Videotaped statement of
former CACC Manhattan Assistant Shelter Director
JEFF PIONTEK
1. I am a animal specialist with more than 12 years of professional experience. I am licensed as a special harness horse driver and trainer by the State of New York. I professionally trained race horses for eight years. I also worked for the NYPD Troop B mounted unit on West 42nd Street for almost four years running the barn. I worked at a small animal clinic where we handled birds, exotics and dogs and cats. Prior to joining the Center for Animal Care and Control, I was employed at the Bronx Zoo for three years doing research on nutrition where I published papers. My title there was wild animal keeper. I worked hands-on with everything from mice to monkeys to elephants.
2. I was employed at the Center for Animal Care and Control as a shelter supervisor from May 1, 1998 until my termination on November 30, 1998. I was third in charge at the Manhattan shelter, responsible for all of the kennel staff. When my supervisors were not on site, I was also in charge of clerical staff, the vet techs, the porters and basically responsible for the running of the shelter.
3. I was interviewed by Dina Margolis, the human resources director, and hired by Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm, the executive director. Although I asked for a formal job description, I never received one. When I arrived at CACC things seemed to be in disarray, particularly with the paperwork. No one seemed to know what their specific job was. When you asked people what they did, they would say things like "I work in the office." Nobody had specific job duties.
4. CACC policies and procedures were not what they say they were doing. I believed CACC's mission was to take any animal that came in the door and place as many of those animals as possible for adoption. As the months went on, I became more vocal about the amount of animals that were being put to sleep, particularly the pit bulls and rotweilers, many of which were highly adoptable animals.
5. Often junior members of the adoption staff would evaluate the animals for temperament, because there were so many animals coming in. In my opinion, this also led to more animals being put down due to misevaluations.
6. They were taking animals in that were already stressed and putting them in a cage. If that animal showed any aggression toward that cage, they're automatically statusing them 4T, a step below the worst status.This meant they would be euthanized. In addition, when a pit bull was statused, it automatically had a P at the end of its status, indicating it was a pit bull breed, and more likely to be put down.
7. My observations were that the cages were inhumane. Many cages housed dogs that were too large for them. Routinely dogs would get their legs cut being lifted in and out of cages. Many dogs were never removed from their cages, even when the cages were being cleaned. Cages for exotic animals were substandard. Birds and reptiles were being housed in the same area. I wrote a memorandum of recommendations to correct this, using the same American Humane Association guidelines we used at the Bronx Zoo, and nothing happened. Even a request as simple as putting a piece of plexiglass in from of the cat cages so we could put shredded paper in for them to play with that would not fall out onto the floor was not implemented.
8. There were only a handful of volunteers when I was there, perhaps five in all. Ninety percent of the dogs were never walked. Cats were never exercised. People who came in and asked to volunteer were told to contact Jody Jones, the adoptions and volunteer coordinator. Most of those people I never saw again. Several people told me that they called her and she never responded.
9. Animals that were euthanized were routinely not checked to see if they were dead or alive before they were put in the bin. On at least one occasion, I was told that a dog was alive the following morning after being put in the bin. Pregnant dogs at any stage were routinely put down. When I inquired why a better quality euthanasia solution called Fatal Plus was not being used, I was told by the shelter manager, JoyceClemmons, that she inquired and was told it was not cost effective.
10. Animals were routenly put down despite the fact that there were empty cages. On several occasions, animals scheduled for euthanasia were returned to adoptions because the wrong i.d. card accompanied the animal. Substandard paper collars were used to identify dogs and cats that the animals would often chew right through and fall off. Every day we would have to replace collars.
11. When I asked why we weren't using plastic collars like the i.d. bracelets used in hospitals that lock, I was told that the paper collars only cost seven cents and plastic cost thirty cents. Missing collars led to confusion at the euthanasia room every week. I have memos I sent to the foreman saying the card and collar problem is ongoing and must be solved. We had animals that didn't match their cards every day in the wards. As a result, there were animals that were owned that were put down by mistake.
