The Seal Beach City Council formed a sub-committee to come up with a coyote management plan at the agency’s Monday, Sept. 8, meeting. The committee is supposed to bring a proposed plan back to the council within 30 days.
The committee will be made up of Mayor Ellery Deaton, Councilman Michael Levitt, two animal experts and representatives of the city’s council districts. Ted Stevens, manager of Long Beach Animal Control Services, agreed to be one of the animal experts.
No members of the public spoke to the council about the coyote problem Monday night. An online petition drive to have the City Council trap and sterilize or kill coyotes has so far raised 165 signatures (as of Tuesday, Sept. 9). The petition drive is seeking 5,000 signatures.
Deaton said that from what she had heard, coyotes were running the community rather than the community running coyotes. Recently there was a report of a Leisure World woman’s dog being killed either on her porch or just inside her unit.
Councilman Gary Miller agreed with the sub-committee proposal but wanted it to include a Seal Beach resident from each council district.
One issue that came up was that Councilman Levitt would be unavailable for two weeks. Levitt said Planning Commissioner Sandra Massa-Lavitt would take his place while he is away. Massa-Lavitt is a candidate for Levitt’s District Five council seat. Levitt has termed out.
Miller said he wanted to be sure the committee’s coyote management plan would come back to the council for approval.
Deaton said she wanted the committee to come back to the council with a coyote plan in 30 days.
The sub-committee was expected to attend the regional coyote awareness meeting that was held at McGaugh School on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Details of that meeting were not available.
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