Ed Boks has posted an excellent analysis and plan for reducing killing in LA by providing targeted services in the areas most likely to produce animals that are killed in the shelter.
This is not a typical Winograd no-kill plan, but one that focuses on addressing problems in the worst areas.
I like it. This is the kind of information that I had requested from Boks from day one, stating we needed to know where the problems areas are and the resources, both City and private, that can be used to address those problems. Why Ed waited for a year past his exit to draft what is essentially, a highly reduced kill plan, I don't know. Had he done this analysis and aranged for the programs four years ago, he might still be GM today and total killing might be below 10-12,000.
But he didn't.
Big deal, Boks wrote a plan. Almost anyone can write a plan. The difficult thing is putting the plan in action and following it. Boks, Winograd can type until their fingers bleed and that won't help LA's animals.
ReplyDeleteI like how Boks says that it will be tough for LA to attract a GM who'd be willing to have his career destroyed just by taking the job. Boks destroyed his own career by making huge mistakes. If he hadn't made those mistakes, he'd still have a job. He only has himself to blame. Plus, he knew all about how tough the job was before he applied.
So true. Let's say he wrote a kernal of a plan. The devil is in the detail. If he didn't have the resources to keep the certificate program going, how is he going to use non-existent resources on targeted problems in targetted areas?
ReplyDeleteA Winograd study usually ran hundreds of pages in detail. Boks' study is a broad stroke without numbers of dollars, man hours, or administrative structure mentioned.
In Reno, one of the most effective ways of cutting the killing rate was to radically raise the return to owner rates for both cats and dogs. This is part of the overview of how they did it along with getting Bonnie Brown to run the non-profit half and having Winograd do a detailed study.
But Boks did mention a key concept: take your resources to the areas where they would be optimized.
I agree. But how do you make this miracle of cooperation happen? Generally it is thought that might happen when you get a GM that can bring everyone together, just like Obama has brought Republicans and Democrats into operational togetherness (sarcasm).
ReplyDeleteAnimal department heads all over the country try to bring people together and, from what we learn doing web searches, they almost all fail, at least after a honeymoon period ends. It doesn't seem to matter whether they're no kill, low kill or old school - things eventually seem to turn into train wrecks.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Animal Watch could do us all a favor and find a success story and dissect it for us.
If you want to see how it is done take a look at Maricopa County and Dr. Silva. target the issues and apply the resources
ReplyDeleteWhat would make the previous statement about Maricopa County credible, is if they posted statistics. They don't. They have Maddies statitics section, but absolutely no charts.
ReplyDeleteWhen I last checked in 2006 or 2007, they had stats up briefly, but they weren't any better than LAAS. Of course, they had a smaller budget.