| All cats below are redlisted and will die by Wednesday unless adopted by a rescue group. This is your Los Angeles Animal Services at work without a No-Kill leader. Killing of cats is up 3,000 over last year. AND THE MAYOR DOES NOTHING: From Stacy Robbins 36 cats and kittens will die, some by Tue 8 AM and some by Wed. at South LA if not adopted. PLEASE call volunteer extraordinaire Stacy Robbins at 310-486-3811 or email at stacyarobbins@hotmail.com Look here so see the babies THESE ARE THEIR FACES:
From Kathy: Thanks, Ed, for helping us further raise awareness regarding cats. They are the larger part of the problem we face. As you may know, we've experienced a 14% increase in impounds (up 6,688 dogs and cats) over the past 12 months, while our adoptions have increased by 23% (up 4,371 dogs and cats). Granted, our euthanasia has also increased by 3,945 dogs and cats as we, like many other organizations, are unable to adopt our way out of the continuing wave of impounds. We continue to look for ways to focus additional attention on our cats. So far this month, we managed to adopt out 771 cats. As you may also know, incoming underage kittens are a large part of our impounds. We've experienced a 25% increase in their numbers (1,694 additional kittens) over the past 12 months. Fortunately, the number fostered and adopted/rescued has increased by 784 kittens over last year. We are featuring a program right now at two of our Centers (Harbor and East Valley) that provides for a "2 for 1" discount on cats (only). The program is being funded through a generous donation by the Found Animals Foundation. We're hopeful it will help us send more great cats to great homes. We also reinstated the Buddy Program, where we can "buddy up" two cats (or dogs) for a discount adoption price. To summarize, in June 2009, we set a record for the highest number of adoptions, redemptions and impounds as compared to June for the past 5 years. It was the third highest number for euthanasia. Working collaboratively will drive all the numbers in the right direction. Please help us continue to promote the full equation to solve the problem. Thanks, Kathy |
Dead Cats Walking
I sent an email to Council and the Mayor with photos of the cats to be killed tomorrow and Wednesday in South LA. I wanted them to have faces added to the death figures. I got an email back from Kathy Davis, below.
Quincey Says LAAS Staff Lies to the Commission
From the Daily News:
LA Animal Services commissioner resigns
Updated: 07/24/2009 09:28:30 AM PDT
A member of the Los Angeles Animal Services Commission resigned Thursday, accusing city employees of ignoring his demands for information and suggesting that some actions could be illegal.
Archie Quincy, who spent 32 years working for the Los Angeles County Animal Control Department, sent a letter of resignation to aides of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "I don't need this job," Quincy said in an interview. "They don't know what they're doing over there and I'm afraid some of what they are doing is criminal. I just don't want to be involved with it."
Quincy, who was appointed in 2007, said he suspects the city Department of Animal Services has been withholding information or changing data in reports to the five-member commission.
The most recent situation involved information he had requested about a pit bull taken to a city shelter and the treatment of the dog's owner.
"When I ask for information as a commissioner, I should be able to get it," Quincy said. "Instead, all I hear are comments about me."
Animal Services officials said they were unaware of Quincy's resignation and could not comment on it.
The long-troubled department has been without a general manager since April, when then-chief Ed Boks resigned under pressure from animal advocates.
Quincey Resigns Commission Over Stu
Archie J. Quincey Jr. has resigned from the Animal Services Commission, apparently as a result of a conflict between him and Jim Blackman over Stu and Jeff de la Rosa.
Jim Bickhart told him he had to apologize about characterizing the actions of certain LAAS employees and management as possibly "criminal." Quincey refused to apologize or retract his statements made at the July 13 Board meeting (actually, the last 3) and quit.
You can download and listen to meetings now at the LAAS commission page.
When the word "criminal" is bandied about, I am guessing that Trutanich might prick up his ears , especially because his office has been bombarded with StuMail of late.
When the word "criminal" is bandied about, I am guessing that Trutanich might prick up his ears , especially because his office has been bombarded with StuMail of late.
New LAAS Just As Incompentent As Boks'; 1/3 of All Cats About to Be Killed At One Shelter
Email received:
I apologize for the seeming deluge of requests for help lately, but we are facing a dire situation in Los Angeles.
TODAY THE SOUTH L.A. SHELTER REDLISTED 1/3 OF THEIR CAT POPULATION, MOST OF WHOM ARE ONLY BABIES! We have until Tuesday, July 28, to help until these kitties are killed.
