The Simpson Stump - March 2019

Hello again fellow Simpson residents!

A few larger efforts in the city of Phoenix that I want to cover in this newsletter that impact us here in our neighborhood: the development of the City of Phoenix Parks Code of Conduct and Trap-Neuter-Release programs for feral cats.

City of Phoenix Parks Code of Conduct

The City of Phoenix has been working for the last year or so on a new Code of Conduct for the city’s park system (both the urban parks in the city, as well as the mountain preserves). There have been a set of laws that apply to the parks, but they haven’t kept up with the usage or issues that are constantly facing the parks system (and didn’t differentiate between the very different types of parks the city maintains).

A draft of this document was released by the city this past week, and is looking for feedback from residents. If you frequent any of the city’s parks or mountain preserves, I encourage you to review the new rules that they are looking to apply. I attended some of the initial meetings where comments and concerns were heard, and have been discussing the proposed changes with our surrounding neighborhood associations. We feel the proposed document does a lot to address the concerns we’ve heard in our nearby parks (which we are sadly lacking in Simpson directly), so long as the city can enforce them.

The draft can be found at this site, as well as several methods you can use to provide feedback to the city: https://www.phoenix.gov/parks/parks/rules/code-of-conduct And of course, the best way to improve our parks and transition them into the spaces we want to visit, is to use them. As such, I invite everyone to attend our next Movie in the Park at Solano coming up on March 16th! Activities start at 5 pm, the movie starts as soon as it is dark enough to see the screen.

Stray Cat TNR (Trap - Neuter - Return) Programs

We’re well into kitten season at this point, and new young cats can be seen on many blocks throughout Simpson. Our area (classified by zip code) has been listed as one where the overall population is enough of a concern that there are funds available to assist in TNR programs. If you have cats that call your yard / alley home, I hope you’ll look into the groups listed below. An out of control stray cat population isn’t good for our neighborhood, our neighbors, or the cats themselves.

If you’re interested in participating, please let us know at azstills@gmail.com and we’ll work on getting you in touch with a group that can help free of charge. If you’re interested in learning more on your own, contact one of the following organizations:

Animal Defense League of Arizona – (602) 265-7729 or somanycats@adlaz.org

Altered Tails AzCATs – (602) 216-1160 or info@alteredtails.org

Foundation for Homeless Cats – thefoundationforhomelesscats.org