Consider this: Animal control is a government function, paid for with your tax dollars. It's work done on behalf of the public; shouldn't the public have some way to ensure it's being done appropriately?
But in communities all over the country, including here in California, calls for animal control reform have been met with the sound of a door slamming in the public's face.
Frustrated in Fresno
The Central California SPCA, a private organization that holds the animal control contract for the city of Fresno, recently closed its board meetings to the public, sparking a wave of protests, including a July 19 demonstration organized by FixFresno.org, an advocacy group aimed at ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in the city's shelters.
It's not surprising that citizens want to reform how Fresno's homeless animals are treated; the CCSPCA kills around 80 percent of the pets it takes in, one of the worst kill rates in California and far above the national average of 50 percent.
Recently, animal rescuers in the community have also been alleging mismanagement, abuse and neglect at the shelter.
Until last month, the CCSPCA's board meetings were open to the public, but on June 16, the president of FixFresno.org, Melissa McDonald, received a letter from the shelter's attorney, Jeffrey M. Reid, advising her that the meetings were now closed and members of FixFresno.org would no longer be allowed to attend.
Attendance by FixFresno.org members had been permitted previously, he said, after the group asserted that the board meetings were subject to the Brown Act, California's open meetings law. However, Reid told them this interpretation of the law was incorrect.
He pointed to what is essentially a loophole in the law, which calls for open meetings of private organizations contracted to do government work only in cases where the organization was created specifically to do that work, or if a member of the government sits on the organization's board. Neither of those provisions applies to the CCSPCA.
Members of FixFresno.org showed up at the next board meeting anyway, only to be met at the door by Reid.
"He said that having us there was too 'intimidating' for the board to function," McDonald told me. "It is sad that they chose to hide what is going on instead of addressing the problems."
I called CCSPCA spokesperson Beth Caffrey, and asked what prompted the organization to contact an attorney on this matter in the first place.
"We want our board meetings to be productive," she told me. "We couldn't be productive because of the disruptive behavior of people who were there."
McDonald denied the accusation. "We were never disruptive," she said. "We never even spoke unless spoken to. We never requested a presentation; they did. We have been very respectful and always left when asked."
When I called Fresno city officials, no one returned my calls until Councilmember Larry Westerlund's office contacted a staffer in the city manager's office and asked her to call me.
After that, I heard from Doug Sloan in the city attorney's office, who confirmed the CCSPCA is not subject to the Brown Act, and provided me with a copy of the city's contract with the organization.
He refused to comment on matters of city policy, and my follow-up calls and e-mail asking if the city would like the CCSPCA's meetings to be open to the public were not returned.
On July 19, members of FixFresno.org held a protest in front of the shelter, demanding a restoration of public access to the board meetings as well as reforms at the facility.
"We aren't going to stop," McDonald e-mailed me from the protest. "We care about the animals and we aren't going away until they change."
Mad in Memphis
The CCSPCA is not alone in preventing public access to its meetings after receiving criticism of its actions. In Tennessee, the Memphis Animal Shelter, a city-run animal control agency, is no stranger to allegations of wrong-doing. It was http://www.wreg.com/wreg-shelter-raid,0,6011569.story">raided in 2009 by Shelby County deputies, who found evidence of organized dog fighting, abuse and neglect so serious that some animals starved to death.
After the raid, Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton promised reforms and "ultimate transparency," which led to webcams being installed in the shelter's back areas and the hiring of a new director.
Since then, however, the situation in Memphis has deteriorated. An examination of shelter records revealed that 155 pets went missing from the facility last year, a loss that shelter director Matthew Pepper blamed on "bad accounting."
Next, animal control officer Demetria Hogan -- who has a long criminal record -- was arrested on two counts of animal cruelty in the disappearance of an 11-year-old American Staffordshire terrier named Kapone, and for driving around in her vehicle, allegedly after being tipped off about her pending arrest, with an injured dog in the back who died before she finally returned to the shelter.
