needed for the cats to get to Beatrice and back. She said the cats would also need a place to recover for several days before being released back into the community.
It was at that point in Goltz’s presentation that Phillips Utilities Supt. Scott Hooley, who said he also serves as the village’s animal control officer, began to push back on the proposal. His main objection was with the cats being released back into the community. Hooley said it made no sense to him that the community would invest that much time and money in the cats only to turn them loose in the village again. He also objected to the use of taxpayer funds for the program, although Goltz had suggested that the funding would potentially come from other sources.
In response, Goltz said there were two good reasons for re-releasing the cats. For one, she said, the presence of cats who had already established their territory in the town, would deter other fertile cats from coming in and contributing to the population boom. Secondly she said the outdoor cats do provide a level of rodent control to the community.
After several minutes of heated debate, also involving board members and Phillips residents in the audience, Goltz stated she had said what she come to say and left the meeting, after which the board agreed to table the matter until next month’s meeting.
Meanwhile, the topic of blighted properties in the village continued to be a matter of discussion at this month’s meeting. Board chairman Jim Crawford referred to a spreadsheet he had provided the trustees showing photos of the 10 properties most in need of attention in the village. He said each property owner will be sent a letter outlining the code violations and giving them a timeframe for getting the properties cleaned up. Other board members pointed out that several of the properties on the list had already been sent letters. Crawford said where no action is taken by the property owners in question, the next step will be to involve the village attorney and take the owners to district court.
Near the end of the agenda, the board held a public hearing regarding an application from village resident Keith Schamle for a conditional use permit to build an accessory structure on his unoccupied property on the south side of town. County Planning and Zoning Director Hillary Betka was in attendance at the meeting and reported that the application had come before the county’s Joint Planning and Zoning Commission, where it had received a negative recommendation due to the fact that there is no primary structure (residence) on the lot and because it would potentially have a negative impact on nearby property values. She said the vote had been one in favor, eight against and three members were absent.
Fellow Phillips resident Brian Henn, who had attended the commission meeting to testify against the application, reiterated his reasons for opposing it.
New board member Dorothy Benton, a retired attorney, noted the fact that there was no house on the lot presented a problem as it opened the door to mixed use of such properties in the village.
“You have to treat everybody the same,” Benton said. “It’s almost like a commercial enterprise because there is no residence attached.”
She said making an exception in this case would set a bad precedent.
“If anybody else comes in here and wants to do the same thing, how are you going to turn them down,” Benton asked.
When the hearing was closed Benton made a motion to deny the application, which was seconded by Jordan Watson. The vote on the motion was 4-1 in favor of denying the application with Les Dana abstaining.
The village board also discussed fixing a section of 5th Street where the gravel has washed out repeatedly in this summer’s heavy downpours. Board members said that section of the street had been a problem for years and Hooley suggested getting started by permanently repairing one section of the street at a time. Benton suggested Hooley get bids for the concrete work and it was decided to put the matter on next month’s agenda.