Please, if you can adopt or foster one of these precious souls, many of whom have spent half of their very short life behind bars only to be now scheduled to die, we -- and they -- would be eternally grateful.
Please see Stacy Robbins' email with many redlisted kitties' photos at the following link:http://docs.google.com/Vie w?id=dct4vhgk_290f2mpjhdx
If you can help, please call or visit the South LA Animal Shelter at 3612 11th Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018 off Crenshaw and Jefferson ASAP. You can call the shelter at 213-485-0117 or 213-485-0119 with any questions or to process these babies!
Jessica Cliver <jessicacliver@hotmail.com> has also generously pledged $50 per cat to a 501c3 that could rescue some of these kitties.
PLEASE SHARE AND CROSS-POST THIS URGENT MESSAGE.
Let's save these souls. In the words of Lily Tomlin: "I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody."
Thank you all for your efforts and support!
Warmly,
Mikko
TODAY THE SOUTH L.A. SHELTER REDLISTED 1/3 OF THEIR CAT POPULATION, MOST OF WHOM ARE ONLY BABIES! We have until Tuesday, July 28, to help until these kitties are killed.
Please, if you can adopt or foster one of these precious souls, many of whom have spent half of their very short life behind bars only to be now scheduled to die, we -- and they -- would be eternally grateful.
Please see Stacy Robbins' email with many redlisted kitties' photos at the following link:http://docs.google.com/
If you can help, please call or visit the South LA Animal Shelter at 3612 11th Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018 off Crenshaw and Jefferson ASAP. You can call the shelter at 213-485-0117 or 213-485-0119 with any questions or to process these babies!
Jessica Cliver <jessicacliver@hotmail.com> has also generously pledged $50 per cat to a 501c3 that could rescue some of these kitties.
PLEASE SHARE AND CROSS-POST THIS URGENT MESSAGE.
Let's save these souls. In the words of Lily Tomlin: "I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody."
Thank you all for your efforts and support!
Warmly,
Mikko
Los Angeles Called Meanest City
From Reuters:
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two major advocacy groups for the homeless on Tuesday ranked Los Angeles as the "meanest" city in the United States, citing a Skid Row police crackdown they say has criminalized poverty and homelessness there.
L.A.'s so-called Safer City Initiative was singled out in the groups' report as the most egregious example of policies and practices nationwide that essentially punish people for failing to have a roof over their heads.
Others include making it illegal to sleep, sit or store personal belongings on sidewalks and other public spaces; prohibitions against panhandling or begging; and selective enforcement of petty offenses like jaywalking and loitering.
Such measures are widespread in the face of a deep economic recession and foreclosure crisis that have increased homelessness over the past two years, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Their report examined laws and practices in 273 cities across the country, with Los Angeles topping the list of the 10 "meanest cities" for what the study called inhumane treatment of homeless. A previous report, issued in early 2006 before the crackdown began, ranked L.A. as the 18th meanest.
Under the Safer City effort, thousands of L.A.'s most destitute residents have been targeted for harsh police enforcement, routinely receiving tickets for minor infractions such as the failure to obey crossing signals.
As a result, the study says, many are jailed and end up with a criminal record that makes it more difficult for them to find a job or gain access to housing.
A spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement dismissing the report as "short-sighted and misleading."
Los Angeles officials have touted their Safer City effort for sharply curbing serious crime in Skid Row, a 50-block downtown area inhabited by the biggest concentration of homeless people in the country. "The city's first priority is to protect our most vulnerable residents from violent crime," the mayor's statement said.
But homeless advocates say a promised strategy to ease homelessness there, including new housing and services to go with the Skid Row cleanup, have largely failed to materialize.
An estimated 40,000 people live on the streets, in abandoned buildings or in temporary shelters throughout Los Angeles, more than 5,000 of them in Skid Row. Another 8,000 make their home in that area's short-term residential hotels, or flop houses as they were once called.
Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, said the homeless population in Los Angeles has ballooned due to a lack of affordable housing, a high poverty rate and "long-standing lack of local resources."
Tuesday's report cited a 2007 University of California study that found L.A. was spending $6 million a year to pay for the 50 extra police officers who patrol Skid Row while budgeting just $5.7 million for homeless services.
