Outlook
FW: Comment for item 7.1 on today's agenda
From City Clerk
Date Tue 8/18/2026 10:52 AM
To Agendadesk
From: Rebekah Davis-Matthews
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 10:
To: City Clerk
Subject: Comment for item 7.1 on today's agenda
[External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel My apologies for sending this late but I hope that it can still be included in today's packet.
My name is Rebekah and I'm with Sustain Our Shelters. I am part of a larger group of advocates who have been coming to these meetings for almost four years. Our repeated pleas for transparency and change have fallen on deaf ears.
What it comes down to is trust, complacency, and transparency. As stated in the Grand Jury report, shelter management needs to take a hard look at rebuilding trust with the community. Take a look at any found animal-related post on social media and you will see comments from members of the public stating that animals should not be taken to the shelter. Why? Because of the many adoptable dogs silently euthanized or put on final. Because of the many cats euthanized behind the scenes or listed as final for treatable conditions like ringworm. These issues and others are the reasons that the public no longer trusts the shelter.
Complacency - current shelter management is complacent in its belief that there are no more changes that need to be made. To the contrary, there are still many gaps in services - most notably the public spay-neuter program, which keeps sputtering along at 1-2 days of TNR per week when it should be 4-5 days of both TNR and services for owned pets, IN HOUSE, as it was before the pandemic . Are you aware that the shelter currently transports TNR cats to other clinics (up to an hour away) for services when they could be done in house? With the continued explosion of puppies and kittens in our area, the time is NOW to return the shelter to its former role in supplying a robust spay-neuter program to the public, IN HOUSE.
Finally, transparency. Shelter and City management continue to manipulate past shelter statistics . Some numbers are improved, while other statistics (such as TNR) have morphed or disappeared entirely. This questionable transparency is another reason that there is a great deal of distrust by the community.
Thank you for your time.
Rebekah
This message is from outside the City email system. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources.
At the same time, municipal prevention services declined dramatically. City records reflected 1,916 surgeries for publicly owned animals in FY 2018–19, compared with only 34 in FY 2024–25. San Jose and Santa Clara County previously supported low-cost programs providing thousands of affordable surgeries through municipal and partner veterinary clinics.
The attached report also identifies 1,252 stray/found animals documented as declined shelter admission between FY 2021–22 and FY 2025–26. Because these animals did not formally enter shelter custody, they were excluded from official intake and outcome statistics and did not appear on the City's public Animal Population Dashboard.
This is particularly important because the Grand Jury itself recommended tracking and reporting animals turned away because of capacity limitations. Our review suggests that much of this information already exists within City records; the issue is whether it is consistently included in public reporting.
We also found differences among statistics reported through the SJACS public dashboard, ASPCA operational reports, Shelter Animals Count, Best Friends Animal Society, and the Animal Shelter Data Portal. For FY 2024–25, for example, the records reviewed showed differences in reported euthanasia and transfer totals.
Importantly, SJACS already maintains substantial operational information and has prepared detailed reports for outside organizations, including the ASPCA, while comparable information is not routinely available to the public and require separate Public Records Act requests. Routine publication could improve transparency while also reducing the staff time and taxpayer expense associated with repeatedly processing records requests for information the City already maintains.
I therefore respectfully ask the City Council to consider this supplemental historical information as it evaluates the Grand Jury's recommendations and the City's response, particularly regarding intake policies, declined admissions, restoration of meaningful spay/neuter prevention programs, preservation of historical data, and consistent public reporting of shelter operations and outcomes.
These issues are interconnected. If shelter intake has declined by approximately 40%, while prevention programs have simultaneously declined and responsibility for animals is increasingly shifting to residents and nonprofit rescues, we should understand those trends together—not in isolation. The report identifies this as an important question for further review.
I respectfully request that the attached report be included in the public record for Item 7.1 and considered by the Mayor, City Council, City Administration, and other appropriate officials as the City determines its next steps.
Thank you for your consideration and for your attention to the welfare of San Jose's animals and the residents and rescue organizations working to help them.
Attachments:
Supplemental Historical Information for the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury Exhibit A – San José Deepening Animal Welfare Crisis (2026)
Supplemental Historical Information for
the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury
Request for Consideration of Additional Historical Context Regarding San Jose Animal Care and Services
Dear Members of the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury, First, I would like to sincerely thank the Grand Jury for the significant time and effort devoted to investigating San José Animal Care and Services (SJACS). As a San Jose resident, founder of a local rescue organization, and representative of a statewide coalition of rescue organizations, I greatly appreciate the thoughtful work that went into examining shelter operations and identifying areas for improvement.
