Around April 2002, the following petition was circulated on the internet. CACC got a hold of it and wrote a response (text follows). SRAC comments on such response to set the record straight (text follows). We feel it is important that you see for yourself how CACC's Executive Director, Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm attempts to spin doctor her bad situation with junk 'facts'...
Imagine sitting in a 2x2 cage in your own feces and urine,
without anyone allowed to come near you, to help or comfort you, even though they want to; then within just 48 hours, being led down a hall and injected by syringe with a drug that will stop your heart and breath. Welcome to the Center for Animal Care and Control - The great city of New York's "animal shelter".
If you love animals and love New York, please sign the petition below and pass it on. This is about the CACC, the Center for Animal Care and Control...the NYC agency responsible for killing more than 40,000 animals a year!
If you have never been there - please go up and look at the endless rows of dogs/cats that sit there in cages without hope, and are euthanized w/in 48 hours. This is one thing that Guiliani failed to remedy in his years as Mayor of NYC.
We are planning to present this petition to Mayor Bloomberg, along
with accompanying correspondence, and ask that he establish a new policy and board for the CACC.
For more info: www.shelterreform.org
FACTS:
*No hands-on volunteers permitted - dogs languish in cages not getting walked
*No off-site adoption program - Petco gets North Shore Animal League in NYC stores, while CACC drops out of sight
*Rescuers are CHARGED money to save animals from being put down, $40 per healthy animal; sick ones are free, if they will even release them to you.
*Requests for information go unanswered...Management flaunts Freedom of Information Act
*CACC's "dead wood" Board of Directors, hostile to public - Guiliani appointees bring little resources to shelter animals and shun requests for public input
*Unnecessary animal killing and abuse of the public goes on -
City policy is "Collect and Kill" not "Solve the problem".
If you would like to see major changes in the way the city runs it's shelter system, please sign the petition below:
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Thank you for signing and helping to make a difference; please keep it going!!
"I walked into an animal shelter and saw fear in the
eyes of every animal there. Too easily disposed were
these loyal animals. Once pets, now homeless. I was
angry and asked God, "Why don't you do something
about it?"
For a moment it was quiet and as I brought fresh water
and a caring hand to one of the dogs I heard, "I did
do something about it, I made you." - Anonymous
Center for Animal Care & Control, Inc.
11 Park Place
New York, New York 10007
Tel: 212-442-2059
Fax: 212-442-2066
E-mail: mblohm@nycacc.org
Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm
Executive Director
Response to CACC Petition 'Facts':
The 'facts' reflected in this petition inaccurately represent the level of care and commitment of the staff and the City in providing for the animals in our care. Indeed between 1998 and 2001, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani increased funding for CACC by 53% while also committing in excess of $25 million in capital funds for shelter construction and renovation. Mayor Giuliani signed into law the first ever mandatory spay/neuter law in NYC and committed in law to the construction of full service animal shelters in each borough. Under the leadership of Mayor Giuliani, more was done to improve the welfare of animals than any time prior.
At this time, the Bloomberg Administration, admittedly during a time of fiscal crisis, has reduced the CACC budget by 22%.
Since 1998, the average length of stay for animals at CACC has steadily increased and in 2001 was 7 days allowing greater opportunities for re-homing or reuniting animals with their family. CACC is obligated by law to hold stray animals a minimum of 48 hours. Clearly many animals are held for far longer.
Specific responses follow:
'FACT': No hands-on volunteer's permitted to walk dogs
Response: Dogs are exercised by staff as available and are allowed outside in the dog runs weather permitting. Not all dogs get exercised daily. Due to the poor cage design at the 110th Street (Manhattan) Shelter the placement in and removal from the cage represents a safety risk to the volunteers and animals. Until the shelter renovations are complete and these cages are eliminated we will not entertain risking the safety and health of the animals or volunteers at this shelter. That does not preclude volunteers from performing other tasks. Although dog walkers would be permitted at either Brooklyn or Staten Island, the locations of these shelters do not generate great numbers of volunteers.