12. Many of the intake cards that were supposed to be time stamped were not. There is no doubt in my mind that this caused some animals to be put down prior to the mandatory 48-hour holding period. Sometimes staff were written up for failing to time stamp and sometime they were not. I could not write up staff without permission from my supervisors.
13. Some staff were completely unqualified to identify animals for intake. They brought in an animal evaluator named Sue Sternbern for just one day to train the clerical workers in the Bronx. Nonetheless, boxers, bulldogs, pit bulls were routinely mismarked as a pit mix or shep mix. If you didn't know animals well, there was a chart of all the dog breeds on the wall published by Purina to consult. When they painted, they removed it because it was deemed unsightly and replaced with a small guidebook that was chained in a desk drawer that I never saw anyone use. They also removed the same chart from the medical room, because they said the medical staff should know dog breeds without looking at a chart, which I disagreed with because the dominant characteristic of a mixed breed dog is often difficult to identify without comparing individual body parts.
14. CACC redemption fees were often arbitrary, depending upon the clerk, and in my opinion ridiculous. There were people who came in and couldn't afford to pay the redemption fees. Management said they would work with people, but the fact is they were sticklers and would demand people get the money anywhere they could. They would very rarely reduce the fee, and I know for a fact that people were informed of fees in excess of $150 and the people never returned for their animals. Some of these animals were put down. Joyce Clemmons would never reduce fees, although Ben Gill occasionally would.
15. I was told to take identification from people who brought in animals for owner-requested euthanasia and record the information, but I know that many clerks did not take i.d., or sometimes people would refuse to give i.d. and the animals were accepted anyway and euthanized within 24 hours. The clerks are understaffed and undertrained to deal with the public.
16. Management failed to train people properly. There were clerical mistakes all the time that were never rectified. Records were kept in pencil if there were no pens handy, including intake cards and transportation logs. I had to take a single register drawer key to each clerical person because if more than one person had a key to a drawer, there would be money missing, and I was responsible for checking to see if the money in the drawer matched the receipts.
17. When I was there, the press was no allowed in at all. I was told they had to have prior approval from Doug Mansfield to come in. We knew ahead of time if the press was coming. And there were always preparations to clean up and groom animals. There were actually people, put on. If there were supposed to be eight kennel attendants, there were eleven that day.
18. Two days after I started at CACC, Fox-5 television came to the shelter undercover using a hidden camera. One of the staff noticed they had a bag and when they left they got into a car with press plates. It was chaos. They had to call Doug Mansfield.
19. When the Humane Society came to do their evaluation, they scrubbed the walls. If you looked in the medical room on the right side, there was always blood on the wall, from animals that were polled or previously injured. I was ordered to clean it off.
20. Marlyn Blohm told New York Magazine that there was a vet tech, a kennel person, an attendant and a handler on duty from the 12 to 8 shift overnight. The records clearly show that 90 percent of the time there was only one person on duty. No one wanted to work that shift, particularly Sundays. Mrs. Blohm knew that.
21. There was definitely a directive from management to make the shelter look better when inspections by the press or others were going to happen.
22. The chief veterinarian's office was down at Park Place; she only visited the shelter once every ten days or two weeks. There was only one full time licensed vet on duty during the days, which was inadequate for 400 animals. They had vet techs that were unlicensed to cover everything. Many of them didn't speak English well. They came from Nigeria and India and other foreign countries. It was common that only an unlicensed vet tech was on duty overnight. Some of them were not very good.
23. There were numerous disputes between employees about animals scheduled to be put down. There was a six month old pit bull that came down from holding that Jim Moll asked Joyce Clemmons not to sign down. He asked if she could give it just another day because there was room. He practically pleaded with her. But, she told him no, she had to do it, because it came from DOH with a letter saying it was okay to euthanize this animal, and she took things very literally, even though the animal was sweet. The dog was put down that day.
