Animal Services to cut 35 ACTs-AMMENDED

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Two days ago Boks presented his budget proposal to the Budget and Proposal Committee.

Animal Services is cutting 35 ACT positions and not hiring 8 already budgeted. I think. Every time anyone mentioned a number, another person gave a different number. I did notice that whenever Ed gave a number, someone challenged it. I guess no one believes anything he says anymore.

Hours are being reduced to 40 hours, 10 am to 6 pm. Linda Barth insisted that 6 days a week X 8 hours was 40 hours. Maybe they plan on shutting down another day each week.

Four supervisory positions would revert to ACT positions. I missed the part about whether ACO personnel would be affected and couldn't find it re-running the tape.

I really, really hope this allows Ed to get rid of the deadwood rather than reduce by seniority, which is probably the case. The good people he hired since he came may be ousted.

As part of the budget cut, the Northeast Valley shelter will not be opened as a full service shelter. Instead, it will house the LADP/LAAS Gestapo, the Animal Cruelty Task Force, and evidence animals. Ed says he thinks this will be well-received by the animal community.

He also says the facility will be used to temporarily house animals from rescue groups whose own houses/shelters are filled up. This will be staffed by volunteers. Adoptions will still take place at the facilities but surrenders will not be taken.


Adoption fees for dogs would increase from $91 to $117 per dog. He was asked whether he thought that would negatively impact adoptions. His response was at $91, LA was adopting more animals than any other municipal shelter in the country, and he says we are the fifth lowest kill shelter system in the country using his murder per thousand criteria. He insinuates we are almost there.

He concluded from this "observation" that the $26 raise would not much impact adoptions, and if it did, he could go to Council next year to ask for a decrease. How the hell he could conclude it would not uch impact adoptions is beyond me.

You know what is going to happen, don't you? Adoptions will decrease and next April he will go to Council and blame them for the fee increase which dropped adoptions. Also, he will blame Council for not opening the NE Valley shelter and the loss of 35 ACT due to budget cuts they passed, for the increase in euthanasia. But he will still say then that caused only a slight increase in the kills per thousand stats.

Then Villaraigosa will give Ed an award for something or other.

The Boks presentation; it is about 2/3 of the way through the meeting:

http://lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=18&clip_id=3380&caption_id=4703251

By the way, every time I see Rosendahl, the more convinced I am he is an idiot. See for yourself. He is plain out nuts and has this stupid idea of having a boy scout like volunteer force go house to house to collect fees. Remember, this is the idiot that thought going from door to door to check for spay/neuters was an invasion of privacy.

Linda Barth pointed out the volunteers would need a SWAT team support in some areas of the unfriendlier areas of the city. Man, he is an idiot. How was he able to maintain a TV talk show for seven years in Santa Monica?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are letting go the ACTS, the kennel workers, not the higher ups who are the bad seeds. They will let them go based on seniority which means nicer newbies will be gone, hardened old timers will be staying.

I caught that about Barth saying 7 x 8 = 40. Boks and Barth couldn't even get their numbers straight. Didn't anyone prepare?

Why did Boks keep saying "we're almost nokill!" It makes the budget committee thinks the dept doesn't need any money or help.

Boks kept saying euthanasia is down to such and such level. It's not down. It's up. He is quoting the 07 year end number when he calculates euth/1,000 residents. That was last year, not what's happening now.

Notice that the cost to care for animals has gone up 400%. Boks says it's because the shelters house more animals. No, they don't. Boks just crammed more in each cage. There are not more kennels. The old shelters had been adding caging for years which wasn't counted in the comparison.

He finally admitted that in order to be nokill you have to hold animals longer which means more care, food, they get sick, need veterinary care... He admits to warehousing. If warehousing got more animals adopted, okay, but I don't think it did. He kept pitbulls for six months, pitbulls which have little chance. He basically kept the animals alive that could stay alive for long periods of time in the shelters. Other breeds would get sick and die sooner.

Anonymous said...

"LADP/LAAS Gestapo" Huh?
You don't know much about the Gestapo, do you? You don't know much about anything, do you?
You are an idiot.

Anonymous said...

Wenn so, bitte nicht trivialize das Holocaust. Danke.