By comparison, Dennison said, New York City has a "right to shelter" policy and invests about $200 million a year in housing and other services for the needy, resulting in a homeless population half that of Los Angeles.
Former Sonoma County Shelter Director Says Beverly Hills Animal Services Contract is a Loser for Los Angeles
From Barry Evans:
After responding to your email I looked at the contract draft proposal and have some serious concerns that LAAS's will not fully recover their expenses for the services. And did not get the city stats from the County to compare with their own stats for activities that were BH City related. This is not a good contract, and one that will be hard to resolve once entered into between the two municipalities.
Red lights came up after looking at the lack of details and data to back up the conclussions made by LASS's staff.
Thanks
Barry
Beverly Hills Anti-Feral Ringleader's Petition and Ridiculous Claims
Darien Bojeaux, ringleader of the anti-feral cat feeding ordinance, claims there are no feral cats in Beverly Hills, and that Katherine Varjian is really feeding their pet cats, and the food she leaves goes uneaten until hungry, baby-biting coyotes come.
Please sign the attached petition to help us keep coyotes, rodents, and roaches, out of our neighborhood.
Ms. Varjian, who does not live in our neighborhood, was given citations by Beverly Hills Code Enforcement many times for littering our alleys with cat food, but she has refused to stop.
We do not wish to harm coyotes, but they have been known to attack children, eat cats and small dogs, can carry/spread rabies, and we feel it is unsafe and unhealthy to have them in our neighborhood.
We have been advised that the woman is Katherine Varjian and that she has been cited by the City of Beverly. Hills Code Enforcement on numerous occasions, but she prefers to continue to create unhealthy conditions and risk of death to our pets.
She circulated the below petition just before the Beverly Hills Council meeting. Can you believe Council takes her seriously?
Just before the Council meeting, she claims she saw a coyote eating food left by Varjian, and that at least one person has been bitten by a coyote recently in her neighborhood.
Here is her petition. Maybe you want to sign it too and call her.
Dear Neighbors,
Dear Neighbors,
Please sign the attached petition to help us keep coyotes, rodents, and roaches, out of our neighborhood.
This year, coyotes were sighted in our neighborhood more than a dozen times.
Many of us signed petitions to stop a woman, Katherine Varjian, from littering our alleys with cat food which has drawn coyotes, rodents, raccoons, roaches, and other pests and diseases into our neighborhood.
Many of us signed petitions to stop a woman, Katherine Varjian, from littering our alleys with cat food which has drawn coyotes, rodents, raccoons, roaches, and other pests and diseases into our neighborhood.
Ms. Varjian, who does not live in our neighborhood, was given citations by Beverly Hills Code Enforcement many times for littering our alleys with cat food, but she has refused to stop.
She claims she must feed a large feral cat colony, but we believe she is mistaking our pets for feral cats, and we do not have a (oral cat problem here.
Many of our neighbors have to clean up uneaten cat food; two residents reported that Ms. Varjian tried to run them down with her vehicle; one neighbor claims to have once been bitten by a coyote; and some neighbors have lost their pet cats to coyotes.
Also, If possible, please attend the City Council Meeting this Tuesday night, July 7, 2009, at 7:00 p.m, at 455 North Rexford Drive, City Council Chambers. At that time our City Council will hopefully adopt a law which will prevent Ms. Varjian from continuing her feeding/tittering activities. We believe this meeting will be attended by animal activists who do not live in our neighborhood, who support Ms. Varjian, and who believe that coyotes, etc., are God's creatures and that we should learn to peacefully co-exist with them in our neighborhood.
We do not wish to harm coyotes, but they have been known to attack children, eat cats and small dogs, can carry/spread rabies, and we feel it is unsafe and unhealthy to have them in our neighborhood.
So our City Council needs our attendance and support. Please do your best to attend, and please return signed petitions to my mailbox at 123 North Palm Drive, or fax them to (310) 273-1284, or call and I will pick them up to present them at Tuesday night's City Council Meeting. if you have any questions, please feel free to call.
Thank you.
Darien Bojeaux, 123 N. Palm Drive, B.H., (310) 276-6847, t
Petition
Petition
A woman has been littering our alleys with cat food for years, despite the fact that the food brings cockroaches, rodents, raccoons, coyotes, etc., as a result. Many have asked her to stop, but she refuses.
We have been advised that the woman is Katherine Varjian and that she has been cited by the City of Beverly. Hills Code Enforcement on numerous occasions, but she prefers to continue to create unhealthy conditions and risk of death to our pets.