24. On November 30, seven months after I was hired, Doug Mansfield and Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm walked into the office. Joyce Clemons and Wes Artope, my supervisors, were already in the office. Doug told me I was being terminated. I asked why and he told me I was undermining Joyce's and Wes' ability to run the shelter. I asked him what does that mean, what did I do wrong? He told me if that if you can look yourself in the mirror and think you did nothing wrong, then that's okay. I asked him what does that mean, and he said you know what I mean and then repeated the same statement again. They told me they wanted all audio and video tapes, computers disks and paperwork I created at work or at home. They searched my bag and my person, asked to look in my car and the trunk, and confiscated everything. They looked at the computer disks on the computer screen. They asked to listen to an audio tape of a microrecorder I had in my pocket which only had my personal notations for a class I was taking.
25. Five days after being terminated I received a letter from Doug Mansfield stating that
26. When I applied for unemployment insurance, I was denied, because they said there was gross misconduct. I never received any warnings about my job performance. They claimed that I divulged confidential information to other members of the shelter. Even at the subsequent unemployment hearing, where Doug Mansfield, Dina Margolis and Joyce Clemmons appeared, Doug said that my job performance was never in question. What they said it came down to was a time that I showed the log book to Nicky Pagnato, an adoptions coordinator, where I had written up two employees the previous day for having a loud personal argument at the front counter. I thought Nicky was a manager on my level, but apparently she was not. That was an infraction of CACC's management rules. But I had asked for my job description at least ten times and never received one. And despite the fact that ten other people in the shelter front office were privy to the altercation that I noted in the log.
27. On my last day there were 257 animals and 403 cages. Joyce signed down 53 animals. I asked why she was signing down so many animals. She asked if I was questioning her authority. I said, no, I thought we were all working for the same goal here. She said that what they had to do. I think I was fired because I was vocal about the number of animals being put to sleep. And because Joyce and Wes were paranoid. Jody Jones told me I wish I could clone you. I was putting in sixty and sixty-five hours a week and being paid for thirty-five, with no overtime or comp time. It was their paranoia.
28. We weren't allowed to talk about anything that went on in the shelter. We were told to direct any inquiries to Doug Mansfield, the CACC's lawyer. I used to say this is the CACC not the CIA, and they used to get mad.
former CACC Manhattan Assistant Shelter Director
JEFF PIONTEK
1. I am a animal specialist with more than 12 years of professional experience. I am licensed as a special harness horse driver and trainer by the State of New York. I professionally trained race horses for eight years. I also worked for the NYPD Troop B mounted unit on West 42nd Street for almost four years running the barn. I worked at a small animal clinic where we handled birds, exotics and dogs and cats. Prior to joining the Center for Animal Care and Control, I was employed at the Bronx Zoo for three years doing research on nutrition where I published papers. My title there was wild animal keeper. I worked hands-on with everything from mice to monkeys to elephants.
2. I was employed at the Center for Animal Care and Control as a shelter supervisor from May 1, 1998 until my termination on November 30, 1998. I was third in charge at the Manhattan shelter, responsible for all of the kennel staff. When my supervisors were not on site, I was also in charge of clerical staff, the vet techs, the porters and basically responsible for the running of the shelter.
3. I was interviewed by Dina Margolis, the human resources director, and hired by Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm, the executive director. Although I asked for a formal job description, I never received one. When I arrived at CACC things seemed to be in disarray, particularly with the paperwork. No one seemed to know what their specific job was. When you asked people what they did, they would say things like "I work in the office." Nobody had specific job duties.
4. CACC policies and procedures were not what they say they were doing. I believed CACC's mission was to take any animal that came in the door and place as many of those animals as possible for adoption. As the months went on, I became more vocal about the amount of animals that were being put to sleep, particularly the pit bulls and rotweilers, many of which were highly adoptable animals.
5. Often junior members of the adoption staff would evaluate the animals for temperament, because there were so many animals coming in. In my opinion, this also led to more animals being put down due to misevaluations.
6. They were taking animals in that were already stressed and putting them in a cage. If that animal showed any aggression toward that cage, they're automatically statusing them 4T, a step below the worst status.This meant they would be euthanized. In addition, when a pit bull was statused, it automatically had a P at the end of its status, indicating it was a pit bull breed, and more likely to be put down.