'FACT': No offsite adoption program
Response: A CACC 'rescuer' operated out of the PETCO at 82nd Street in Manhattan and was asked by PETCO to vacate the store due to conflicts with store personnel. CACC intervened more than once to ensure her ability to continue to use this space. After the third time, PETCO indicated that they would not reconsider. CACC requested permission to do some modification to the space to protect the cats that would be housed there from possible theft or abuse by patrons when CACC staff or volunteers were not on the premises. PETCO declined our request and CACC opted not to utilize the space directly. The ASPCA utilized the space briefly but they too experienced problems with the management and ended the relationship. CACC has a number of relationships with veterinarians for offsite adoption locations as these facilities have daily, trained staff to care for these animals.
'FACT': Rescuers are CHARGED money to save dogs
Response: In January 2002 CACC implemented a new fee schedule that introduced fees to rescuers for those animals that are vaccinated, micro chipped and altered. Previously, animals were released unaltered at no charge and rescuers paid fees between $25 and $250 for these services themselves. CACC conducted a review of the typical charges paid by rescuers for spay/neuter surgery, vaccinations and micro chipping and determined that $40 per surgery was at the low end of these charges. Therefore in order to continue to be able to provide animals to rescuers under the terms of the new spay/neuter law, CACC implemented fees for those animals that were altered by CACC. The higher fees are restricted to highly adoptable animals and no fees are charged for larger breed potentially adoptable animals or for any animal that is not altered due to age or health. The fees collected from rescuers enable CACC to continue to make these animals available for placement. Most importantly these fees do not represent 'new' costs for rescuers but rather are a redirection of costs previously spent elsewhere.
'FACT': Requests for information go unanswered; management flaunts Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL")
Response: CACC responds to legitimate requests for information but has not responded to persons with a history of distorting the reality of information that is provided. CACC responds to every FOIL request in accordance with the law.
'FACT': The unnecessary animal killing and abuse of the public goes on
Response: CACC continues to improve on the numbers of animals released alive from the shelters through adoption, rescue placement, return to owner and releases to freedom. CACC acknowledges and reports on the numbers of adoptable and potentially adoptable animals that are euthanized every month. We need to work with the private community to identify additional resources that will enable rescuers to accept those animals requiring greater degrees of medical or behavioral intervention.
CACC has attempted unsuccessfully to engage our major colleagues in NYC in an Adoption Alliance intended to address those adoptable and potentially adoptable animals that are euthanized annually. Limited partnerships have been developed but nothing that approaches the magnitude of collaboration that will be needed. CACC is a willing and very able partner to any effort to provide alternatives for shelter animals. In 2001, CACC released more than 15,500 animals to adopters, rescuers, owners or freedom. No other NYC based organization affects so many animals.
CACC continues to work towards the placement of every adoptable and potentially adoptable animal and hopes that the fiscal crisis facing the City does not diminish the trends of improvement.
Response by the Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC)
It has come to our attention that a petition recently circulated the internet protesting conditions at the CACC and urging the new Administration to act decisively to correct the situation. It appears that some of the data in the petition regarding CACC's management and policies was extracted from the Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) website. Although SRAC had nothing to do with the creation or circulation of such petition, since the CACC circulated an unsigned response on the executive director's letterhead rebutting some of the claims made against it, we will comment on such response.
Regarding criticism of Mayor Giuliani's handling of animal management while in office, it is true that he increased funding significantly for CACC, however, despite such increase, CACC's kill numbers have remained flat with no improvement reflected by the additional funds. This is principally due to the political appointment of an inexperienced Executive Director who never embraced any policies that would attack the root of the animal overpopulation problem, and in fact, has allied herself with a segment of misguided humane professionals who believe in mass euthanasia as the ultimate solution. Mrs. Blohm has publicly stated that we kill "an acceptable number" of animals for a city of our size. As a political appointee, she has certainly taken her past cues from City Hall.
Citing Mayor Giuliani's commitment to improving animal management by his signing of a spay-neuter law that only includes shelter animals is particularly ironic, because only about 15% of the animal population is shelter animals. However, the original draft of the legislation included all animals and was deliberately watered down to include only shelter animals after heavy lobbying by CACC. That's what we call shooting yourself in the foot, CACC, because those other unaltered animals not covered by the law are reproducing in the streets and continue to wind up at your shelters every year.