Additionally, it is possible that a coyote could attack a child.
Coyotes continue to be sighted in our neighborhood, and we are therefore requesting that the City Council of Beverly Hills and the City Attorney of Beverly Hills take all necessary steps, including criminal prosecution if necessary, to stop Katherine Varjian from continuing her unlawful, unhealthful conduct.
Signature, Name, Address, Telephone
I'd like to note that 102 people spoke against the ordinance, and 3 for; her petition does not seem to have motivated many people.
Darien's email to me:
Dear Ed,
Prohibiting the littering of our alleys with open containers of pest drawing food, or food on the ground, has nothing to do with TNR, and it is not a "feral ban".
Yes, there are cats near where Varjian has left food--cats which are being fed by others (properly) or are owned by others as pets and properly fed. You might have something there with your comment which begins, "No sane person would...."
If the alley feeding stopped, I do not believe there would be any starving cats, but even if there were, which I doubt, there certainly would not be anything close to 20 to 30. We, including animal interest activists friends, have yet to locate feral cats which were not already being fed by others than Varjian.
You don't want to believe anything I say because you choose to believe what you want to believe. And that is why people like yourself lack credibility. Here is a subject matter which you have absolutely no personal knowledge about, and yet you are sure that the facts are this, that, and the other, and that my husband and I did not see a coyote eating out of one of Ms. Varjian's black plastic food containers, which happened about three weeks ago now, no longer ten days ago. However, if you lived in our area you would have seen coyotes yourself and/or you would know about the numerous sightings of coyotes here.
Maybe you would get along better with your neighbors if you had some respect for their rights and interests. I have found that many people are cat lovers and are only to happy to feed feral cats. However, we don't do well with those who are disrespectful and hostile, and who feel that it is fine to strew cat food all over our alleys for no good reason.
My Letter to the Mayor/Council Requesting Revocation of Beverly Hills Animal Services Contract If They Ban Feral Cat Tending
The March 31, 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills regarding the provision of animal care services is attached.
A requirement of this contract was that Beverly Hills was to adopt Los Angeles' animal codes.
Beverly Hills is considering adding an ordinance banning the feeding of feral cats. Such an ordinance would create a health hazard of starving and sick cats which could spill over into Los Angeles.
It is also antithetical to the pursuit of establishing a TNR policy for the City of Los Angles, who currently is conducting a CEQA study regarding the environmental effects of TNR.
For this reason, I urge the Mayor, Council, the City Attorney and LAAS to revoke this animal services contract with Beverly Hills should they pass the ordinance banning feeding feral cats as per the agreement, within 90 days of the ordinance's passge.
So Far, the City Has Not Answered About Beverly Hills
My second letter to LAAS and City Council:
Last Tuesday I asked you whether Los Angeles will continue to provide animal control services for Beverly Hills if they pass an ordinance criminalizing feeding feral cats. You did not respond.
This situation has not been resolved. The issue has been postponed until August 4, when BH Council will again meet to vote on this measure.
Therefore I ask again, "If Beverly Hills passes this ordinance banning feeding feral cats, their laws regarding animals will no longer be the same as those of Los Angeles, which was a precondition for LAAS and Los Angeles to provide animal control services to Beverly Hills. Therefore, since there is no longer compliance, will you continue to provide animal control services for Beverly Hills? Have they not broken a contractual condition, and if they have, will you abide by their decision to go their own way regarding animal-related laws?"
Ed Muzika
This is from the Beverly Hills Courier:
Winograd on LA's Five Year Strategic Plan
The Good, Bad, & Ugly Side of Leadership
July 6, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd
Leadership. A passion for saving lives. And a commitment that what must be done, will be done. It is the single most important element of the No Kill Equation. It is what causes communities to achieve No Kill. Lack of leadership is why communities fail.
As a recentNo Kill Advocacy Center study showed, there are communities spending $1.50 per capita on animal control with 90 percent save rates. And there are communities, like Collier County (FL) below, spending $8.50 and failing miserably. The difference is leadership.
As we shall also see below, shelters will threaten to kill animals claiming they can’t afford food because of “the economy,” while other shelters—like those in Nevada and Minnesota—will push fundraising and/or lifesaving rates to all-time highs in the same economic climate. One community will celebrate its first No Kill year. Another, like the City of Los Angeles, will abandon any pretensions to it at all. And it all comes down to leadership.