7. My observations were that the cages were inhumane. Many cages housed dogs that were too large for them. Routinely dogs would get their legs cut being lifted in and out of cages. Many dogs were never removed from their cages, even when the cages were being cleaned. Cages for exotic animals were substandard. Birds and reptiles were being housed in the same area. I wrote a memorandum of recommendations to correct this, using the same American Humane Association guidelines we used at the Bronx Zoo, and nothing happened. Even a request as simple as putting a piece of plexiglass in from of the cat cages so we could put shredded paper in for them to play with that would not fall out onto the floor was not implemented.
8. There were only a handful of volunteers when I was there, perhaps five in all. Ninety percent of the dogs were never walked. Cats were never exercised. People who came in and asked to volunteer were told to contact Jody Jones, the adoptions and volunteer coordinator. Most of those people I never saw again. Several people told me that they called her and she never responded.
9. Animals that were euthanized were routinely not checked to see if they were dead or alive before they were put in the bin. On at least one occasion, I was told that a dog was alive the following morning after being put in the bin. Pregnant dogs at any stage were routinely put down. When I inquired why a better quality euthanasia solution called Fatal Plus was not being used, I was told by the shelter manager, JoyceClemmons, that she inquired and was told it was not cost effective.
10. Animals were routenly put down despite the fact that there were empty cages. On several occasions, animals scheduled for euthanasia were returned to adoptions because the wrong i.d. card accompanied the animal. Substandard paper collars were used to identify dogs and cats that the animals would often chew right through and fall off. Every day we would have to replace collars.
11. When I asked why we weren't using plastic collars like the i.d. bracelets used in hospitals that lock, I was told that the paper collars only cost seven cents and plastic cost thirty cents. Missing collars led to confusion at the euthanasia room every week. I have memos I sent to the foreman saying the card and collar problem is ongoing and must be solved. We had animals that didn't match their cards every day in the wards. As a result, there were animals that were owned that were put down by mistake.
12. Many of the intake cards that were supposed to be time stamped were not. There is no doubt in my mind that this caused some animals to be put down prior to the mandatory 48-hour holding period. Sometimes staff were written up for failing to time stamp and sometime they were not. I could not write up staff without permission from my supervisors.
13. Some staff were completely unqualified to identify animals for intake. They brought in an animal evaluator named Sue Sternbern for just one day to train the clerical workers in the Bronx. Nonetheless, boxers, bulldogs, pit bulls were routinely mismarked as a pit mix or shep mix. If you didn't know animals well, there was a chart of all the dog breeds on the wall published by Purina to consult. When they painted, they removed it because it was deemed unsightly and replaced with a small guidebook that was chained in a desk drawer that I never saw anyone use. They also removed the same chart from the medical room, because they said the medical staff should know dog breeds without looking at a chart, which I disagreed with because the dominant characteristic of a mixed breed dog is often difficult to identify without comparing individual body parts.
14. CACC redemption fees were often arbitrary, depending upon the clerk, and in my opinion ridiculous. There were people who came in and couldn't afford to pay the redemption fees. Management said they would work with people, but the fact is they were sticklers and would demand people get the money anywhere they could. They would very rarely reduce the fee, and I know for a fact that people were informed of fees in excess of $150 and the people never returned for their animals. Some of these animals were put down. Joyce Clemmons would never reduce fees, although Ben Gill occasionally would.
15. I was told to take identification from people who brought in animals for owner-requested euthanasia and record the information, but I know that many clerks did not take i.d., or sometimes people would refuse to give i.d. and the animals were accepted anyway and euthanized within 24 hours. The clerks are understaffed and undertrained to deal with the public.
16. Management failed to train people properly. There were clerical mistakes all the time that were never rectified. Records were kept in pencil if there were no pens handy, including intake cards and transportation logs. I had to take a single register drawer key to each clerical person because if more than one person had a key to a drawer, there would be money missing, and I was responsible for checking to see if the money in the drawer matched the receipts.
