| Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) ShelterReform.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about the AC&C, but were afraid to ask. |
| Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) ShelterReform.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about the AC&C, but were afraid to ask. |
| August 1, 2011 Last week, there was an announcement about a tentative agreement secretly thrashed about between City officials on the one hand, and the Mayor’s Alliance and the ASPCA on the other. Mayor Bloomberg described the proposed Agreement as reflecting the City’s “commitment to significantly improving” the care of ACC animals. The ACC described the agreement as “good news.” The ACC Volunteer Coordinator breathlessly described the agreement as “great news.” THE FIRST RULE OF ACC SHELTER POLITICS: Whenever someone says there’s “great” or “good” news about the ACC, always take a good hard look at the facts behind that news The proposed Agreement gives Mayor Bloomberg and the DOH what they've always wanted: a pass from having to build animal shelters for the Bronx and Queens. And the City would get this deal at a bargain basement price: just $10 million spread out over 3 years. Ah, you might say: “The ACC really needs money. And, after all, it is $10 million. Isn’t that good news?” It’s not … for three key reasons: First, the Funding is Inadequate: The DOH has always underfunded animal care and control services. In 1994, the last year the ASPCA was in charge of the City’s shelter system, the DOH provided a budget of $7 million, which the ASPCA complained was too little. Sixteen years later, and the ACC is stuck with that same $7 million figure (after the DOH cut the ACC’s budget by $1.5 million over the past two years). What should the ACC’s budget be? According to The Humane Society of the U.S., per capita (meaning, per City resident) funding should be between $4 to $8. But this proposed Agreement envisions that, by 2014, the ACC budget could be increased from $0.87 per capita to $1.47 … far less than the minimum $4 figure the HSUS proposes. Why did the ASPCA and the Alliance settle for just $10 million, while giving away the requirement of shelters for the Bronx and Queens? It’s clear that conditions at the ACC have reached a crisis point. Jane Hoffman, head of the Alliance, explained that: "The political reality, the budget reality and the loss of the [Stray From The Heart] lawsuit say we are not going to get them [meaning, the shelters]." She explained that the ACC had cut its staffing by 50%, so that these additional monies would allow the ACC to start rehiring staff. Read the article. Yet, without additional shelters, these monies will do nothing to relieve the chronic overcrowding and the animals' suffering. But apparently the Alliance and the ASPCA opted for what they thought they could get out of the City.. Unfortunately, the proposed Agreement does nothing to address the second key problem: who will be in charge of this new-found money? Second, Any Monies Made Available to ACC’s Current Management Team Will Be Wasted: The proposed Agreement allows Executive Director Julie Bank to continue her failed management of the ACC. She and her management team will continue to antagonize and demoralize employees, volunteers and rescuers alike. But she’s the DOH’s ideal person to run the ACC: never complaining or challenging the DOH, and eager to claim that the ACC provides “high quality” care for its shelter animals. And that leads us to the third, and the central, problem this Agreement fails to address: the DOH itself. Third, as Long as the DOH Controls the ACC, No Amount of Money Will Ensure Success: The Agreement does nothing to address the core reason for the ACC’s unbroken 16-year record of failure: the DOH. The DOH has no interest in animal care, but only in animal control. The Mayor and the DOH pack the ACC Board of Directors with rubberstamps for themselves. In turn, the ACC Board selects ACC top executives based on the executives’ agreement to protect the DOH and the Mayor from embarrassment. When the ACC Board’s loyalty is to the Mayor and the DOH – and not to shelter animals – nothing good will happen for the animals. THE SECOND RULE OF ACC SHELTER POLITICS: To ensure That the ACC Fails, Put the DOH in Charge. Rather than removing the DOH’s stranglehold over ACC, this Agreement would actually expand the DOH’s power over animal care issues. Take dog licensing. Last December, ASPCA President Ed Sayres testified that for 16 years, the DOH has failed to secure and enforce compliance with the City’s dog licensing law. Mr. Sayres also challenged the DOH’s claim of a 20% compliance rate with dog licensing as being far too high. Even though the DOH has demonstrated a total disinterest in dog licensing, this proposed Agreement would give the DOH another animal-related responsibility: policing cat owners who fail to spay/neuter their free roaming pets. Right. As if the DOH officers will go around checking to see if free roaming pet cats have been spayed or neutered. PLEASE TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT THIS PROPOSED AGREEMENT We urge the parties to this proposed Agreement to go back to the table, and address the core problem: freeing the ACC from the DOH. Back in 1980, committed and well-connected New York City residents saved Central Park from the City’s neglect by creating the Central Park Conservancy. Mayor Koch was more than happy to allow private individuals to do the City’s work, and be responsible for maintaining Central Park, bringing professionalism and skill to the task. We ask civic leaders and philanthropists to step up and offer to fill the ACC Board, using their skills, connections, and resources to be game changers for the ACC. But first, Mayor Bloomberg must allow them to do so. That starts by removing the DOH from the equation. Please go to http://shelterreform.org/SecretAgreement.html for our initial analysis of this backroom deal. The Alliance has subsequently clarified that the Agreement is not a done-deal. The proposed Agreement must be brought before the City Council (probably in August or September), and we trust the Council will hold hearings on the subject. Below is a statement from rescue group STRAY FROM THE HEART on hearing news of this proposed agreement. |
Stray From the Heart issued the following statement We are happy to learn that the ACC will benefit from the funding restored to their annual budget. But this agreement does not address the fundamental problem with our shelter system, which is the lack of full-time shelters in the five boroughs. It is simply a band-aid to the current crisis in our shelters where thousands of family dogs and cats are killed each year because the Department of Health refuses to follow the mandates of the City Council's Animal Shelter and Sterilization Act of 2000. The Act requires full-service, full-time shelters in all boroughs, not just vans serving as receiving centers. Where will these dogs and cats picked up or dropped off at these receiving centers go? Obviously, they will end up in the Brooklyn and Manhattan shelters where overcrowded, disease infested conditions continue to force ACC management to euthanize thousand of good dogs and cats to make room for others each year. |