The following letter was hand delivered to the new board members of
the Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC) at their first board meeting on August 16, 2002.
SHELTER REFORM ACTION COMMITTEE
P.O. Box 268 - Gracie Station
New York, NY 10028
(212) 886-3700
visit our website: www.ShelterReform.org
August 16, 2002
An open memorandum to the CACC board:
The Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) welcomes a new board to this controversial organization. Because of CACC's history, this board must now face that past and decide how to best improve things.
Our organization, which is a non-profit coalition of humane organizations and individuals from all five boroughs, has been closely monitoring the activities and policies of CACC since its inception seven years ago. For more information about us and CACC's history, we urge you to visit our website at www.ShelterReform.org.
To say the least, we believe CACC has been a failure on almost every level by which it is possible to judge its performance. Each year CACC kills 40,000 animals with no long-term strategy to correct this tragedy -- despite the success of other municipalities whose success NYC refuses to emulate. We are particularly troubled by the performance and attitude of the current executive director, Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm.
Our organization had to sue CACC and the City to enforce Freedom of Information and Open meetings Laws when CACC refused to voluntarily comply. CACC's Board has consistently failed to allow a public comment period at its board meetings to air the many grievances that have arisen due to CACC conduct, despite our making numerous requests for a forum to do so. Such attitude is repugnant in a free society and was only allowed to happen because of the prior administration's arrogance and carelessness.
At the heart of CACC's failure is the current CACC management, which has been consistently uncooperative and secretive in their approach to running this operation -- which we need not remind you is principally paid for with our tax money. Such management has made a concerted effort to discredit us because they have no other defense to their failed policies. Our allegations are neither inflammatory nor scurrilous, as they charge, but are rather made based upon eyewitness accounts brought to us unsolicited and the empirical facts. Such sort of complaints have come to us steadily during the entire time current management has been in control.
A review of the record will reveal the following failures:
1. There is no significant volunteer program at CACC, since Mrs. Blohm sees volunteers as potential whistleblowers and refuses to allow a proper number of them inside CACC. The result: dogs languish in cages without being walked, among other inhumane conditions that CACC's animals must endure.
2. As a result of not allowing volunteers, CACC has almost no off-site adoptions. Last year, Petco withdrew use of its space to CACC and gave it to North Shore Animal League as a result of CACC's failure to show up week after week. A golden opportunity lost.
3. CACC fees are arbitrary and often applied differently to different individuals. The result: CACC discriminates against poor people. (Such fees were never promulgated by the DOH, as they lawfully should be, and are inconsistent with NY State law -- a subject that will be litigated.)
4. CACC staff are too often not reachable by telephone. Members of the public -- including SRAC -- have failed to reach a human being at CACC shelters over the course of hours of calling, nor do voice mail messages usually get returned -- probably the most common and chronic complaint.
5. CACC staff and management are uncooperative with the public regarding the status of animals in its possession. Little or no information is given out by phone; callers are often told to "write letters" if they want information -- an absurd request when a 48-hour holding period is often followed by euthanasia.
6. CACC has become uncooperative with private animal rescuers, creating a cumbersome and invasive application process. CACC no longer allows rescuers to select the animals they best believe they can get adopted. And CACC now charges rescuers fees, further diminishing the chances of animals getting out of CACC alive. All are counterproductive policies that tighten CACC controls and lower adoptions.
7. Mrs. Blohm rejected offers of professional help from outside to create a CACC website to foster adoptions, and now uses inferior equipment to photograph animals for posting on Petfinder.org, makingCACC's internet presence noticeably inferior to other humane organizations that offer adoptions. Fewer than 20% of the animals listed even have accompanying photos. And of those, the poor quality of the photos of the animals make for bad public representations. And CACC continues to allow the posting of inappropriate names like Booger, Stinky and Devil, with brief and unappealing descriptions.
8. Adoption wards are often nearly empty. On one recent site visit by SRAC, only six dogs in 24 cages were observed.
9. Chronic complaints from the public about the long wait before one can even visit the adoption wards continues to plague CACC's public perception as a place of last resort to adopt.
