Vegan & Meowies

The caregiver can file a complaint of unfairness in the survey such as what about the right of the ONE who is not in favour of removing the cats and how many others such as this caregiver who has not received the survery forms. Who are the TWO who responded in favour? Are they bona fide responders or one person who answered twice? Can these two be spoken to and perhaps told of TnRM so that they can make INFORMED decision.
Carry out an independent door-to-door survey and submit a more realistic results to counter RC's most undemocratic method of getting consensus.

Thanks Vegan and Carol, I will try my very best to prevent this injustice from taking place.

what kind of stupid RC is that ? a survey with 3 respondents and that represents the whole community ? we are behind u on this one, meowies...

If only we can set up a website and shame such irresponsible property managers who still flourish in huge numbers in many TC's.

I'm sorry to hear of the results of this "survey". The fact that the caregiver never received a survey form raises questions about its conduct. The fact that there were only 3 responses--we don't know how many forms were distributed--suggests that it's not representative and perhaps even that there was no real survey.

Caregivers are investing their personal resources to resolve the problem of strays in their estates and killing the cats they are managing wastes those resources. I suggest asking CWS and the SPCA to enquire into the conduct of the survey.

My experience of surveys conducted by estate managers is that they are used to justify doing whatever the management is predisposed to do, and that spotlighting by CWS and or SPCA may make them reconsider their action. When managements want to use surveys to follow their own wishes rather than find out what community feeling is, there are several tactics available. One is to avoid distributing survey documents to the addresses of caregivers or pet owners. Another is to ignore majority response in favor of humane management and say that the minority objections prove there is sufficient dissatisfaction among residents to justify culling. Still another is to cite a relatively low response rate, but one which is favorable to humane management, and to say that the low response means the response isn't representative of community feeling.

One possible caregiver or community response is to have a lawyer write a letter on behalf of the caregivers to the RC concerning their failure to poll caregivers. Since it results in waste of caregivers' resources (killing the cats) on the basis of of a very small response, they can argue that the RC's action is arbitrary and capricious. The letter could ask for a public accounting of the methods and results and urge that culling not take place until the results are shown to be statistically reliable and valid. If the RC didn't poll all residents, it was using sampling, and quite possibly not doing so professionally.

RC should show clearly that its methods were sound and honest even if the law doesn't require them to. If it did poll all residents, how come the caregiver wasn't included? If public accounting is refused and culling proceeds, suing the RC for civil damages--what caregivers have expended on care and vet treatment for the cats--might not succeed, but it would not make the RC happy. If they believe they'll be sued, even in small claims court, they may be far more willing to negotiate problem resolution that lets them avoid legal action.

Caregivers aren't rich and would need support from sympathizers for fees. They are also often timid, and may want to avoid conflict lest their cats be targeted for reprisal. But if their cats are being killed anyway, what do they have to lose? But first, see what CWS can do to make the RC and Town Council see reason.

Judith (Fatcat)

The way this survey was done is very unfair. Thanks for all your suggestions...still hoping that reason will prevail. Yes, fatcat, we have nothing to lose if the lives of the sterilised cats depend on this kind of survey...