17. When I was there, the press was no allowed in at all. I was told they had to have prior approval from Doug Mansfield to come in. We knew ahead of time if the press was coming. And there were always preparations to clean up and groom animals. There were actually people, put on. If there were supposed to be eight kennel attendants, there were eleven that day.
18. Two days after I started at CACC, Fox-5 television came to the shelter undercover using a hidden camera. One of the staff noticed they had a bag and when they left they got into a car with press plates. It was chaos. They had to call Doug Mansfield.
19. When the Humane Society came to do their evaluation, they scrubbed the walls. If you looked in the medical room on the right side, there was always blood on the wall, from animals that were polled or previously injured. I was ordered to clean it off.
20. Marlyn Blohm told New York Magazine that there was a vet tech, a kennel person, an attendant and a handler on duty from the 12 to 8 shift overnight. The records clearly show that 90 percent of the time there was only one person on duty. No one wanted to work that shift, particularly Sundays. Mrs. Blohm knew that.
21. There was definitely a directive from management to make the shelter look better when inspections by the press or others were going to happen.
22. The chief veterinarian's office was down at Park Place; she only visited the shelter once every ten days or two weeks. There was only one full time licensed vet on duty during the days, which was inadequate for 400 animals. They had vet techs that were unlicensed to cover everything. Many of them didn't speak English well. They came from Nigeria and India and other foreign countries. It was common that only an unlicensed vet tech was on duty overnight. Some of them were not very good.
23. There were numerous disputes between employees about animals scheduled to be put down. There was a six month old pit bull that came down from holding that Jim Moll asked Joyce Clemmons not to sign down. He asked if she could give it just another day because there was room. He practically pleaded with her. But, she told him no, she had to do it, because it came from DOH with a letter saying it was okay to euthanize this animal, and she took things very literally, even though the animal was sweet. The dog was put down that day.
24. On November 30, seven months after I was hired, Doug Mansfield and Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm walked into the office. Joyce Clemons and Wes Artope, my supervisors, were already in the office. Doug told me I was being terminated. I asked why and he told me I was undermining Joyce's and Wes' ability to run the shelter. I asked him what does that mean, what did I do wrong? He told me if that if you can look yourself in the mirror and think you did nothing wrong, then that's okay. I asked him what does that mean, and he said you know what I mean and then repeated the same statement again. They told me they wanted all audio and video tapes, computers disks and paperwork I created at work or at home. They searched my bag and my person, asked to look in my car and the trunk, and confiscated everything. They looked at the computer disks on the computer screen. They asked to listen to an audio tape of a microrecorder I had in my pocket which only had my personal notations for a class I was taking.
25. Five days after being terminated I received a letter from Doug Mansfield stating that
26. When I applied for unemployment insurance, I was denied, because they said there was gross misconduct. I never received any warnings about my job performance. They claimed that I divulged confidential information to other members of the shelter. Even at the subsequent unemployment hearing, where Doug Mansfield, Dina Margolis and Joyce Clemmons appeared, Doug said that my job performance was never in question. What they said it came down to was a time that I showed the log book to Nicky Pagnato, an adoptions coordinator, where I had written up two employees the previous day for having a loud personal argument at the front counter. I thought Nicky was a manager on my level, but apparently she was not. That was an infraction of CACC's management rules. But I had asked for my job description at least ten times and never received one. And despite the fact that ten other people in the shelter front office were privy to the altercation that I noted in the log.
27. On my last day there were 257 animals and 403 cages. Joyce signed down 53 animals. I asked why she was signing down so many animals. She asked if I was questioning her authority. I said, no, I thought we were all working for the same goal here. She said that what they had to do. I think I was fired because I was vocal about the number of animals being put to sleep. And because Joyce and Wes were paranoid. Jody Jones told me I wish I could clone you. I was putting in sixty and sixty-five hours a week and being paid for thirty-five, with no overtime or comp time. It was their paranoia.
28. We weren't allowed to talk about anything that went on in the shelter. We were told to direct any inquiries to Doug Mansfield, the CACC's lawyer. I used to say this is the CACC not the CIA, and they used to get mad.