The ASPCA will give you ten reasons why they aren’t capable of leadership. And Indianapolis will give you 153 reasons why they may yet prove to be.
But here’s the rub: There are over 100 million of us animal lovers, and only a few thousand of them (regressive, kill-oriented shelter directors and their equally regressive, kill-oriented national animal welfare apologists like those at HSUS.) They will have to change; or they will be swept aside. It’s a numbers game. And the numbers are clearly on our side. As they are in terms of how many animals are entering shelters; and how many people are looking to adopt. And to capitalize on those numbers, all it takes is leadership.
L.A.’s Latest Act of Desperation
Despite a promise by the Mayor of Los Angeles that the City of Los Angeles would become the “most humane city in America,” his administration has done very little beyond empty rhetoric and photo ops to make it a reality. Indeed, the agency has been rocked by controversy during his administration involving mismanagement, poor care and unnecessary killing. And last year, it passed a punitive law that gave officers the power to impound and kill animals who are not sterilized, while his General Manager turned around and cancelled the low-cost spay/neuter voucher program (since reinstated).
While other communities are seeing death rates plummet and lifesaving at all-time highs, 3,029 more cats were intentionally killed in Los Angeles city shelters compared to the year before, an increase of almost 33%. Dog killing has also increased significantly. And more animals are dying in their kennels than ever before.
All of this occurred under the tenure of General Manager Ed Boks who resigned following a vote of No Confidence by the City Council. Not only did he fail to achieve No Kill as promised, death rates skyrocketed, disease rates skyrocketed, and cronyism remained rampant. While the departure of Boks offered the Mayor a chance to make good on his promise, he appears intent not to.
Boks’ last act in office, with the apparent blessing of the Mayor, was to sign off on a five-year strategic plan for the future of the agency that sacrifices the animals to bureaucratic indifference. According to L.A. Animal Watch, there is,
not the slightest mention of radically reducing the number of animals killed or [increasing the] animals adopted. It does not even mention no kill. Doing a search on the five year plan, I could not find, “no-kill,” “save rate,” “euthanasia,” “kill rate,” or even “adoption rate.” I see two goals in my brief reading which have any real numbers: a goal to have New Hope partners adopt an additional 264 animals in 2009 vs. 2008, and a goal to reduce returns by 10%. That’s it. All the rest is about award dinners, New Hope Partner awards, building outreach programs, giving employees input on the department website, etc. This plan is filled with empty words, meaningless program outlines that have no attached real goals in terms of anticipated increases in save rates or reduction of killing.
In fact, rescue groups and No Kill advocates did not participate in the drafting of the plan. Instead, the plan was concocted by those running the agency, most resistant to progressive change, and who have overseen the systematic killing of the animals. Outside input was received by the Bureau of Sanitation, which might explain why Los Angeles Animal Services continues to treat animals like nothing more than yesterday’s trash: kill them and throw their bodies away.
The department claims it wants to “End Pet Overpopulation” as one of its core goals, but there is only one problem with this goal: There is no pet overpopulation. The City of Los Angeles has a per capita intake rate of 16 dogs and cats per 1,000 people. That is almost three times less than Washoe County, NV at 39 dogs and cats per 1,000 people which is saving nine out of ten dogs and cats and pushing toward its No Kill goal. The City has 1/3rd the problem but killing is going up precisely because of its antiquated policies and underperforming staff, which the plan does not address.
In fact, even if there was pet overpopulation, the plan does not talk about implementing or expanding any of the programs of the only model which has created No Kill communities in the U.S.: comprehensive implementation of the No Kill Equation, including expanding affordable and free spay/neuter to reduce the numbers of animals being impounded. The only exception is a call for a paltry increase of 5% in placing animals through rescue groups. Since it uses Boks’ disastrous 2008 year as a benchmark, however, the new future goal is still less than the 2007 level. It also talks about creating “Compassionate, skilled, hard-working employees” but none of the action plans call for an increase in accountability or lead to the termination of those like the supervisor below, captured using profanity against animal lovers while L.A.’s finest look on:
Instead of goals like: eliminate the deaths of neonatal kittens by expanding the foster care program so that it replaces killing entirely, increase the number of lost animals reclaimed by establishing a proactive Missing Animal Response plan, and double adoptions through a volunteer-led daily offsite adoption program—none of which are in the plan—the five year plan has “Develop and implement an Employee Recognition Program,” and “Develop reliable and uniform procedures for handling and keeping track of building repairs.”
