The Council of the District of Columbia The Office of Councilmember Mary M.

Cheh, Ward 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 19, 2011

Director of Communications: Kiara Pesante o: 202-724-8089 c: 202-701-9439

Councilmember Cheh Laments the State of Public Discourse

WASHINGTON, D.C. Councilmember Mary M. Cheh, Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Works, and Transportation, issued the following statement on the facts of the Wildlife Protection Act of 2010: As a legislator, I aim to make laws plain and accessible to the people they affect. The Wildlife Protection Act seemed perfectly comprehensible to the pest control companies of the District, who, incidentally, supported the bill. As a result, you can imagine my surprise when a state attorney general and a national commentator seemingly did not. Or, if they did, then theyre all the worse for misstating it to score cheap political points. The primary purpose of the law is to require that wildlifenot rats or mice, but wildlifebe treated as humanely as the circumstances allow. Maiming, crushing, or causing needless suffering of captured animals is barbaric, irrespective of the jurisdiction. And so the Wildlife Protection Act requires that, when circumstances permit, animal-control professionals use non-lethal, humane methods of capture, and that if animals must be killed, that they are killed humanely. The law also requires that companies advise homeowners how the animals may have entered and what they can do to prevent it in the future. Its a relatively short billseven pages. And the very first page expressly exempts mice and rats found in the District. I would have hoped that people would have been inclined to read the bill before raging against it. Over the past few days, the bill has been the subject of some national comment, and as a result, my inbox has been filled with emails disparaging me for requiring rats to be exported rather than killed (again, flatly not true). Firing off uninformed missives and calling me babe must have been easier than actually reading the legislation. Babe was, however, not the only four-letter word I was called in the emails. For some examples of the well-reasoned policy suggestions I received, attached is a small sample. People have asked me whether government emails are censored. After going through my Council inbox this week, I can tell you that they are not. ###

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elda Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Can this be true? Saturday, January 14, 2012 3:56:02 PM

Did you really pass a law that makes it illegal to kill rats? I am so glad we don't have anyone that stupid in my state...mind you we do have gov. Brown who has the intellect of a rat. It is laws like these that will end up destroying your city and causing people to die from the diseases carried by the animals the law thinks it is protecting. The truth is when their numbers explode they all suffer from lack of food and the very diseases that kill people. May all those that voted for this be infested with the flees that will now need to be rounded up in family groups and relocated.

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Charles Ross Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Rodentia Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:56:37 PM

Capture vermin in "families"? Are you a rat, you stupid cunt? Should your "family" be captured and relocated? What a colossal, vacant moron you are. Are you for real?

Charles "Casey" M. Ross

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master" - George Washington.

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F. Kurth Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) rats Monday, January 16, 2012 1:21:46 PM

You are the idiot who is involved with protecting rats? I hope you and your family get your ass bit and you die of the plague. Frank Kurth

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Shirley Beamer Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Incredible! Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:18:31 PM

Dear Councilwoman Cheh: Your wonderful law protecting rats is a shining example of what a dumbass you are. You crazy lunatic. You've got shit for a brain and it reflects the depth of gross stupidity your constituents have by electing you. You're a disgrace to your gender and your position. To think that taxpayer dollars are used for pantywaste like you is disgusting. You are a loser, Shirley Beamer Aurora, CO 80011

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Randy Foreman Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Withdraw your bill about the rats... Monday, January 16, 2012 1:44:17 PM

Mary, Can I ask do you have any kind of a brain? YOU DON'T RELOCATE RATS YOU KILL THEM! I have lived in Washington, DC for a decade now and if there is one thing everyone can agree is that rats need to be killed. What do you want them living in your home? I bet you don't. Have you ever been downtown next to a construction site? People get revolted by that. You really need a life other than imposing your silly busy body ideas like that on the good people of the Nation's Capital. Randy Foreman 115 5th street NE Washington, DC 20002 Sent from my iPad

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Subject: Date:

Steve Mitchell Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Marshall, Karim (Council); Orlins, Matthew (Council); Millar, Melissa (Council); Newman, Andrew (Council); Benjamin, Aukima (COUNCIL); Hubbard, Judy (Council); Smith, Dee (COUNCIL); Pesante, Kiara (Council); Lopez, Anthony (Council); Willingham, Jonathan (Council) Rats Monday, January 16, 2012 1:28:40 PM

Your environmental wako boss has a plan to relocate rat families from DC. Can I send you my rats? Also, will her plan relocate the human rats known as liberal socialist/Marxists which reside in DC? Start with Mr. Obozo. You guys are so freakin mentally out in space.

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bill beames Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) Rats Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:31:47 PM

The biggest rat lives in the white house. I would be happy for my company to relocate the entire family of rats back to Kenya or Chicago. Bill

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Michael A Gale Lopez, Anthony (Council) Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL); Willingham, Jonathan (Council); Pesante, Kiara (Council); Smith, Dee (COUNCIL); Hubbard, Judy (Council); Benjamin, Aukima (COUNCIL); Faust, Jeremy (COUNCIL) Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 Monday, January 16, 2012 2:40:06 PM

Mr. Lopez, I understand from CNS news ("VA AG Fears DC Law May Relocate Rat 'Families' to Virginia" Christopher Goins 13 Jan 2011 CNS news.com) that Ms. Cheh was the driving force behind a law in the district that took effect March 2010 that forces pest control workers to remove vermin infestations by removing those vermin alive and then relocating them and their family unit (I read the law). Where are the vermin to be relocated in neighboring cities filled with normal anti-vermin people? Vermin, such as rats, carry virulent diseases including plague and rabies. Human beings, namely pest control workers, are at tremendous risk from those diseases if they have to handle them alive to remove them. What about those humans that are living with vermin infestations? Can a family of humans, for example, who are biten and infected by vermin because pest control workers were unable to effectively help, able to sue Ms. Cheh and the district? I would like to suggest that Ms. Cheh join the Occupy people in their camp full of squirrels and rats. She should personally demonstrate removal techniques for live vermin so they may be "...captured, handled, and, when permissible, transported, in a manner to ensure against causing unnecessary discomfort, behavioral stress, or physical harm to the animal, including providing protections against weather extremes". Exterminators (sorry to use that prejudicial anti-vermin term), hopefully, can better understand how to do their jobs by her demonstration. Id like to learn more about how people like Ms. Cheh become left-wing environmental nut cases that somehow manage to infect other communities around them (where the normal people live) with the consequences of their mental illness. Are vermin allowed to vote in Washington D.C. and if so, how many vermin voted for this woman? And if vermin are not yet allowed to vote in Ward 3 what inspired Ms. Cheh to choose vermin over the welfare of human beings? I would like to invite Ms. Cheh to a forum on common sense held everyday in the real world. Thanking you in advance Mr. Lopez for any insight you may offer. Michael Corona Hills, California