Kapone was picked up by Hogan after he and another dog, Jersey, got out of their yard. Their owners, Brooke and Darrell Shoup, went to the Memphis shelter the next morning to retrieve their dogs, only to find that Kapone was not there, although Jersey was.
What happened to Kapone? Hogan insisted through her lawyer that she left him at MAS, but no one there knows where he is. One thing, though, is clear: The Shoups and their children want their dog back.
They've mounted a publicity campaign and raised more than $8,000 as a reward for his return. Animal lovers in Memphis paid for a billboard asking what happened to Kapone; there's a Facebook page and a tip line (901-528-0699).
If ever a city's animal control problems seemed to call for increased public scrutiny, it would be this one. But what did MAS and the city of Memphis do?
They closed the shelter advisory board meetings to the public and announced that when the agency moves later this year, the webcams won't be coming to the new location.
So much for "ultimate transparency."
Nixed in New York
New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH) is currently under fire from activists and the media for budget cuts at its animal control agency totaling around $1.5 million.
There has also been considerable press coverage of how its animals are cared for, as well as how many are killed and for what reasons.
But when the DOH held a board meeting to discuss animal control issues on June 21, more than 100 people, including journalists, were turned away, and board members were instructed by Department of Health Commissioner Thomas Farley that they did not have to respond to any questions from the public.
One New Yorker who wasn't allowed in the door, John Sibley, said, "Given the recent publicity and interest in animal control operations, booking a conference room so small seems to be a deliberate attempt to shut out public participation in a public process."
I contacted the DOH, and press secretary Susan Craig said that was not the case.
"We hold this meeting in the same room every time," she told me. "The room was filled to capacity."
But Camille Jobin-Davis, assistant director of the New York Department of State's Committee on Open Government, directed me to the state's public meetings law, which states that "in the event that there is a contentious issue on the agenda and there are indications of substantial public interest, numerous letters to the editor, phone calls or e-mails regarding the topic, or perhaps a petition asking officials to take action," the public body has to "consider the number of people who might attend the meeting and take appropriate action to hold the meeting at a location that would accommodate those interested in attending? ."
I asked Craig if the DOH was simply unaware of the heightened public interest, media coverage and petitions, and she responded, "I'm not saying we were unaware of the contention. But if people were coming in large numbers ... they should have let the board know."
When I pointed out that the statute doesn't put the burden on the public to let the board know, but on the public agency to move the meeting to a larger room when there is a "contentious item" on the agenda, she replied, "All our meetings have potentially contentious items on the agenda."
In a follow-up e-mail, Craig said that the next meeting dealing with animal control issues would be held in a larger room.
How's that working out for you?
While many shelters and animal control agencies may be responding to calls for reform with secrecy and wagon-circling, it's not a strategy that seems to be working for them. The more they shut out the public, the louder people holler to get in.
The number of new organizations around the country aimed at reforming animal control is growing so fast it's hard to keep track of them.
Usually with "Fix" or "No Kill" and the name of their community in their names, they organize through social networks like Facebook and through more old-school methods like turning out in force at public meetings, contacting their elected officials and protesting.
FixAustin.org's Ryan Clinton, who has seen his community go from killing the majority of its homeless dogs and cats to saving more than 90 percent of them for six months in a row this year, sees such activism as democracy at its best.
"It should be uncontroversial that an agency doing the work of the people, and paid for with the people's hard-earned money, should reflect the will of the people," he said.
"But too often, animal-control agencies facing calls for reform behave more like authoritarian regimes than arms of a democracy, circling their wagons, deflecting blame, and becoming less rather than more transparent."
He said the only reason any organization would take such actions is that it assumes the animal-loving public will give up.
"While that does happen in some places," he said, "in others the public only fights harder. I think the lesson from Austin is that if a community of animal lovers fights inhumane sheltering practices long enough, smart enough and tough enough, that community can prevail."
Source: http://feeds.sfgate.com/click.phdo?i=2e01c831764790103769e3481472c7a7
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