Instead of expanding lifesaving opportunities, LAAS is considering suggestions such as the creation of “a ‘booster’ committee to schedule activities such as Birthday Club, holiday parties, sports leagues, and field trips” for employees. So while kittens are being killed and dogs are wallowing in their own filth because of underperforming employees, the department is going to celebrate a staff member’s birthday with a field trip at taxpayer expense!
Boks left Maricopa County and was fired in New York City after failing there as well. Each time, he promised he’d create a No Kill community in five years, and each time he left an agency in disarray despite public claims to the contrary. His legacy to Los Angeles is not only increased killing, but it is the end of hope for No Kill in the near future.
As the strategic plan makes clear, it is no longer on the agenda, even though it has not even been attempted with integrity. By hijacking the language of No Kill and then allowing things to descend into chaos, he has single-handedly falsely convinced people who were interested that No Kill really does mean rampant disease and increased deaths in kennels and that it really is impossible. His tenure has been marked by a campaign of distortion that gave the public the illusion of progress and a commitment to No Kill but in reality did little to foster its actual implementation. And when the “effort” fails, as it did in Los Angeles, the public grows weary of unmet promised goals and erroneously concludes that No Kill is simply not achievable. That is what is happening in Los Angeles. The irony here is that if Boks spent as much time implementing the needed programs and holding his staff accountable as he did pretending to in his blogs, he would have succeeded.
Indianapolis Goes a Different Route
While Los Angeles City shelters were closed, Indianapolis Animal Care & Control (IACC) remained open on the 4th of July and did a big holiday promotion. Since holidays are a time when families are together and able to visit the shelter, IACC stayed open and adopted out 150 dogs and cats (and an additional three guppies) in a single day—153 animals in all—an all-time record.
Move to Act, a long-time critic of regressive shelter policies and a champion for No Kill policies in that community, wrote that,
There was not only a sense of excitement with the IACC staff today, but also a sense of hope… that the agency is beginning to turn the corner for better helping the animals get out alive. The long, winding drive from Harding St to the IACC parking lot was cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the drive. People were at the facility who had never been there before, and if they didn’t find who they were looking for, they were planning on returning in the future. There were more people than animals available.
How many animals did LAAS needlessly kill by being closed? It is not a rhetorical question. Given population comparisons per capita, LAAS could have potentially adopted 645 dogs and cats. Doing that once a year for five years would mean additional adoption of 3,225 animals, saving more lives than all items in the strategic plan combined.
Add the other holidays to the mix, add adoption marketing and promotion, and the number of lives saved would be in the tens of thousands. But that is not going to happen under this Mayor and with this staff. So they’ll get their birthday parties for employees, and they’ll have their employee recognition award banquets, and they’ll hire the “Facilities Czar” to oversee building repairs, they’ll continue to consult with the trash department for policies affecting live animals, and animals will continue to die.
Meanwhile, shelters in economically hard hit areas run by progressive directors are finding ways to either run more efficiently while increasing lifesaving (such as Reno, NV which increased lifesaving again this year despite 11% unemployment and a foreclosure crisis in the county) or are finding ways to make up the shortfall in donations through creative fundraising and marketing (such as Animal Ark in Minneapolis, MN).
This confirms a new study by the No Kill Advocacy Center which proves that saving lives has less to do with funding rates and more to do with compassionate, committed, and effective leadership—which Henderson County clearly does not have.
But there is good news. Washoe County, NV’s save rate climbed again and is pushing 90 percent for both dogs and cats. On a per capita comparative basis, it puts Washoe County death rates at 1.8 dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents, very near if not the lowest in the nation. Shelby County, KY just celebrated its first year with 90 percent-level save rates. And communities across the country are joining the No Kill club: in California, Kansas, Colorado, and elsewhere. In fact, we are closer than ever.
Nathan's Blog: http://www.nathanwinograd.com
July 6, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd
Leadership. A passion for saving lives. And a commitment that what must be done, will be done. It is the single most important element of the No Kill Equation. It is what causes communities to achieve No Kill. Lack of leadership is why communities fail.
As a recentNo Kill Advocacy Center study showed, there are communities spending $1.50 per capita on animal control with 90 percent save rates. And there are communities, like Collier County (FL) below, spending $8.50 and failing miserably. The difference is leadership.
