The Staten Island Advance, Friday, June 07, 2002

Island animal shelter 'best of a bad bunch'

Report says city funded facilities neglect, abuse the animals in their care

By HEIDI SINGER

Staten Island's branch of the Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC) is the best of a bad bunch, according to the results of a two-year audit into the organization.

Auditors consider the Charleston facility "less bad" because in four visits they found some evidence that dogs were being walked, in contrast to shelters in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The other shelters suffered more serious problems, with dirty cages and lack of water, say auditors.

The shelter on Veterans Road West near the Outerbridge Crossing was found to be generally clean, but the report criticized the facility for lacking a separate ward for contagious animals.

CACC cares for 60,000 animals a year in three shelters and two intake centers, and in 2000 killed two-thirds, according to the report.

The center also lacks the resources to perform spaying and neutering operations on most animals, despite a law that prohibits shelters from releasing an animal that's not "fixed."

"Anyone who drops an unneutered animal at CACC, it's basically dead," said Patty Adjamine, director of New Yorkers for Companion Animals, a rescue group based in Manhattan. "You're dropping off your animal to die. People need to take responsibility for their animals and not live in a dream world."

The comptroller and animal-rights activists yesterday described a climate of increasing paranoia and isolation in the eight-year old not-for-profit, led by Tottenville resident and former Borough Hall aide Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm. Shelter officials have pushed away rescue workers and volunteers, and even denied auditors access to paperwork and staff, threatening to sue if he released yesterday's report, the comptroller said.

"It's been a bizarre process," said Thompson yesterday. "It's rare that an organization will go to such an extent to prevent a real review of their operations. They're going to continue to fight this all along."

Ms. Haggerty-Blohm declined to be interviewed, but released a statement saying the criticism was politically motivated, and that auditors had interviewed only fired employees and animal rights activists.

"From day one, the comptroller's accountants were not willing to understand or comprehend the essential public safety and health services CACC provides for the City of New York," she added.

Animal activists and fired employees tell a heartbreaking story of dogs and cats in Manhattan's Harlem shelter, sick, scared and handled badly by Sanitation Department workers with little knowledge of animals.

"Walked? In your dreams," said one worker. "Once you go in the cage, that's it. You don't see the light of day. Sometimes they make them hang on and hang on through the paperwork. They're not looking at the faces of these animals at all. They're just looking at the cage, just looking at their number, checking it off on their checklist.

"There's hundreds of dogs coming in 24 hours a day," continued the worker. "Animals are screaming. They're crying. There's [feces] everywhere. It's so awful. We call it Auschwitz."

Activists say the lucky ones are the cute and fluffy young animals that are cherry-picked out of the crowd and shipped off to Staten Island, with its suburban backyards and shelter located in a safe neighborhood off the highway.

CACC Spokeswoman Carolyn Daly said that in April, 100 percent of the Charleston center's 93 adoptable animals found homes. The shelter took in close to 150 animals, she said.

Animal rescue workers have become increasingly bitter with Ms. Haggerty-Blohm, and are calling for her removal. They say she fires workers who complain about the treatment of animals, while allowing abusive and ignorant staffers to remain on the job.

When a group of volunteers complained publicly about conditions at the shelters, Ms. Haggerty-Blohm dismantled the program, they say -- a charge the CACC denies.

"There's a very active volunteer program," countered Ms. Daly. "All of the dogs that can be walked are walked."

But she acknowledged that dogs aren't being walked in Manhattan, the largest shelter, due to space constraints. To compensate, Ms. Daly said, smaller dogs are kept at that shelter, and healthy, non-aggressive ones are allowed to roam outside their cages.

During the two-year audit, the agency maintained only one volunteer dog walker, who worked about an hour a week at the Brooklyn shelter, according to the report. And an official told auditors CACC staff are afraid of lawsuits if they allow dogs to leave the property.

And the center doesn't have an easy job, she added. More than half the dogs that come into the Manhattan shelter are pit bulls, many taken from drug dens. Some drug dealers now slice their dogs' vocal cords so they don't attract police attention, she added, so the dogs enter the shelter with severe infections.

Some of the shelter's fiercest critics acknowledge the tough conditions, the lack of veterinarians, resources and space. They say life got harder after the passage of a city law that prevents workers from releasing animals unless they're spayed and neutered. The law didn't come with funding to make it possible, they say, prompting unpopular fees to be instituted and encouraging the shelter to kill even more readily.

"When you have 200 animals pouring in every day, the bottom line is most of them are going to die," said Ms. Adjamine. "I would like to see a director with more vision than Marilyn has, but you can't blame her for everything. To me, most of the blame lies with the public."

But some of the blame, according to Thompson, also lies with the city Health Department, which inspects and oversees CACC. The shelters passed 1,200 health inspections since CACC's inception, most with flying colors, but auditors say workers appeared to know of some inspections in advance.

Health officials disagree with the report's finding of inhumane treatment, but agree the shelter has been lax in promoting adoptions.

The CACC's contract is up for renewal in July, and health officials intend to work with the shelter to increase adoptions, said Health Department spokeswoman Sandra Mullin.

There may be bigger movement in store. Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday said the city should examine making high-level changes.

A spokesman wouldn't say whether the mayor was referring to Ms. Haggerty-Blohm, the executive director and a former aide to Borough President Guy Molinari, first appointed during the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.