This was posted Sunday Oct. 24 at the Dallas Animal Advocates blog. I broke it up into paragraphs for easier reading.
Surprise briefing Monday!
Tomorrow, Monday 10/25/2010, the Dallas City Council’s Quality of Life Committee will be briefed by Dallas Animal Services. The briefing, scheduled to being at 1 p.m. was scheduled without the knowledge of the Animal Shelter Commission, who only accidentally found out about it.
DAS is scheduled to discuss the background of Dallas Animal Services, including the 2001 HSUS report, an operational overview of Dallas Animal Services, a review of recent events that includes “Manager of Animal Control Resigned” (well, yes, that’s what happens when you tell someone you’re eliminating their position and give them a pink slip!), and a nifty comparison of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio’s animal control departments.
1st question – Does the City operate a shelter. Duh. 2nd question – “Is there a commission, and how many member are on the Commission?” Then questions about annual impoundments (stats from 2005), # of animals surrendered and are their drop boxes available? Read the entire briefing HERE. If you are interested, it’s open to the public, but there’s no public comment period.
Before you start thinking "Crap, I would have liked to attend," hang on - the Committee briefing was cancelled almost as quickly as it was announced.
I couldn't get Google Docs to upload the briefing, but if you surf over to:
http://www.dallasanimaladvocates.org/
You can download the briefing as a PDF from the blog entry.
My first question: why the FUCK are they referring to the 2001 HSUS shelter evaluation? Does this year's evaluation suck that badly?
Second question: Why does this briefing not mention our fair city's appallingly high euthanasia rate? Perhaps the City Hall mindset is: We've been killing around 80% of the animals we "shelter" for decades, so there's no reason to keep up the good work.
And when will we finally hear what the 2010 HSUS evaluation contains? If it took me - or most of my readers - as much time to present a single report, we'd all have been fired for incompetence.
7 comments:
Well, the HOUSTON 2005 stat is the only one I see with the asterisk....but with these people, who knows how many the rest are killing...San Antonio is not even picking UP animals these days! and why is the 2005 Houston the only one used? not later??? duh? is right. I do hope you can get to the meeting on Thurs.
I also hope you noted that page 3 of the attachment wasn't there on the agenda for that meeting YESTERDAY. I shall go look now but if you know who to call for a complaint about that page missing, that you can do it. TIA for all you do!
I do hope you realize that the city was told 2 years ago that they should enforce the laws they had on the books and that the ones proposed would not work. They did not listen.
OMG, Ft. Worth is on the map in a Dallas meeting room? Cool! Here are some animal stats from Ft. Worth over the past few years starting with 2009 -2010:
Cat save rate 16% - 4,499 killed, 5,363 impounded
Dog save rate 36% - 7,543 killed, 11,801 impounded
2007 - dog save rate - 30% - 17,690 killed,... 25,529 impounded
2006 - dog save rate - 35% - 14,925 killed, 23,256 impounded
2005 - dog save rate - 34% - 14850 killed, 22,598 impounded
I spoke with Scott Hanlan this afternoon over the phone. I believe Scott is Asst. Director of Code, not sure though; however, I know he's a decision maker for Ft. Worth Animal Control and a very pleasing guy to converse with because his demeanor has an appearance of open-ness and kindness. He was responding to a follow up email of mine that I had sent him and Keane Menefee who is direct supervisor of the shelter (THLN protects this guy big time because he travels to Austin and testifies for them).
In a meeting I had with both guys about 2-3 weeks ago, they needed time to 'think about' how they wanted to proceed with me and if I could volunteer at the shelter.
Scott and my conversation was very pleasant, civil and respectful. He said that they had made the decision to not allow me to volunteer at the Ft. Worth Animnal Shelter because, "just like any other organization or employer, they didn't feel that I was supportive of their mission." He said something about protecting the staff. I asked what they meant. He explained that he felt like they'd be defending their operation more than they wanted to and that would be counter productive.
He said I was not going to be the "Impetus of Change, that dramatic changes were not a priority for FWAC. Their 3 top priorities are:
Public Safety
Answering Calls in the field
Care of the animals in the shelter.
I asked about the drop from 25K to 11K impounds around 2008 and why the save rate didn't go up. His reply was, "that's probably all of the aggressive Pit Bulls."
I thanked him for calling me back and wanted him to understand that I will advocate for dramatic changes in Ft. Worth Animal Shelter and I hoped he would understand. He did.
I was thankful for the call. At least they are willing to commmunicate which is more than I can say for Humane Society of North Texas.
Thanks FP!!
Oh, and we discussed No Kill a bit. He said there is a no kill shelter in the area and it doesn't work, that animals can't get in. I explained that that was not No Kill with a capital N and capital K, that was zero kill and that I was so disappointed and frustrated that they weren't even willing to educate themselves on the No Kill equation and theory. He said that he (they) thought that Keane Menefee was one of the best shelter managers in the Country and seemed set on the status quo. There you have it.
ADAC wasn't invited? Maybe they are taking a second look at Skippy. Perhaps No Kill is coming to town. We can only hope!
I meant, ASAC - Animal Shelter Advisory Commission.
I see someone calling themselves Skippy II is trying to bad mouth this blog on Frontburner.....
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