NYC FERRETS UPDATE!
 
1) JUDGE BRAUN IS BACK ON THE CASE!
2) NEED HELP WRITING LETTERS?
3) NEW SITE DIRECTORIES
4) MAIL CALL!
 
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1) JUDGE BRAUN IS BACK ON THE CASE!
 
Judge Braun requested the case back!  Confused?  So were we!
 
Judge Braun is the judge who was originally assigned to the lawsuit brought
against Giuliani and the NYC DOH.  (More information on the lawsuit is
available in the lawsuit section of the NYCFerrets web site:
http://members.aol.com/NYCFerrets ).  After a period of time, the judge
wanted to change the DOH's "Motion to Dismiss" to a "Motion for Summary
Judgement."  The lawyer for our side was not certain that the judge would
rule in our favor with a Summary Judgement and stated that he wanted this
case to be given a fair trial in court.  A short time later the case was
given to a different judge.
 
It originally seemed as though the judge might have wanted to dismiss the
case and instead of doing so, had turned over the case to another judge.
However, cases sometimes get shifted around and re-assigned for no reason
other than the current work load.  In light of Judge Braun's requesting the
case back, it's possible that the earlier re-assignment of the case was
purely random and had nothing to do with politics or any negative feelings
on his part towards the case.
 
At this time, the judge seems amicable and open to carefully giving both
sides of the case his full consideration.  He presented a small pile of
letters, magazines and videos from the public and asked if any of the
lawyers objected to his reading them.  Both sides agreed to his reading
the letters regarding this case if he chose to do so.  He did not make it
clear that he *would* read any of the letters when considering the issues
involved in this case, but the fact that he asked this question is
promising.  He also stated that he has all the correspondence that was sent
to Judge Freedman (the second judge), so if you've written to either judge,
there is no need to write again.
 
If you'd like, you may still write to Judge Braun and tell him about your
positive experiences with ferrets and let him know that this case is
important to you.  If this ban has had an affect on you, be sure to let him
know.  More information on Judge Braun and where to send your letters is
available on the lawsuit page of the website.
 
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2) NEED HELP WRITING LETTERS?
 
We've added two new pages to the website with guidlines for writing letters
and contacting the judge and city council members.  If the guidelines help,
use them!  If not, don't!  The most important thing is that you write.
You'll find the links to these two new pages on the first page of the site.
 
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3) NEW SITE DIRECTORIES
 
This probably won't affect most of you... We've re-named some of our files
and placed some in new directories so if you have a web site with a link to
any page on the NYCFerrets site other than the main page, you should update
your links with the new names, othewise they might not work.  If you only
link to our main page this won't be a problem.
 
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4) MAIL CALL!
 
-Just a couple of people we couldn't contact directly:
 
1) S.H.  Thank you for the stamps.  We didn't have an address to thank you
   personally but they were *greatly* appreciated!
 
2) A.B.  You received a form letter reply from the Dept of Health.  It's
   similar to their form email reply which is posted on our site.  -At
   least we know they got your letter!
 
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 http://members.aol.com/NYCFerrets
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[Posted in FML issue 3014]