10. The "mobile" spay-neuter & adoption van provided CACC by City Council funding is hardly that. In fact, it rarely leaves the parking lot of the Manhattan shelter because it is needed to help CACCcomply with the municipal spay-neuter law requirements Mrs. Blohm lobbied so heavily for, despite her knowledge CACC was not geared up and ready to comply with such law and wouldn't be for some time.
11. The renovation of the Manhattan shelter is two years late, thanks to CACC and DOH's combined inexperience and inability to manage this project.
12. Due to Mrs. Blohm's failure to move the Queens shelter site selection process forward with the City, there is no Queens shelter more than three years after the City Council allocated the money to build one. The Bronx site selection process is practically nonexistent, despite the Bronx being a major hot spot for lost, stray and feral dogs and cats.
13. Mrs. Blohm and other CACC management often lie about problems at CACC, such as an endangered peregrine falcon that died in CACC's custody because it wasn't sent for outside medical care in time. They have actually solicited employees to "spy" on other employees who might talk to outsiders about problems within, or who might display sympathies with humane advocates critical of CACC'smanagement. Several managers and other critical staff members have been fired since Mrs. Blohm took over without substantial cause, merely because they expressed concerns about some abusive CACCpolicies and conduct.
14. During a budget crisis, Mrs. Blohm has spend in excess of $20,000 to date on the Park Avenue public relations firm of Stanton and Crenshaw to spin-doctor the disastrous Comptroller's performance audit of CACC, with which, according to the report, Mrs. Blohm failed to cooperate. Such expenditures of money can only be characterized as reckless and self-serving by any objective standard.
15. Mrs. Blohm is so concerned with micro-managing every aspect of CACC's operations (because she is so paranoid about delegating authority to anyone who might show her off to be inadequate) that much of what needs to get done, simply doesn't. The good people at CACC either quit or get fired when they express dissatisfaction. Mrs. Blohm abuses her authority and refuses to discuss problems in an open and honest way. She deliberately distorts statistics. She has fooled no one in the New York City humane community.
All of these negative issues are caused by the current management being allowed to run CACC as though they own the place. The failure by CACC's prior board to properly supervise CACC's policies and practices has resulted in a disastrous record of deficiencies and violations. The public image of CACC and employee morale within continues to be dismal. CACC's euthanasia rate since Mrs. Blohm was installed has remained flat despite CACC's budget being doubled over the past five years.
If this isn't a picture of failure, we don't know what is.
CACC's past board of directors have contributed nothing to this operation and is allowed to violate its own bylaws. CACC is a disaster by any objective standard.
We've made a list of items we believe are essential for CACC's board to implement in order for SRAC to improve the dismal community relations CACC's prior boards and management has fostered since its inception, and ultimately succeed in reducing the killing of the animals in CACC's custody.
(1) Board members must demonstrate their good faith by embracing an open dialogue with all interested parties, abandoning the hostile attitude displayed by the prior CACC board members.
(2) Without delay, appoint a new and experienced CACC executive director who will work with the board and the community toward the goal of becoming a no-kill city.
(3) A CACC board resolution creating a mandatory public comment period at future CACC board meetings, which is not discretionary by the chair.
(4) Amend the CACC bylaws to:
(a) remove the Sanitation Commissioner as an ex-officio board member;
(b) appoint the Parks Commissioner as an ex-officio board member;
(c) create a minimum of two additional board seats.
(d) eliminate the superior voting power of the ex-officio members, giving all board members equal voting power.
(e) mandate at least quarterly board meetings and require members to attend a minimum of three meetings per year.
(5) Appoint a community humane advocate to the CACC board.
(6) Work with the DOH to begin promulgation of all fees that the CACC may charge the public in accordance with the Civil Administrative Procedures Act (CAPA) and which comply with State law.
(7) Create a standardized animal intake and disposition database that clearly states all necessary data without distortion or confusion, with such reporting requirement to be incorporated into the CACCcontract with DOH.
With these initial changes, the City and CACC will at least put itself on the road toward instituting humane animal management policies, which we believe at the end of the day, everyone wants.
We hope for a positive dialogue and positive changes ahead.
Sincerely,
Gary Kaskel, co-chair
Marie Mar, Esq., co-chair
Julie Van Ness, Treasurer
the Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC) at their first board meeting on August 16, 2002.