The Mayor's commitment to construction of full service shelters in all boroughs continues to be unfulfilled three years later due to the negligence and incompetence of those charged with the site selection process -- CACC, DCAS and DOH officials all appointed by Mayor Giuliani. And now the money has dried up for such new construction due to the budget deficit. The current CACC Executive Director is so incompetent that the Manhattan shelter renovation scheduled to take place two years ago is still stalled in planning and is may be in jeopardy of ever happening.
So while CACC touts its grand achievement of increasing the animals' stays at CACC from two to seven days, 85% of them are killed after the seven days. What kind of empty statistical boast is that?
CACC then responds to some specific "facts" about it alleged in the petition.
Fact #1 states that no volunteers are walking dogs. CACC admits this is true, but states it is necessary due to "poor cage design" being a "safety risk" at the Manhattan shelter. This is nothing less than hyperbolic drivel. For years the same facility under ASPCA auspices and later CACC allowed volunteers to walk dogs without incident. It wasn't until a group of volunteers went to the press outraged at the inhumane conditions within that they were suddenly banned as potential whistleblowers and the volunteer program was dismantled. The fact that CACC admits "not all dogs get exercised daily" is an admission that CACC violates the NY State humane law (Art. 7, Ag & Mkts) and as to why the other shelters besides Manhattan don't allow volunteer dog walkers, CACC deliberately fails to state any excuses.
Fact #2 citing CACC's failure to have an offsite adoption program is responded to by laying the entire blame for all five boroughs on one rescuer at one location. Who is CACC kidding? It continues to fail to embrace community participation as a management decision not to relinquish control. CACC cites some mysterious veterinarians with whom it claims to have offsite adoptions, but fails to cite any numbers. Fact is, whatever numbers do exist are miniscule because the program is miniscule.
Fact #3, regarding fees that rescuers are now charged for taking animals, CACC responds that such fees are merely to cover the spay-neuter requirements CACC must meet under the law and are not "new" costs to rescuers who would have to pay for such services outside anyway and that such fees are often waived for less adoptable animals. SRAC receives numerous reports every month that the fees are charged regardless of the animal and that many of the animals released after spay-neuter surgery by CACC are sick and require expensive veterinary treatment as a result that rescuers must now incur. (Not mentioned in the petition is CACC's new $25 demand for anyone dropping off a lost or stray animal to CACC.)
Fact #4 that CACC is uncooperative with those seeking information about its operations and policies is responded to by CACC stating it allows itself to deny information to those CACC deems as having "a history of distorting the reality of information that is provided," whatever that means! The arrogance of this statement defies decency in a free society. CACC censorship has been both blatant and subtle since its creation, and it is not a coincidence that SRAC had to go to court to compel CACC to acknowledge its Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and Open Meetings Law obligations, with which CACC only begrudgingly complies. SRAC suspects that CACC has failed to provide all the information it has requested from CACC under FOIL on numerous occasions, but does not have the resources to litigate such suspicions. CACC's routine denial of telephonic requests about the status of animals continues to violate the public's right to know what will result in death 85% of the time.
The last Fact CACC responds to is its record of unnecessary animal killing and abuse of the public -- both allegations that are well documented. For the first allegation CACC claims its record is improving, despite its own statistics to the contrary, and as for the second, CACC amazingly admits it needs to do more. As the kids say, Duh!
CACC's failed alliance with its humane colleagues in NYC was due to the current management (and past board of directors) philosophy of seeing the perennial collecting and killing of animals as a "necessary evil," as CACC board Chairman, and Sanitation Commissioner, John Doherty stated in a televised interview a few years ago. Such philosophy allows the City to rationalize mass euthanasia as a reasonable management of the problem instead of solving the problem -- as other jurisdictions have done and are attempting to do with enlightened programs.
CACC has documented that executive director Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm has a history of being untrustworthy and deliberately distorts her record, as well as CACC's, with a pack of transparently fabricated lies. These are merely the latest to be dismissed by those who know her.
Shelter Reform Action Committee
Gary Kaskel, & Marie Mar, co-chairs
P.O. Box 268 Gracie Station
New York, NY 10128
(212) 886-3700
www.ShelterReform.org