SQUIRRELGATE
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In an August 20, 2006 email to Ed Muzika from Mayor Holbrook, after Animal Liberation Front activists were spotted in Santa Monica, Holbrook says:
“The last thing I want to see happen is squirrels being destroyed.”
Holbrook in his 2006 Meet and Greet campaign kickoff according to the Santa Monica Mirror:
“We have to resolve the homeless problem and do something about the traffic and parking problems,” Holbrook said. “And yet we spend hours and hours and hours talking about the ground squirrels.”
Holbrook says hiring Ewell was his greatest achievement.
Both “forgot” to tell their own Parks Commissioners about the squirrel killing already under way and are complicit with staff’s decision to keep the killing secret.
February 2006, Lamont Ewell:
“As a person who loves animals, my goal is to avoid ever having to reduce the populations of squirrels in this manner again,” Ewell said.
Yet, in August he does order the squirrels killed again after giving Lawrence Ayers a $19,000 contract and him a $5,000/week Santa Monica Police/Park Ranger security detail.
Holbrook was the sole no-vote against the City spending more time examining ways to handle the County order to kill the squirrels, but apparently is O.K. with Recreation and Parks spending $150,000 to comply with repetitive County orders to kill squirrels, AND giving Lefty Ayers and additional $19,000 kill contract AND, providing Ayers with a $5,000 per week Santa Monica “Secret Service-like” detail.
How is that for fiscal responsibility?
Can anyone in their right mind believe anything Holbrook tells them?
Has anyone remarked on the fact that if the reason for reducing the squirrel population is a threat of bubonic plague, reducing the number of squirrels only reduces the chances of contact? The remaining squirrels can still infect, and so if the threat of plague is truly the reason for the extermination, the County should be calling for the elimination of ALL squirrels. This seems to make their alleged motives and grounds for the extermination suspect. Moreover, it makes the alternative solution of killing fleas rather than squirrels seem like the more sensible and effective solution.
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