Anonymous said...

Boy Ed, I bet you feel bad for being told you're not an expert on the Gestapo, huh? Bet you're not an expert on the KKK either.

And you call yourself an advocate for animals...

At any rate, #2 (insert joke here), when a group of public employees think - or are told - that they can invade someone's house, violate their rights, steal their property, wantonly kill and imprison their animals, frame bogus charges against them, issue slanderous and libelous public statements about them via government-owned media, then when the "charges" don't hold, continue to victimize them by subjecting their now-imprisoned-for-six-months-animals to unnecessary surgical mutilation, well I guess maybe that doesn't quite rise to the level of the Gestapo. It's just a very clear indication of how CLOSE we are to a police state, where math-impaired drunks and incompetents can, so long as they have a City job, ruin perfectly decent people's lives on a whim. Or for a PR stunt.

Ed, you should be TOTALLY ashamed for comparing them to the Gestapo. They're more like the authoritarian/fascist version of the Keystone Kops.

Ed Muzika said...

Machen Licht an den Holocaust?

Der Holcaust war nicht die Gestapo, es war Heydrich und die SS ein.

Die Tiere sind eine permanente dauerhafte Holocaust. Welche Worte Mut kann man ihnen?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Muzika:

(You can leave out the "dass".... "I know "that" the Gestapo very (well)." Doesn't work too well).

Pretty neat how you can get the double "s" on "wei(B)" though!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Ich liebe dich. Man hat mich gebiessen. LOL.

Ed Muzika said...

Ich weiss, die Gestapo sehr.

Anonymous said...

The Northeast Valley shelter will house the LAPD/LAAS 'Gestapo', the ACTF, evidence animals AND temporarily house animals from rescue groups whose own houses/shelters are filled up? Interesting combination.

Brad Jensen
Cypress, CA

Ed Muzika said...

My take on that is that few if any rescue groups are going to use that shelter.

They have to decrease personnel so they are not opening a shelter?

So, what do you do with an empty shelter?

You give it to 10 cops/ACOs and maybe 150 evidence animals, where no one will ever see or adopt them and where they will never find foster homes as Boks said would happen with Mason's cats.

Boks just threw the rescue use in to make it sound like he was making the most of the budget cut by out of box thinking and uses for an empty building.

If LAAS had its act together, they'd put together a volunteer unit to operate the shelter on a part time basis. I didn't get that this was his intent, but if it is, more power to him.

I can't imagine Butcher going along with this, or the employees going along with this.

Just another misdirection.

Why ACTF needs its own station is better explained as a paramilitary police force operating out of its own bunker for privacy and to better be taped by animal planet.

Anonymous said...

In addition, Boks said it would be staffed by volunteers(?) Whose volunteers? The rescues'? Surely not LAAS volunteers, because without an actual shelter how will they have had any way to recruit local volunteers? Do they think volunteers from other shelters are going to trek up there from far-away sections of the city just to make Ed Boks look good?

The LAAS volunteer base consists of a whole bunch of email addresses and comparatively few people who are willing to subject themselves to either evil or wholly incompetent LAAS staff. A couple of weeks ago West L.A. asked for volunteers to wash dogs on a weekday, for an upcoming adoption event, with roughly four days' notice. They specified that you had to work in pairs. In prior emails LAAS had also requested that volunteers work in specific shifts. I contacted the West L.A. volunteer coordinator by email two or three times to try to get specific info so I could help. She completely ignored my question, then ignored subsequent emails. I left her a voicemail, which she also ignored.

I've had better luck at South L.A. but generally speaking the people who "coordinate" volunteers are at best completely incompetent (I'm actually still waiting to hear about the volunteer application I filled out at North Central almost a year ago), and at worst amazingly rude and incompetent.

Plus, I didn't hear anything about a vet at Northeast Valley. Aren't evidence animals often sick or injured? Oh well, they're probably used to it by now, right Mr. Boks?

If they do actually start warehousing evidence animals there those poor animals will be doomed (as the ACTF sit and play cards down the hall...)

Ed Muzika said...

Please to send me names of crappy employees you deal with and the circumstances.

I am sure they would like to see their names in print.

We can also send emails about their performances to those who count.