As we shall also see below, shelters will threaten to kill animals claiming they can’t afford food because of “the economy,” while other shelters—like those in Nevada and Minnesota—will push fundraising and/or lifesaving rates to all-time highs in the same economic climate. One community will celebrate its first No Kill year. Another, like the City of Los Angeles, will abandon any pretensions to it at all. And it all comes down to leadership.
The ASPCA will give you ten reasons why they aren’t capable of leadership. And Indianapolis will give you 153 reasons why they may yet prove to be.
But here’s the rub: There are over 100 million of us animal lovers, and only a few thousand of them (regressive, kill-oriented shelter directors and their equally regressive, kill-oriented national animal welfare apologists like those at HSUS.) They will have to change; or they will be swept aside. It’s a numbers game. And the numbers are clearly on our side. As they are in terms of how many animals are entering shelters; and how many people are looking to adopt. And to capitalize on those numbers, all it takes is leadership.
L.A.’s Latest Act of Desperation
Despite a promise by the Mayor of Los Angeles that the City of Los Angeles would become the “most humane city in America,” his administration has done very little beyond empty rhetoric and photo ops to make it a reality. Indeed, the agency has been rocked by controversy during his administration involving mismanagement, poor care and unnecessary killing. And last year, it passed a punitive law that gave officers the power to impound and kill animals who are not sterilized, while his General Manager turned around and cancelled the low-cost spay/neuter voucher program (since reinstated).
While other communities are seeing death rates plummet and lifesaving at all-time highs, 3,029 more cats were intentionally killed in Los Angeles city shelters compared to the year before, an increase of almost 33%. Dog killing has also increased significantly. And more animals are dying in their kennels than ever before.
All of this occurred under the tenure of General Manager Ed Boks who resigned following a vote of No Confidence by the City Council. Not only did he fail to achieve No Kill as promised, death rates skyrocketed, disease rates skyrocketed, and cronyism remained rampant. While the departure of Boks offered the Mayor a chance to make good on his promise, he appears intent not to.
Boks’ last act in office, with the apparent blessing of the Mayor, was to sign off on a five-year strategic plan for the future of the agency that sacrifices the animals to bureaucratic indifference. According to L.A. Animal Watch, there is,
not the slightest mention of radically reducing the number of animals killed or [increasing the] animals adopted. It does not even mention no kill. Doing a search on the five year plan, I could not find, “no-kill,” “save rate,” “euthanasia,” “kill rate,” or even “adoption rate.” I see two goals in my brief reading which have any real numbers: a goal to have New Hope partners adopt an additional 264 animals in 2009 vs. 2008, and a goal to reduce returns by 10%. That’s it. All the rest is about award dinners, New Hope Partner awards, building outreach programs, giving employees input on the department website, etc. This plan is filled with empty words, meaningless program outlines that have no attached real goals in terms of anticipated increases in save rates or reduction of killing.
In fact, rescue groups and No Kill advocates did not participate in the drafting of the plan. Instead, the plan was concocted by those running the agency, most resistant to progressive change, and who have overseen the systematic killing of the animals. Outside input was received by the Bureau of Sanitation, which might explain why Los Angeles Animal Services continues to treat animals like nothing more than yesterday’s trash: kill them and throw their bodies away.
The department claims it wants to “End Pet Overpopulation” as one of its core goals, but there is only one problem with this goal: There is no pet overpopulation. The City of Los Angeles has a per capita intake rate of 16 dogs and cats per 1,000 people. That is almost three times less than Washoe County, NV at 39 dogs and cats per 1,000 people which is saving nine out of ten dogs and cats and pushing toward its No Kill goal. The City has 1/3rd the problem but killing is going up precisely because of its antiquated policies and underperforming staff, which the plan does not address.
In fact, even if there was pet overpopulation, the plan does not talk about implementing or expanding any of the programs of the only model which has created No Kill communities in the U.S.: comprehensive implementation of the No Kill Equation, including expanding affordable and free spay/neuter to reduce the numbers of animals being impounded. The only exception is a call for a paltry increase of 5% in placing animals through rescue groups. Since it uses Boks’ disastrous 2008 year as a benchmark, however, the new future goal is still less than the 2007 level. It also talks about creating “Compassionate, skilled, hard-working employees” but none of the action plans call for an increase in accountability or lead to the termination of those like the supervisor below, captured using profanity against animal lovers while L.A.’s finest look on:
Instead of goals like: eliminate the deaths of neonatal kittens by expanding the foster care program so that it replaces killing entirely, increase the number of lost animals reclaimed by establishing a proactive Missing Animal Response plan, and double adoptions through a volunteer-led daily offsite adoption program—none of which are in the plan—the five year plan has “Develop and implement an Employee Recognition Program,” and “Develop reliable and uniform procedures for handling and keeping track of building repairs.”
