NJ cat shelter being forced to close by township!!!

[sillycat]

I am crossposting an e-mail I received regarding a free roam cat shelter in southern NJ, in a dire situation. I know there are allot of people from Jersey on this board, please help if you can.
This is regarding the CAT CAMP FOUNDATION IN TABERNACLE NJ. PLEASE CROSSPOST WIDELY, WE ARE WILLING TO DRIVE THE
> CATS WHERE THEY NEED TO
> GO. THIS IS A DESPERATE SITUATION THAT COULD RESULT
> IN MANY UNNECESSARY
> DEATHS.
>
> Hello,
>
>
> Please for a moment, put yourself or someone close
> to you in this situation
> and imagine how upset you would be. As you can see,
> I am desperate, and
> desperately seeking help from everyone, everywhere
> for a fellow rescuer/friend of
> mine. She is the founder/president of The Cat Camp
> Foundation, Inc. located
> in Tabernacle, NJ. Her neighbor has been causing
> many problems for her and
> contacting the township. The township now is
> forcing her to close down her
> shelter ASAP. They didn't give her a month or even
> a week to find placement
> for her resident cats which consists of 4 leukemia,
> 6 FIV, 20 ferals and
> about 50 adoptable cats. My plea is if every group
> could take in at least one
> cat, it would make a world of a difference.
> Otherwise, all these poor cats by
> no fault of their own will be euthanized, unless
> they can be placed ASAP into
> local rescue groups/shelters/individual homes. Can
> you please, I'm
> begging, help assist in taking in at least one or if
> possible more? I am contacting
> every rescue/shelter/individual that I can in hopes
> of saving these kitties.
> I am searching for barn homes for the ferals, even
> though they have been
> used to be kept warm in the winter and cool in the
> summer at the camp as well
> as homes/fosters for the adoptables & leukemia/aids
> cats. This is just
> breaking my heart. All these cats have been
> spayed/neutered, vaccinated and
> tested. There are so many sweet kitties to chose
> from. If you don't have it in
> your heart to squeeze just one in. Could you kindly
> crosspost this plea to
> other people/rescues/shelters in your contact list
> that you think could help the
> cats at the Cat Camp? I appreciate any help you
> can offer for this urgent
> plea. These cats can be driven where they need to
> go. Driving Distance is not
> an issue.
>
> Thanks,
> Pam Ott
> Saved Whiskers Rescue
> [email protected]_
> (mailto:[email protected])
>
>
>

 

[jen]

What was the actual reason that she was forced to shut down? What was the complaint of the neighbor? Was she doing something wrong?

 

[sillycat]

No she wasn't doing anything wrong. She rehabbed an old barn on her property into a free roam shelter years ago. Apparently she should have gotten a variance to do this, but she probably didn't know that at the time. Her neighbors don't like having a cat shelter next door and complained to the town that she had a dumpster on her property and that is smelled. She is on a couple of acres and although you can see the dumpster from the street it does not smell. She is very careful about cleaning it. I have stood next to it on a hot august day and smelled nothing. The nieghbors just didn't like the looks of everything and wanted to complain. When they complained and the town came out (this was last July) they found out Cat Camp, the structure, had old code violations. In order to get a variance for that sort of thing you need to have your nieghbors sign off on it. Of course the nieghbors won't do that.

Please, if anyone is from that area or close enough for a transport, she really needs to find homes for these cats ASAP!