My Response to the Recent Daily News Editorial

The Daily News editorial characterized the job of General Manager of Animal Services as to be impossible due to fragmented and violent activist segment of the Los Angeles animal community, and to attacks by various politicians looking to make a name. I assume the editorial was targeting Councilmembers Zine, Cardenas and Alarcon, as they led the charge to investigate community-wide complaints about Ed Boks and the malfunctioning of Animal Services.

Why the writer blamed all difficulty of running the department on "activists" when employees, residents, rescuers and an entire larger segment of the animal community and Council was complaining about Boks and the shelters' performance escapes me.

The editorial never, ever addressed the issue of job performance by the various general managers or the department.

One General Manager was referred to as being hospitalized due to job stress from the activists. The writer is talking about Don Knapp who had epilepsy and was sustaining almost constant gran mal seizures. Dan hid his epilepsy from the City until well after he started his employment as GM. The public loved Dan and his job until the Mayor forced him to round up street dogs prior to the Democratic convention. Then criticism may have exacerbated Dan’s epilepsy. Dan likely would have been having gran mal seizures by that point even without job stress.

The editorial writer, like reporter Rick Orlov, states that Boks and other GMs suffered from “shifting support” by City leaders out of political opportunity. Who is the writer talking about, councilmembers, Zine, Cardenas and Alarcon? What opportunism is the writer talking about? The activist community, the union, Animal Service employees, and rescuers have been asking for action to get Ed Boks to resign for almost three years and the Mayor took no action. Council did because the Mayor refused to act.

The writer writes the City should drop the goal of No Kill, that no one knows what it means, and the concept is only a sound bite for campaigning.

In fact, the definition is becoming increasingly clear. "No-kill" means no adoptable, treatable or trainable animal will be put to death; eventually they will all find homes. Since this definition begs definitions of “adoptable,” “treatable,” or “trainable,” an easier to understand and operational definition is gaining wider acceptance: A general admission shelter is “No-kill” if 90% or more of all animals impounded make it out alive either through adoptions or by rescue by various non-profit rescue groups. This 90% “save rate” would apply to ALL animals impounded: sick, injured, old, vicious, kittens, puppies and adult animals.

No kill recognizes that there will always be a percentage of animals that should be put down for public safety or because of irremediable suffering. This means finding foster parents to bottle feed 3 week old kittens without mothers until they are adopted, providing good medical treatment for newly impounded sick and injured animals, working well with rescue groups and working to find homes for the hard-to-adopt animals, the elderly and those with chronic health issues.

Some smaller cities have approached that 90% mark, such as San Francisco and Reno Nevada, both hovering just short of 90%.

Critics of No Kill say the problems of the big city are a completely different ball game. However, the former head of San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control agency, Carl Friedman, says this argument is nonsense. He stated that while Los Angeles has more animals at risk, we also have far greater resources than San Francisco.

Friedman’s organization had less than $3,900,000 (2007) budget and had 48 employees compared to Los Angeles City’s 357 employees and $19,800,000 budget (proposed 2008-2009). San Francisco has 750,000 people and an associated pool of potential adopting homes, while LA has 4,000,000 people and much larger housing base.

Reno Nevada impounds about 16,000 animals a year and saves 90% of the dogs and 86% of its cats, even though they have triple the per capita impound rate of LAAS or County. Their foreclosure crisis, like most of Nevada, is at least as bad as LA.

As to the suggestion that the City should be absorbed by the County, I have never heard anything more ridiculous. The County shelters are a nightmare compared to the City shelters. Two pie charts show the difference.

PIE CHARTS AREAT: http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com/2009/05/mayedas-kill-rate-in-2006-compared-to.html, I would attach them to this email, but many people do not open email with attachments.

One note, there is an “Other” category for the final disposition of impounded animals.  The other category is for missing, stolen or animals that Died In the Shelter (D.I.S.) while under shelter care. The largest component by far is the Died in Shelter numbers. Therefore, you need to add the “Other” category percentage to the Euthanasia percentage to really understand what dismal failures both systems are. The total “kill” rate for County goes up to 82%, while the total kill rate for the City rises to 58%. 

Think of it. At County, of every 100 cats impounded, only 18 make it out alive. Do we want that for the City, or do we want the No Kill 97% live release rates of Ithaca New York, or the near 90% return rates ofSan Francisco, Charlottesville, VA, or Reno? 

Why on earth do you think anyone in Los Angeles who wants to improve conditions at its shelters, would trade a 55% kill rate for cats currently obtained by the City for a 78% kill rate currently obtained by the County?

The writer certainly has not performed minimal research regarding the performance of the LA City shelter system vs County, versus shelter systems elsewhere, but this is how our activist community judges LAAS’ efforts: the number of animals placed into homes and not sent to the rendering plant. That is, we judge on the live save rate.

The writer is correct that the shelter might be better run by non-profits; however, setting up the administration of such an entity would be very difficult as it would involve the current shelter employee unions, civil service, ownership questions about the buildings and its contacts, and whether any group of LA’s small rescues be able to paste together the resources to run such a large system. Setting up such an organization probably would be an ideal situation, but the obstacles are daunting to say the least.

I urge the Daily News editors to get a clue in terms of numbers and performance before shooting from the hip about stress allegedly causing a previous general manager to be hospitalized, and who have not heard about all the lawsuits by activists against the County system. I simply can’t believe that the Daily News still doesn’t own the numbers and problems with both systems, or offer a more concrete plan by which a "fragmented" and violent activist and rescue community could pull off a non-profit takeover. If you could offer some ideas grounded in plausibility, we’d all listen.

http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_12303648