Members of the Palmerton Cat Project have an ally.

Donna Crum, a volunteer Humane Society police officer for the Carbon County Friends of Animals, to the Palmerton Borough Council at their reorganizational meeting.Crum came to the meeting to help explain the reasoning behind the trap, neuter, release program, as well as the purpose of maintaining the cat colonies through feeding and sheltering them."Feral cats are a huge problem," Crum said. "When you kill cats, it only brings more in."Crum said cat colonies will chase away any cat that wanders into the group. When all of the cats in the colony have been immunized, neutered or spayed, then the colony population will not grow. In time, the number of cats in the colony will decline naturally."They're not spreading disease, not reproducing and not bothering anyone," Crum said.The Palmerton Cat Project is a small group of volunteers who have been trapping feral cats, taking them to get spayed or neutered, and then releasing them back into the "wild" of the borough, but still providing food and shelter. The problem is that the borough has an ordinance that considers an animal that has been provided medical care, food and shelter to now be the caretaker's pet.Council member Terry Costenbader questioned Crum about who has jurisdiction of domesticated animals on a person's property."I don't have a problem with taking care of an animal," he said. "I don't understand why they are feeding them."Costenbader thinks the cats will leave if they are not fed. Otherwise, they will stay."There isn't any way we can put money to this," he said."You have to look at this objectively as to what is best for the community and what is best for the cats who are in this situation they didn't ask for."Council member Richard Nothstein asked Crum what the organization wants the council to do.Crum responded, "We're not really sure. We want to educate the municipalities so you can educate your communities."Both the animal organization and the council agreed that educating people about proper care of pets is important.Council member Holly Sell said, "Don't become a pet owner if you can't be a responsible pet owner. I'm all for education. Dumping an animal for any reason is not acceptable.""What you are doing is far better than if you had done nothing," said council member Kris Hoffner. "Our population would be exploding if you had done nothing."Sell asked the organization what laws need to change, since currently it is against borough code to release the cats.Barbara Greenzweig, one of the members of the Palmerton cat Project, said she didn't know of specific wording, since policy is not her specialty. She does know that other municipalities have changed their ordinances to work with trap, neuter, release programs.Sell also asked that group if the organization has applied for nonprofit status yet, so that they can accept monetary donations to help pay for the medical care and upkeep.Greenzweig replied no, not yet, because they were hoping to get some direction from the council.Sell said there are laws of who the borough can and cannot donate to. They can't back an organization that doesn't have nonprofit status yet.