The following is the full text of a letter from NY City Council Health Committee Chair Christine Quinn to Dr. Thomas Frieden, Commisioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene regarding the status of the Center for Animal Care & Control.
[NY City Council letterhead]
June 6, 2003
Dr. Thomas Frieden
Commissioner, NYC DOHMH
125 Worth Street
New York, NY 10013
Dear Commissioner Frieden:
I am writing to express my extreme dismay about not being kept informed of developments in the search for a new Executive Director (ED) for the Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC). From the outset of my tenure as chair of the Health Committee, I have requested to be informed of the developments of Marilyn Hagerty-Blohm's replacement, as I knew her position as ED of CACC was coming to an end. To that end, Health Committee staff has made frequent contact with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's (DOHMH) Intergovernmental Affairs Office (IAO) to receive updates on this issue. As recently as May 13, 2003, Committee staff inquired about the status of Ed Boks as a candidate for ED, as it had been publicized that he was offered the position and was due to give his decision by the end of April. At that time, we were informed that Mr. Boks had not officially made a decision. Thus, you can imagine my surprise upon learning that he had actually declined the offer approximately two weeks before this inquiry, and that I learned of this not through DOHMH or the Mayor's Office, but by animal rights advocates.
As you may know, animal rights advocates feel as if DOHMH has not kept them informed of changes taking place within CACC, and, as a result, I have had significant pressure to provide oversight on their behalf in this regard. However, notwithstanding this pressure, I believe that I have been extremely flexible in allowing DOHMH, the Mayor's Office and CACC to reconstruct CACC's Board of Directors and find a new ED before I conduct an oversight hearing on the operations of CACC. Furthermore, for this same reason, I have delayed requesting a meeting between several Council Members, DOHMH, the Mayor's Office, and CACC (a meeting which the Mayor's Office promised on the day the Health Committee passed amendments to the Animal Shelter and Sterilization Act last June) regarding the status of building a full service shelter in Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Therefore, at the very least, I feel that I should be accurately apprised by DOHMH of the status of CACC and its essential personnel actions.
As the Department's IAO was informed earlier this month, I plan to have a hearing on CACC in the early fall. This time frame was initially set to allow new CACC Board members and a new ED some time to settle in and become fully acquainted with the operations of CACC. Although it has been difficult to fill this position, the Health Committee will hold a hearing on this important topic in the early fall regardless of whether a new ED is in place.
While I appreciate the staffing difficulties in the IAO, and appreciate the fact that on the vast majority of issues the IAO and its staff do a terrific job keeping me and my staff informed, I am nonetheless frustrated by the level of non-communication regarding this issue. This is even more discouraging given the lack of communication to my office last year prior to and during the process while amending the Shelter and Sterilization Act and the volatile future of full service shelters in each borough.
Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to ask about the status of acquiring shelter sites in Queens and the Bronx. As part of the Health Committee's negotiations of the Act with the Mayor's Office, it was agreed that these two boroughs would delay having full-service shelters open until July 1, 2006 if site plans were completed for a shelter in each of these boroughs by July 1, 2004. Given the long process for siting and acquiring land I would like to know of the status of your efforts in this matter.
I hope to be kept well-informed about this issue in the future. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
/s/ Christine Quinn, Chair
Committee on Health
cc: Fran Paris
Louise Cohen
Health Committee Members
Council Members
C. Virginia Fields
Marty Markowitz
Adolfo Carriõn, Jr.
Helen Marshall
James Molinaro
Jane Hoffman, Mayor's Alliance for NYC Animals
Gary Kaskel, Shelter Reform Action Committee
Elizabeth Forel, Coalition For NYC Animals
Lisa Weisberg, ASPCA
Gail Buchwald, ASPCA
Julie Van Ness, UAA
Martha Favillo, UAA
Dr. Deborah Tanzer
Zelda Penzel, PEACE
Jeanne Isenstein
Barbara Stragno, In Defense of Animals
Lisa Esposito, Veterinary Medical Association of NYC
Sandra Lewis, Friends of Animals