SHELTER REFORM ACTION COMMITTEE
P.O. Box 268 - Gracie Station
New York, NY 10028
(212) 886-3700
visit our website: www.ShelterReform.org
August 16, 2002
An open memorandum to the CACC board:
The Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) welcomes a new board to this controversial organization. Because of CACC's history, this board must now face that past and decide how to best improve things.
Our organization, which is a non-profit coalition of humane organizations and individuals from all five boroughs, has been closely monitoring the activities and policies of CACC since its inception seven years ago. For more information about us and CACC's history, we urge you to visit our website at www.ShelterReform.org.
To say the least, we believe CACC has been a failure on almost every level by which it is possible to judge its performance. Each year CACC kills 40,000 animals with no long-term strategy to correct this tragedy -- despite the success of other municipalities whose success NYC refuses to emulate. We are particularly troubled by the performance and attitude of the current executive director, Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm.
Our organization had to sue CACC and the City to enforce Freedom of Information and Open meetings Laws when CACC refused to voluntarily comply. CACC's Board has consistently failed to allow a public comment period at its board meetings to air the many grievances that have arisen due to CACC conduct, despite our making numerous requests for a forum to do so. Such attitude is repugnant in a free society and was only allowed to happen because of the prior administration's arrogance and carelessness.
At the heart of CACC's failure is the current CACC management, which has been consistently uncooperative and secretive in their approach to running this operation -- which we need not remind you is principally paid for with our tax money. Such management has made a concerted effort to discredit us because they have no other defense to their failed policies. Our allegations are neither inflammatory nor scurrilous, as they charge, but are rather made based upon eyewitness accounts brought to us unsolicited and the empirical facts. Such sort of complaints have come to us steadily during the entire time current management has been in control.
A review of the record will reveal the following failures:
1. There is no significant volunteer program at CACC, since Mrs. Blohm sees volunteers as potential whistleblowers and refuses to allow a proper number of them inside CACC. The result: dogs languish in cages without being walked, among other inhumane conditions that CACC's animals must endure.
2. As a result of not allowing volunteers, CACC has almost no off-site adoptions. Last year, Petco withdrew use of its space to CACC and gave it to North Shore Animal League as a result of CACC's failure to show up week after week. A golden opportunity lost.
3. CACC fees are arbitrary and often applied differently to different individuals. The result: CACC discriminates against poor people. (Such fees were never promulgated by the DOH, as they lawfully should be, and are inconsistent with NY State law -- a subject that will be litigated.)
4. CACC staff are too often not reachable by telephone. Members of the public -- including SRAC -- have failed to reach a human being at CACC shelters over the course of hours of calling, nor do voice mail messages usually get returned -- probably the most common and chronic complaint.
5. CACC staff and management are uncooperative with the public regarding the status of animals in its possession. Little or no information is given out by phone; callers are often told to "write letters" if they want information -- an absurd request when a 48-hour holding period is often followed by euthanasia.
6. CACC has become uncooperative with private animal rescuers, creating a cumbersome and invasive application process. CACC no longer allows rescuers to select the animals they best believe they can get adopted. And CACC now charges rescuers fees, further diminishing the chances of animals getting out of CACC alive. All are counterproductive policies that tighten CACC controls and lower adoptions.
7. Mrs. Blohm rejected offers of professional help from outside to create a CACC website to foster adoptions, and now uses inferior equipment to photograph animals for posting on Petfinder.org, makingCACC's internet presence noticeably inferior to other humane organizations that offer adoptions. Fewer than 20% of the animals listed even have accompanying photos. And of those, the poor quality of the photos of the animals make for bad public representations. And CACC continues to allow the posting of inappropriate names like Booger, Stinky and Devil, with brief and unappealing descriptions.
8. Adoption wards are often nearly empty. On one recent site visit by SRAC, only six dogs in 24 cages were observed.
9. Chronic complaints from the public about the long wait before one can even visit the adoption wards continues to plague CACC's public perception as a place of last resort to adopt.
