LISA ANN REYNOLDS PRESS COVERAGE OF HER WORK ON THE BUSTER BILL
The Citizen, Auburn, NY, Monday, April 20, 1998.
WOMAN FIGHTS ABUSE OF ANIMALS
She joins in push for stiffer penalties
by Charlie Itzin, Regional Editor
CATO-In Syracuse a 15-year old boy put a 5-month old kitten named Cindy
in a box drenched in gasoline and set it on fire. Within five days,
Cindy was dead and Central New York enraged. In Schenectady, a family
cat named Buster met a similar fate.
Now a Cato resident is working with Assemblyman James Tedisco,
R-Schenectady, to stiffen the penalties for such animal abuse. "The
case of the little kitten in Syracuse upset me a great deal," said
Lisa Reynolds.
Reynolds logged on to the internet to express her dismay and discovered
that Tedisco was sponsoring the "Buster Bill". The legislation
would increase the penalties for animal cruelty from a misdemeanor to a
felony and add fines, 50 percent of which would be deposited into an
animal abuse prevention fund.
Reynolds got in touch with Tedisco's office and since then has been busy
collecting signatures on petitions in favor of the law.
So far, Reynods has about 400 signatures and expects to have more than
1,000 by the April 30 deadline. "State wide nearly 30,000 people
have signed on in support of the bill sponosored in the Senate by Hugh
Farley," she said.
"What is especially attractive about the bill," she said,
"is a provision that calls for a psychiatric evaluation, treatment,
and follow-up for convicted animal abusers and community service at an
animal shelter."
"When chilren start doing this, we as a nation need to sit up and ask
why," she said. "If they do this to animals what's to stop them
from going on and doing it to a human? We always seem to wait until it's
too late."
Reynolds has left petitions at area veterinarian clinics and pet stores,
including the Tropica Fish Emporium, Brookside Veterinarian Clinic,
Cayuga Veterinarian Services, Purr-fect Place Hospital for Cats, Dr.
Iris Goldfarb, Nichols Vet Clinic, Weedsport Animal Hospital, Bottings
Farm & Home Supply and Lees Feeds & Needs.
In recogntiion of her work Tedisco has invited Reynolds to Albany for
the May presention of the petitions.
Anyone interested in working on the project is urged to contact Tedisco
at (518) 370-2862 or write him at 114 Broadway, Schenectady, NY, 12305.
"There are only 16 states that currently have felony animal abuse
laws,"
Reynolds said, "We are hoping that New York becomes the 17th".
The Citizen. Auburn, NY, Monday, June 29, 1998
Northern Notes by Charlie Itzen, Regional Editor
DEAD AGAIN
CATO-Last year a cat named Buster was doused with kerosene in
Schenectady, set on fire, and killed. Earlier this year, a kitten named
Cindy in Syracuse was put in a box and drenched with gasoline and set on
fire. Cindy lived for five days before succumbing to the severe burns.
"Now a bill that would make such actions a Class E felony has died in
Albany, a victim of partisan politics", said Lisa Reynolds of Cato,
who helped gather petitions in support of the "Buster Bill".
"We got 118,000 signatures statewide in support of the law," she
said. "That's a phenomenal number." Locally, Reynolds gather
more than 1,200 names for the cause. The "Buster Bill" was
sponsored by Assemblyman James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, and Peter Grannis,
D-New York City. "While the bill sailed through the Senate, it
reached a dead-end in the Assembly," Reynolds said, "when
Speaker Sheldon Silver offered up a "watered down" version of
the bill in the waning moments of the session.
Reynolds said Silver's bill was full of vague langauge and indefinite
penalties that ensured it would go nowhere. "First he [Silver]
refused to put it on the fllor," Reynolds said,. "And then he
sabotaged it."
Reynolds vowed that the issue will not be forgotten and that Tedisco and
his legion of volunteers are determined to get it passed next year.
"Next year we will begin again," Tedisco said. "It is my
sincere hope that we will have a Speaker at that time who will put
people and their pets ahead of politics."
Anyone interested in helping is urged to contact Tedisco at 114
Broadway, Schenectady, NY 12305 or call (518) 370-2862.