I respectfully submit the following historical information to complement the Grand Jury's report, adopted on May 27, 2026, that was not evaluated in report scope. My intent is not to dispute the report's findings, but to provide additional historical context that may assist the Grand Jury should these issues be reviewed again or in the future.
At the time the investigation was conducted, I was unaware that the Grand Jury was gathering information from animal protection advocates. Had I known, I would have gladly shared the historical analyses and public records our coalition has since compiled.
1. A Longer Historical Review May Provide Important Context The Grand Jury primarily analyzed approximately five years of shelter data.
However, City annual reports show that SJACS historically operated at significantly higher intake levels.
Fiscal Year Animal Intake
FY 2018–19 18,584
FY 2024–25 11,205
This represents approximately a 40% decline in annual shelter intake.
A broader historical review may help answer an important policy question:
1 If thousands fewer animals are entering the shelter each year, why does same shelter continue reporting overcrowding and rescue organizations also experiencing growing overcrowding and report increasing requests for assistance from community members.
Another aspect - prolonged animal intake freeze - pushes more animals into communities, with no assistance from the shelter.
Based on intake logs obtained through public records requests for the seven-month period from June 2025 through January 2026, 940 of 4,227 animals—approximately 22% of all animals brought to the shelter—were not documented as accepted into shelter custody ( no intake)
## of Animals Notes
Interactions logged 4715
All Animals represented 6316
TNR, Surrender, Found, Euthanasia, Stray,
Transfer, Tails & Trails program, Wildlife, Disposal,
etc.
Accepted animals 3287
Animals not explicitly accepted 940
Animals with an “Other” outcome 2089
Other Jurisdiction, Euthanised, Other Shelter,
Wildlife Center, TNR
See Rejected animals Report: Analysis of Found Animals Turned Away from San Jose ACC
2 2. Municipal Prevention Programs Declined Dramatically The Grand Jury appropriately recommends expanding prevention efforts.
However, the historical decline in municipal low-cost spay/neuter services may deserve additional examination.
Public-owned animal surgeries declined from:
Fiscal Year Public-Owned Animal
Surgeries
FY 2018–19 1,916
FY 2019–20 1,494
FY 2020–21 2
FY 2023–24 0
FY 2024–25 34
Prior to these reductions, San José and Santa Clara County operated public low-cost programs providing thousands of affordable surgeries annually through municipal ( in house) and partner veterinary clinics.
3 At the same time, public reporting of these prevention services was removed from recent annual city reports.
Understanding the relationship between declining prevention programs and increasing community animal overpopulation may provide valuable historical context.
3. Historical Public Data Has Become More Difficult to
Review
The Grand Jury notes that reporting methodologies changed over time.
Additionally, our review also found that:
● Historical datasets have become more difficult to access; ● Thousands reporting fields have changed or disappeared; ● Historical dashboards are no longer consistently available; ● Long-term trend analysis increasingly requires California Public Records Act requests.
Maintaining stable historical datasets is important for transparency and independent evaluation.
Please view the full report on the website Animal Rescuers for Change: San Jose Animal Services Under Scrutiny as Data Gaps and Policy Shifts Raise Concerns
4 4. Multiple Official Datasets Report Different Results Our review identified differences between multiple publicly available shelter statistics reported by:
● SJACS public dashboard
● ASPCA operational reports
● Shelter Animals Count
● Best Friends Animal Society
● Animal Shelter Data Portal
For example:
● reported transfer totals differ,
● euthanasia totals differ,
● reported save rates differ.
A future review reconciling these datasets may strengthen confidence in publicly reported shelter performance.
Discrepancies Between Public Animal Population Dashboard and San Jose Animal Care Services Reports provided to ASPCA for Shelter Animal Count. FY 2024-25:
OUTCOME ASPCA Reports
SJACS Public
Dashboard DIF % DIF
ADOPTION 4527 4505 -22 - 0.5%
DIED 293 290 -3 - 1%
EUTH 1363 1154 -209 - 15%
MISSING 20 32 12 + 60%
REQ EUTH 552 591 39 + 7%
RESCUE 1168 1159 -9 - 0.3%
RTF 1561 1605 44 + 3%
RTO 1138 1122 -16 - 2%
TRANSFER 985 733 -252 - 34%
FOUND ANIM 427
LOST EXP 25
Total 11607 11191 11166 - 3.6%
5 5. Animals Declined Admission Already Exist in Internal Records but Are Not Included in Public Shelter Statistics One of the Grand Jury's recommendations is that SJACS begin tracking and reporting animals turned away due to capacity limitations.
