28 Reasons Why Boks Should be Fired

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I yesterday's post, I applauded the work on anonymous writer Madison Barkley.

But before Madison, there was Animal Friend and I. I must say Friend was probably far more attacked, slandered and generally destroyed than I by Boks.

Anyway, someone sent in a long comment to a previous post that outlines Boks shenanigans, lies, boasts, political bloopers, etc., in the most pithy way that the whole 2.8 years can be captured, and from an insiders viewpoint--an insider who has written documentation to prove all allegations below. I too have many of Boks' emails that confirm the allegations below.

Here are the 28 points below:

Reasons why Boks should be fired:

1. Boks was fired from New York. That should be enough. In deposition for the above mentioned NY lawsuit, it turns out that Boks slept with the commissioner who oversees him. He went over budget and couldn't make payroll so he decided on his own to take out a loan with a bank, with no authority or approval. He is reprimanded, again. The Mayors office in NY hated Boks, which he admits in his own affidavit.

2. November 2005 right before Boks was fired from New York, he and the City are sued for unlawful termination. Seems Boks fired a black employee with years of experience so he could hire his white friend who had no experience but did have a criminal conviction in his past. Status: pending but City will lose.

3. Seniors 4 Seniors: The program was not approved yet Boks started it any way. He gets in trouble with Public Safety committee. Weiss, Zine yell at Boks telling him he must follow procedure. Boks takes the program down off the web. It would be two years until it was approved. His response, "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."

4. Pit Bull Academy: Again, Boks starts a program with no approval. He has ex-cons working in the shelters for two weeks with dangerous pit bulls and releases news of his program, which is indeed news to personnel and city council. He is forced to end the program firing the ex-cons. The program was never approved due to major liability issues.

5. Kapparot: Boks states that the Jewish ritual kapparot is barbaric and loathsome. The ritual itself is fine. The only part that is barbaric is if they kill chickens in the ritual. Most Jews don't use chickens.

His original comment to the media was as follows:

In a message dated 9/28/2006 9:25:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time, edboks@hotmail.com writes:

"Some of our nation's healthiest animal husbandry practices and laws originated in the ancient traditions of the Torah. Nowhere is the barbaric practice of Kapparot even mentioned in the Torah. It is a loathsome pagan tradition that has been muddled into the sacred religious practices of a small Jewish sect. Kapparot should have no place in a civilized 21st Century Los Angeles community."

[Should I make a] Couple small changes? Any suggested edits? "

A rescuer replied: maybe get rid of barbaric and loathsome?

Later when Boks gets in trouble with the anti defamation league he lies and tells people that he never said that. He says that same employee made that up. Then he lies and says he fired the employee in response. No one was fired because no one wrote it but Boks.

6. Boks orders an employee to start a blog for him, laanimalfriends at eponym. In this blog Boks attacks rescuers, employees, councilmembers, activists and anyone who doesn't kiss his rear end. He releases bogus numbers, press releases and flat out lies. The Mayor's office tells him to stop the blog, yet he refuses. Ultimately even though he provided all content, direction and most of the text, he blames someone else for it.

7. Hooters for Neuters: He posted a provocative photo of a woman in a bikini top. When asked to change the flyer he flat out refused. He told insiders "the more fuss they make, the better!" Finally, days later he is forced to cancel the event, all because he wouldn't tone down a flyer. He told his friends "how about we write girls gone wild across her chest!" Laura Chick states that it demeans women. He counters with "she's just jealous because she has no boobs." Chick had a double mastectomy because of breast cancer.

8. After being fired from New York, Boks helps an activist sue the Department revealing confidential City information and defaming the Mayor, Commissioners and employees. He blames his failures in NY on everyone but himself. He had the exact same problems there, i.e. overcrowding, dying animals, fudged numbers, lying.

9. Boks faked his resume. He said he made Maricopa "nokill." He did not. When questioned he said he made one shelter nokill. He did not. There were only two shelters and an adoption only center. He finally admits that only the adoption only was nokill. It was not. They would take animals from that center back to the shelter, then kill them.

10. Boks dated many female rescuers in LA during all of 2006. He would promise them jobs if they just went out with him. Some went out with him and got jobs. Some refused him and instead were harassed and defamed.

11. He gave his ex-girlfriend, Pia Salk a $20,000 consulting gig which no one has seen and was never implemented.

12. He gave another friend a $30,000 volunteer dept consulting gig which was never utilized. The report basically told everyone what they already knew, i.e. volunteers are treated poorly and disrespected. The volunteer consultant then causes a few more volunteers to quit.

13. Boks and the City were sued for sexual harassment, unlawful termination and assault July 2007. Case is still pending.

14. Boks and the City were sued for what looks like a car accident in a City car. Case is still pending. Was alcohol involved? Boks is a known alcoholic.

15. Euthanasia has not gone down since Boks arrived. In fact it's gone up 37% even though they have new larger shelters, more money and more employees than ever before. This is the first time ever than euthanasia has not gone down. All previous shelter managers reduced euthanasia.

16. Animals dying on their own from illness and injury is up over 300% since he arrived from overcrowding even though intake is down.

17. 2.5x as many animals are dying in cage fights from overcrowding.

18. Twice as many animals are dead on arrival when intake overall is down. [My comment: Something fishy here, such as live animals come in, die and are marked DOA?]

19. Last year Boks refused unneutered feral cats and kittens to make his numbers look better. Most cats euthanized are feral or kittens. This year we have been over run by kittens, which are being killed in record numbers. Boks blames this on foreclosures even though it was from refusing unneutered animals which had babies.

20. Boks continues to release totally false news items such as "LA Animal Services is the largest adoption agency in the world!" It's not even the largest in Southern California. That would be LA County.

21. Boks makes up his statistics and numbers himself. Euthansia did not go down the first year here in LA. Then Boks took over the numbers duty from an employee. Amazingly, euthansia started to go down instantly. Even more amazingly it seems that kitten intake went down by over 30% instantly which is exactly equal to the reduction in euthanasia. Amazing coincidences. Not.

22. Councilmembers are concerned about these events and make motions to address them. Boks doesn't bother to respond to their motions.

23. Boks stated he would increase spay neuter surgeries from 56,000 to 150,000. [My comment: Ed told me that LAAS would do 20,000 S/N at each shelter by the end of 2008] Yes, he said that. In fact surgeries went from 44,000 (yes, he lied about the current number of surgeries) to just over 48,000.

24. Boks tells City Council LA will be nokill by 2008. Hello, it's almost 2009 and we're killing more than before.

25. February 2006 Boks swears he will increase dog licensing. Licensing has gone down not up.

26. Boks gathers a bunch of volunteers and employees to go vandalize the home of protestors who are picketing his house, Pam Ferdin, Jerry Vlasak, Tiffany Krog and Annette Stark. He asks the volunteers to make posters making these people look stupid and silly. Fortunately the employees refused to do it yet he made these requests in writing. [My comment: I can attest to this. I was in on the planning process. We were trying to find out where these people lived. It was at this point Boks was warned to back off bya City Attorney, and suddenly I became a fallguy.]

27. Boks asks an employee to get someone to beat up one of his detractors. Fortunately they refused but he also made this request in writing.

28. Boks asks a few women out. Some say yes, some say no. He decides to retaliate against the ones that said no by harassing and defaming them, in writing.