From Terri Macellaro:
BRENDA BARNETTE WILL!!
We are so pleased that the City of Los Angeles appointed a progressive leader of a successful shelter as the new General Manager of Animal Services. Please stay tuned for a "MEET AND GREET" hosted by Animals Anonymous, Much Love, Stray Cat Alliance, the Found Animals Foundation, PETCO Foundation, Voice for the Animals, Dawg Squad, In Defense of Animals, and many others, to welcome the new GM. Details with time, date and place to follow.
Sincerely, Terri Macellaro
20 comments:
Unless the new GM is willing to do what the prior ones never would or could, namely hold the many lazy and incompetent LAAS employees accountable, the results will be the same, no matter how good her reputation is.
These same employees will look for any opening that they can find to backstab her if she even attempts to make them work for a living.
Time will tell the outcome of this very critical task.
I agree with the first comment. Customer Service needs to be a priority with this department, and some type of action must be taken with those that can't hold their weight.
Saying employees cannot be disciplined because they are protected by the Unions is just a weak excuse for Management not doing their jobs.
Kennel supervisors are the weakest link.
I somewhat agree with the last post that Kennel Supervisors are a weak link; however, I think the Admin section heads and managers are the weakest link.
Why do you feel kennel sups are the weakest link? Please explain.
Thx,
Brad Jensen
Cypress,CA
Ed, you seem to not want to post any possibly-considered negative comments about Barnette. Why?
I am not going to take sides this early on anything. I don't see how the negative comments I have seen reflect at all on her ability to do the job. I understand PD is an anti No-Kill skeptic who also has union issues. Others did not get the job and their are sour grapes. This woman should at least have a honeymoon period rather than attacks from the git go. I gave Boks a year before I saw his numbers were getting worse even while all the while he said euth was going down, and he also failed to support me when I was being attacked from two sources. His lack of loyalty turned me against him. Her number in the past are good, no matter what size shelter she ran, and whether it was open or closed. Even if she were a breeder, so what? What does what other breeders have done in the past affect who or what she is and whether she can do the job?
So Ed... how long would you guess this honeymoon period should last?
Brad Jensen
Cypress,CA
Oh, at least nine days.
That remains to be decided. How good is her communications with the LA animal community, does she actually build a superior foster program, does the relationship with rescuers improve, are as many people as before getting inspected for kennel law violations, do adoptions begin to increase after 6 months compared to the year before, and a lot of intangibles.
I gave Boks a year. Right now she needs all the help she can get rather than immediate attacks to get her replaced.
Like I said, if ADL likes her and gives her a year, and Terri Macellaro thinks she is good, she deserves a lot of room to get going.
Well just keep in mind, a city hall staffer wrote (and I quote):
'Over the period of time you describe as "a total unraveling," the department has been improving its operation in a number of very important ways, laying the groundwork for a better-managed and more functional department going forward under the next GM.'
Sorry but we've been down this road before. A year is too long. Nine days, okay... I'll go with that.
Brad Jensen
Cypress, CA
PS - we been down that one year road before have we not?
.
And by the way, would someone who has some influence please make sure the LAAS shelters fire up their misters and ensure the pressure pump works and that none of the nozzles are clogged before the heat hits? I just have a feeling we're in for a hot summer.
Brad Jensen
Cypress,CA
Yes, one year road but it took the Mayor 3.25 years to fire him. Stuckey lasted about 14 months.
Let's commit to making this one work out, doing everything in our power to help, until or if it does not seem it will work. She needs a lot of support. I for one, plan to support her until I no longer can.
Please understand, I'm not about trashing her. I'm just looking for a little honesty and accountability. Something that seems to be lacking these days.
Being there's a meet and greet to be scheduled, maybe someone should ask Brenda what her views on bans to de-claw cats are. She's talked about the reasons cats scratch and that even declawed cats will scratch because its normal behavior
by Brenda Barnett
but I'm not finding anything from her to indicate she supports bans on declawing cats.
Brad Jensen
Cypress, CA
There has never been any accountability of employees in this Department since I have been associated with them. Hopefully the new GM will change that.
.What she has to work around is that when she wants to discipline employees, that the lazy Personnel Director doesn't sell her, like he did Boks, that the Unions protect employees from being disciplined and there is nothing that can be done.
The first time she hears that from him (and she will) she should tell him to make it happen or the next disciplinary action taken will be against him for sheer laziness.
As I recall, when Boks took the job, we didn't have the info that came out later. If it were available, would you have published it at the start? A large part of people turning against Boks was the revelation that his record was a sham.
I have no way of verifying PD's claims and I agree with her on almost nothing. Personally, I am hoping that Barnette is a shrewd judge of character and does some checking on her no. 2 (or her boss, depending on whom you ask). Unfortunately, Barth will be her "trainer" and the person who shows her the ropes. That's really too bad.
I also don't adopt the anti-pure breed dog stance; nor do I agree that mandatory spay/neuter laws do anything---but you have to admit that very little of her experience in a private shelter will prepare her for this mangled mess of politics,a top-heavy union staff (with way to many non-manager captains, a dysfunctional board and the dictates of the Mayor's lackey).
I don't think anyone from another city could possibly be prepared for what Barnette will have to deal with.
I haven't seen ADL's promised-in-72-hours report, nor do I expect to.
Fnally, it's a strange coincidence that Boks took a low paying job at a small humane society in the same week that Barnette was appointed; however, I would rather have that and anything else that gets him out of town.
Ed,
what you said on this item especially interests me:
"does the relationship with rescuers improve, are as many people as before getting inspected for kennel law violations (?)"!
Let's see if she will support rescuers by REMOVING Notices to Comply they received for doing the City's work when Boks talked the community into participating in doing fostering, spay and neuter and maintenance of more than three ferals---all living under humane, super-clean and healthful conditions.
The politicians who call themselves humane officers wanted to look good by tormenting people who were doing the city's job bu telling them they had to have their animals killed because they were loving and supporting more than three, provided for them with utmost care, doing what the GM, officers, and techs told them to do, and then they backstabbed those people by invading their homes and were they were told they had to kill those animals--just because "it wasn't their job to do the city's work for them."
Animals were saved from suffering, well-provided for with the best care possible, and then when their parent was told to kill them when they were clearly healthy.
So, let's see if this new GM will at the very least go into the database and clear the good name of those people who bent over backwards by sacrificing their own lives to do what's right on behalf of those who needed help and their efforts to bring the euth stats down.
Let's see if this one isn't a backstabbing politician like all the rest of the administrative officers, councilpeople and lazy technicians, Animal Control officers and ACTF officers who claim they are rescuing animals but are killing the animals and their people instead and laughing their heads off! Bunch of idiots.
Kianna~
Ed,
What's a PD?
K~
Phyllis does not believe in No Kill. She also supports LAAS unios and feels, based on Barnette's history, that she will place pressures to change on the unions. her arguments really don't address Barnette's ability to do the job.
Other people are attacking Barnette because they wanted the job but it was not offered.
I plan on supporting Barnette for the forseeable future.
It seems to me that if the formost critic of Animal Services for the last 6 years, the ADL, did extensive research, that at least Barnette is a good candiate and possibly the best candidate who applied.
PD = Phyllis Daugherty
She recently wrote a somewhat
lengthy article in opposing views.
Brad Jensen
Cypress,CA
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