Instead of expanding lifesaving opportunities, LAAS is considering suggestions such as the creation of “a ‘booster’ committee to schedule activities such as Birthday Club, holiday parties, sports leagues, and field trips” for employees. So while kittens are being killed and dogs are wallowing in their own filth because of underperforming employees, the department is going to celebrate a staff member’s birthday with a field trip at taxpayer expense!
Boks left Maricopa County and was fired in New York City after failing there as well. Each time, he promised he’d create a No Kill community in five years, and each time he left an agency in disarray despite public claims to the contrary. His legacy to Los Angeles is not only increased killing, but it is the end of hope for No Kill in the near future.
As the strategic plan makes clear, it is no longer on the agenda, even though it has not even been attempted with integrity. By hijacking the language of No Kill and then allowing things to descend into chaos, he has single-handedly falsely convinced people who were interested that No Kill really does mean rampant disease and increased deaths in kennels and that it really is impossible. His tenure has been marked by a campaign of distortion that gave the public the illusion of progress and a commitment to No Kill but in reality did little to foster its actual implementation. And when the “effort” fails, as it did in Los Angeles, the public grows weary of unmet promised goals and erroneously concludes that No Kill is simply not achievable. That is what is happening in Los Angeles. The irony here is that if Boks spent as much time implementing the needed programs and holding his staff accountable as he did pretending to in his blogs, he would have succeeded.
Indianapolis Goes a Different Route
While Los Angeles City shelters were closed, Indianapolis Animal Care & Control (IACC) remained open on the 4th of July and did a big holiday promotion. Since holidays are a time when families are together and able to visit the shelter, IACC stayed open and adopted out 150 dogs and cats (and an additional three guppies) in a single day—153 animals in all—an all-time record.
Move to Act, a long-time critic of regressive shelter policies and a champion for No Kill policies in that community, wrote that,
There was not only a sense of excitement with the IACC staff today, but also a sense of hope… that the agency is beginning to turn the corner for better helping the animals get out alive. The long, winding drive from Harding St to the IACC parking lot was cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the drive. People were at the facility who had never been there before, and if they didn’t find who they were looking for, they were planning on returning in the future. There were more people than animals available.
How many animals did LAAS needlessly kill by being closed? It is not a rhetorical question. Given population comparisons per capita, LAAS could have potentially adopted 645 dogs and cats. Doing that once a year for five years would mean additional adoption of 3,225 animals, saving more lives than all items in the strategic plan combined.
Add the other holidays to the mix, add adoption marketing and promotion, and the number of lives saved would be in the tens of thousands. But that is not going to happen under this Mayor and with this staff. So they’ll get their birthday parties for employees, and they’ll have their employee recognition award banquets, and they’ll hire the “Facilities Czar” to oversee building repairs, they’ll continue to consult with the trash department for policies affecting live animals, and animals will continue to die.
Meanwhile, shelters in economically hard hit areas run by progressive directors are finding ways to either run more efficiently while increasing lifesaving (such as Reno, NV which increased lifesaving again this year despite 11% unemployment and a foreclosure crisis in the county) or are finding ways to make up the shortfall in donations through creative fundraising and marketing (such as Animal Ark in Minneapolis, MN).
This confirms a new study by the No Kill Advocacy Center which proves that saving lives has less to do with funding rates and more to do with compassionate, committed, and effective leadership—which Henderson County clearly does not have.
But there is good news. Washoe County, NV’s save rate climbed again and is pushing 90 percent for both dogs and cats. On a per capita comparative basis, it puts Washoe County death rates at 1.8 dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents, very near if not the lowest in the nation. Shelby County, KY just celebrated its first year with 90 percent-level save rates. And communities across the country are joining the No Kill club: in California, Kansas, Colorado, and elsewhere. In fact, we are closer than ever.
Nathan's Blog: http://www.nathanwinograd.com
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