10. The "mobile" spay-neuter & adoption van provided CACC by City Council funding is hardly that. In fact, it rarely leaves the parking lot of the Manhattan shelter because it is needed to help CACCcomply with the municipal spay-neuter law requirements Mrs. Blohm lobbied so heavily for, despite her knowledge CACC was not geared up and ready to comply with such law and wouldn't be for some time.
11. The renovation of the Manhattan shelter is two years late, thanks to CACC and DOH's combined inexperience and inability to manage this project.
12. Due to Mrs. Blohm's failure to move the Queens shelter site selection process forward with the City, there is no Queens shelter more than three years after the City Council allocated the money to build one. The Bronx site selection process is practically nonexistent, despite the Bronx being a major hot spot for lost, stray and feral dogs and cats.
13. Mrs. Blohm and other CACC management often lie about problems at CACC, such as an endangered peregrine falcon that died in CACC's custody because it wasn't sent for outside medical care in time. They have actually solicited employees to "spy" on other employees who might talk to outsiders about problems within, or who might display sympathies with humane advocates critical of CACC'smanagement. Several managers and other critical staff members have been fired since Mrs. Blohm took over without substantial cause, merely because they expressed concerns about some abusive CACCpolicies and conduct.
14. During a budget crisis, Mrs. Blohm has spend in excess of $20,000 to date on the Park Avenue public relations firm of Stanton and Crenshaw to spin-doctor the disastrous Comptroller's performance audit of CACC, with which, according to the report, Mrs. Blohm failed to cooperate. Such expenditures of money can only be characterized as reckless and self-serving by any objective standard.
15. Mrs. Blohm is so concerned with micro-managing every aspect of CACC's operations (because she is so paranoid about delegating authority to anyone who might show her off to be inadequate) that much of what needs to get done, simply doesn't. The good people at CACC either quit or get fired when they express dissatisfaction. Mrs. Blohm abuses her authority and refuses to discuss problems in an open and honest way. She deliberately distorts statistics. She has fooled no one in the New York City humane community.
All of these negative issues are caused by the current management being allowed to run CACC as though they own the place. The failure by CACC's prior board to properly supervise CACC's policies and practices has resulted in a disastrous record of deficiencies and violations. The public image of CACC and employee morale within continues to be dismal. CACC's euthanasia rate since Mrs. Blohm was installed has remained flat despite CACC's budget being doubled over the past five years.
If this isn't a picture of failure, we don't know what is.
CACC's past board of directors have contributed nothing to this operation and is allowed to violate its own bylaws. CACC is a disaster by any objective standard.
We've made a list of items we believe are essential for CACC's board to implement in order for SRAC to improve the dismal community relations CACC's prior boards and management has fostered since its inception, and ultimately succeed in reducing the killing of the animals in CACC's custody.
(1) Board members must demonstrate their good faith by embracing an open dialogue with all interested parties, abandoning the hostile attitude displayed by the prior CACC board members.
(2) Without delay, appoint a new and experienced CACC executive director who will work with the board and the community toward the goal of becoming a no-kill city.
(3) A CACC board resolution creating a mandatory public comment period at future CACC board meetings, which is not discretionary by the chair.
(4) Amend the CACC bylaws to:
(a) remove the Sanitation Commissioner as an ex-officio board member;
(b) appoint the Parks Commissioner as an ex-officio board member;
(c) create a minimum of two additional board seats.
(d) eliminate the superior voting power of the ex-officio members, giving all board members equal voting power.
(e) mandate at least quarterly board meetings and require members to attend a minimum of three meetings per year.
(5) Appoint a community humane advocate to the CACC board.
(6) Work with the DOH to begin promulgation of all fees that the CACC may charge the public in accordance with the Civil Administrative Procedures Act (CAPA) and which comply with State law.
(7) Create a standardized animal intake and disposition database that clearly states all necessary data without distortion or confusion, with such reporting requirement to be incorporated into the CACCcontract with DOH.
With these initial changes, the City and CACC will at least put itself on the road toward instituting humane animal management policies, which we believe at the end of the day, everyone wants.
We hope for a positive dialogue and positive changes ahead.
Sincerely,
Gary Kaskel, co-chair
Marie Mar, Esq., co-chair
Julie Van Ness, Treasurer
