Don't Laugh, Boks Says We Are Near No-Kill.

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Ed, I will provisionally accept your explanation that you had of no past problems in your work in NYC or in Phoenix.

I will agree that you currently have no account at Match.com. Even if you did, so what? But you do not deny you had an account in the past.

I will accept provisionally that you did not send pornographic emails. If you did, so what? However, I have seen one such email purportedly sent by you, but until I have seen supporting data for this allegation, I shall assume the email to be bogus. I have also heard you sent emails of a nude Paris Hilton to rescuers. My opinion is the same: I don't know whether this is true or not, but it is irrelevant if you did.

I strongly disagree with your statement:

In fact, his (Muzika's) misinformed allegations were based on his misunderstanding of the data in his possession.

Later you state:

Ed Muzika made these allegations with partial data. Muzika was using the information from the impound but did not have the information collected later on these animals.

So, which was it, did I make a misinformed allegation based on misunderstanding the data in my possession, or did I did not have all the data?

The data I had were those received by Mr. Jensen from a Request for Public Records. If you did not supply all the records, and you said you had, and then later you find additional information not available to Mr. Jensen or me, how can you say I misunderstood the data or made a misinformed allegation when you never supplied all the data in the first place?

I also disagree with your intentional misinforming the public about the alleged progress in the save and kill numbers under your watch in 2006.

You cherry-pick the numbers which apparently prove your allegations of improvement.

You conveniently switch back and forth between the number of animals killed, the percentage in decrease in animals killed, and the rate of killing.

The number of Other Animals killed in 2006 decreased by 128, or 5%, but there were fewer animals impounded. Therefore, the rate of killing actually increased from 28% to 32%, and the change in the rate of killing actually increased 14%.

The way you break down statistical categories makes it almost impossible to determine what is happening overall. Stats are broken into Dogs, Cats, Rabbits and Others. You can make a gain in any single area and call it a giant leap forward, while there are counterbalancing losses in many other areas.

As one of my readers stated, "If you squeeze any statistics hard enough, they will confess to anything."You have been squeezing the statistics very hard, perhaps based upon practice in NYC and in Maricopa County.

I strongly object to your assertion that:

The decline (in Dogs and Cats killed) was not as dramatic in 2006 as previous years because we are getting so close to No-Kill.

We are getting "so close to No-Kill?" 19,214 killed out of 46,418 is close to No-Kill? A 56% kill of all cats impounded is No-Kill?

How on earth can you say such a thing?

It appears you are saying we are close to No-Kill because you are backing off from using the terms "adoptable" and "treatable," and instead substitute the words "easy to adopt" and "challenging."May I suggest that using such terms, we were No-Kill five years ago? Why then did we need you?

Everyone is laughing at you when you say that we are near No-Kill.

You also state that:

"As we get our feral cat and pit bull populations under control we will take yet another giant leap towards No-Kill."

I am confused. First you say we are near No-Kill, then you say if we stop killing thousands and thousands of unweaned kittens and pitbulls, then we will be close to No-Kill. Which is it, are we close to No-Kill now, or will we be close to No-Kill after killing several thousand fewer animals?

I don't doubt that we will be close to No-Kill if we kill thousands fewer animals, but this is certainly not going to happen within the next five years under you. This is tantamount to saying once we get all untreatble animals under control, we will have taken even more of a giant step towards No-Kill. Of course, but WHEN AND HOW? Where is your plan?

I highly disagree with your speculation that the decreased number of animals taken in by rescue groups means LAAS is more efficient at adopting out the "easy to adopt" animals, meaning there are fewer easy to adopt animals for rescuers, and they are left with the more "challenging" animals.

This assumption would mean that there is a very high percentage of animals that will never be adopted because LAAS and the New Hope groups are adopting just about all that will ever be adopted. This is an admission of failure. You are saying this is as good as it is going to get under you.

When I first talked to you about the drop in New Hope adoptions during February last year, you said you had no idea why there were fewer NH adoptions.Now you say that "suggests" that NH's are down because LAAS has done a better job.

The NH numbers being down can also "suggest":

There are increased problems between LAAS and NH partners, such as reported confusion during the first 6 months of your tenure.
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NH partners have less money than before to support and adopt animals out compared to 2005.
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There are fewer NH volunteers. That is, there are fewer rescue groups or they have fewer volunteers.
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Less cooperation by LAAS personnel.
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You choose the answer in a way that best suits your continued positive spin regarding anything you have done in the past. There is no ability to accept failures as your own. Why can you not just say that you don’t know and ask for help from all of us?

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