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There is an amazing rumor that Lloyd Levine will replace Boks.
Is Mayor Tony so daft as to make this so? Sure, Lloyd is a friend of activists, but is that what we need?
No, we need a national search--a very, very transparent search.
I have already been canvassing various shelter directors for suggestions as to who would fit the bill. I have found several who might commit to being part of the selection process, including Bonnie Brown from Reno, a Winograd protege, and Carl Friedman, former head of the San Francisco municipal shelter, who brought the live save rate up to 82%, and alone with the SFSPCA, brought the live save rate up to 87%.
Also volunteering would be Barry Evans, former head of the Sonoma County shelter system.
No specific names have been mentioned yet.
But jeez, without a search and vetting, I can guarantee the next autocratically appointed GM will be a worse performer than Boks.
When everyone has a say in the choice and the "best" candidate is appointed, there is a greater chance of an across the board cooperation.
In the meantime, I would not put it past Mayor Tony to deliberately choose the worst candidate just to get back at us.
I would assume that Zine and Cardenas would have some input into forcing Mayor Tony into a national search. We need to demand a search. Hell, I don't want to have to run this blog for another two years.
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When they were looking for a new police chief here in LA, Chief Bratton from New York applied. He just didn't apply. He wrote a full report on how he would reduce crime and such in LA. He wasn't asked to do that; he did it on his own.
ReplyDeleteWe need an interim GM then we need to do a national search. Don't just post the job offering on the city website. Send out a national press release about it. The applicants should then take a tour of the Department, then write a report stating specifically how they would reduce euthanasia. They can't just throw around catchy sounding programs. They must give specifics.
The public should be able to sit in on these interviews. How will the GM deal with activists? Hopefully they won't write blogs attacking and riling them up like Boks. What specific programs will they use to reduce euthanasia?
Forget "nokill," "lokill," just reduce euthanasia humanely. No more overcrowding, warehousing. No more bullshit press releases. I really think Boks shot himself in the foot by saying "we're already nokill!" I think he caused the public to dump more animals because they thought the animals would not be killed. The truth that shelters will kill most pets was keeping these people from dumping their animals. Maybe they need to feel the fear again.Send out a press release saying their pet will probably be euthanaized.
I fear you are right. Antonio will either choose an activist type who will fail miserably or he'll choose a civil service type who will also fail miserably. Then he'll blame those failures on us.
ReplyDeleteAntonio doesn't care about the City. It's obvious. He sure as heck doesn't care about the animals. He only cares about his next job. So how do we connect with Antonio to get him to do the right thing? Do something that would affect his next job. We need to let the media know what a horrible Mayor he is so he won't become Mayor again or Governor. Unfortunately the main stream media, Times, Daily News, kiss the Citys collective behind. They only release news when it's already known by everyone. They could have released the story of the employees having no confidence in Boks in March but instead they wait until they publicly go to City Council to press the point.
Our City is so messed up. Heck, our nation and the world is so messed up right now. No one will care about this issue. It's just a bunch of dead dogs barking into the wind. Their voices will not be heard over the din of a world economic collapse.
Lloyd Levine? The man who doesn't look you in the eye while you're talking to him because he's too busy looking around the room to see if someone more important has come in? Thanks but no thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnother egocentric politico looking for a job because he term-limited out of Sacramento.
Lloyd Levine sounds great to me, but who knows what kind of job he could actually do? I agree with commenter #1 that they should have to show what their plan would be before getting the job. I doubt Antonio will put much effort into finding the right person. He just doesn't care. But I'm glad you're on it, Ed M.!
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get such ridiculous information? Levine would make the situation WAY WAY worse and I can't imagine an assemblyman is going to take a job as head dog catcher..pluleez. Stop spreading rumors. If this were at all true, the troops need to rally and help Boks save his job.
ReplyDeleteThe Times story on the Levine rumor:
ReplyDeletehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/10/dog-catcher.html
It makes better sense to seach for a director who knows how to run a large animal control department. Those names you mention are from small, some much smaller, agencies. LA needs someone who can hit the ground running, not someone who has to learn how to manage so many people and shelters.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with the first anon poster about forgetting the "no kill" and "low kill" terms. It's pretty obvious that the shelters get dumped on with that term comes up. On a local note,if you would check the Rancho Cucamonga city website, you can see that public surrenders there went from 50-100 a year to over 4000. That doesn't count owner surrenders. It is their General Plan section. This seems to be the case in all the "no kill" open door shelters that I have checked. So what anon says about putting the guilt back on the public seems like a sensible idea.
It makes better sense to seach for a director who knows how to run a large animal control department. LA needs someone who can hit the ground running, not someone who has to learn how to manage so many people and shelters.
ReplyDeleteIf you do that you get someone like Boks, Mayeda, or Sayres who have all FAILED to reduce euth during their tenure.
Mayeda is still killing 74% and has more complaints about her and LAAS than the County and she has been there 7 years.
SF is a big city and they solved the problems of "no kill," and Reno takes in 17,000 animals a year, 1/3 of LA.
You don't want a hack from a large shelter that still is killing 60%; you need someone that can reduce killing.
In any event, these shelter directors I mentioned, if you read correctly, would lead the search process, not be candidates.
Make sure they know how to run a large shelter WELL. Hell, Boks and Mayeda run large shelters but they sure don't do it well.
ReplyDelete