Our historical review indicates that many of these records already exist internally but are generally not reflected in publicly available shelter datasets.
Using records from the Animal Shelter Data Portal, we identified:
1,252 stray/found animals declined shelter admission between FY 2021–22 and FY 2025–26.
Because these animals never formally entered shelter custody:
● they are excluded from official shelter intake totals; ● they are excluded from annual public outcome statistics; ● they do not appear on the City's public Animal Population Dashboard. 6 Accordingly, members of the public reviewing official shelter statistics would not know these animals existed.
This appears directly relevant to the Grand Jury's recommendation regarding declined admissions.
San Jose Animal Services: 1254 Stray/Found animals Declined Acceptance in the Shelter (Remained in Public Care):
Fiscal
Year
Intake: Found
Animal Shelter Data
Portal
Outcome: Found Animals
Animal Shelter Data
Portal
Public Facing Shelter
Website
Official Animal Population
Dashboard
cat dog other cat dog other cat dog other
FY 21/22 24 113 3 19 90 2 0 0 0
FY 22/23 50 246 6 42 192 3 0 0 0
FY 23/24 58 240 1 40 188 0 0 0 0
FY 24/25 39 387 1 49 393 1 0 0 0
FY 25/26 16 70 0 12 73 0 0 0 0
Total 1252 1149 0
Currently - found animals removed from public dataset with no option to verify how many animals were mandatory adopted by finders without shelter tracking.
7 6. Unknown Outcomes for Hundreds of Animals
Among these 1,252 declined found animals, our review found:
● 994 animals remained unaltered or had unknown sterilization status; ● These animals were not routinely microchipped, spayed-neutered or vaccinated by SJACC.
● Their long-term outcomes could not be verified through publicly available shelter records. ● Untrained members of the public were placed in the position of finding adopters, arranging rehoming, and raising funds for animals’ medical needs — responsibilities that traditionally fall within the government-funded animal shelter system.
Consequently, there is currently no public mechanism to determine whether these animals were:
● reunited,
● adopted,
● surrendered elsewhere,
● abandoned,
● or contributed to continued animal overpopulation.
7. Responsibility Has Increasingly Shifted to Community Members
Our review found that individuals bringing stray animals to SJACS are frequently required to:
● keep the animal in their custody;
● provide food and daily care;
● assume legal responsibility;
● locate owners;
● arrange veterinary care;
● arrange vaccinations;
● arrange sterilization;
● arrange adoption if no owner is located.
These responsibilities were historically associated with municipal shelter services.
Yet these animals are generally not reflected in official shelter intake statistics.
8. Example Documented in Our Report
8 One documented example involved Mumoos, a pit bull brought to SJACS in July 2025.
According to shelter records:
● the finder was instructed to keep the dog for 30 days; ● the dog was not microchipped;
● the dog was not sterilized;
● the finder became overwhelmed while attempting to care for and rehome the animal; ● a nonprofit rescue ultimately assumed responsibility for veterinary care, sterilization, microchipping, and adoption.
Pinky, another found stray pit bull mix, on June 30, was not accepted, finders are actively rehoming online- the dog is not chipped, vaccinated, or spayed. The rescue is helping with ethical adoption.
In July 2026, 29 dogs were listed on PetCompass as being required to remain with their finders, in some cases exposing the finders’ personal phone numbers. Several of those dogs are no longer published on PetCompass, including Pinky, leaving no publicly available record of their status while finders were left to manage rehoming efforts on their own.
The current status of these animals is unknown. Their records are no longer available on PetCompass, and they do not appear in the publicly accessible Animal Shelter Intake and Outcomes dataset.
9 https://data.sanjoseca.gov/dataset/animal-shelter-intake-and-outcomes This example illustrates how responsibility increasingly shifts from municipal shelters to community members and nonprofit rescues.
9. Existing Operational Records Suggest Additional
Transparency Is Feasible
Our review indicates that SJACS already maintains substantial operational records.
SJACC has regularly prepared detailed reports for outside organizations, including the ASPCA, while those same reports are not publicly available. Obtaining comparable operational information often requires separate requests under the California Public Records Act.
This suggests that much of the information needed for greater transparency already exists within shelter systems.
Routine publication of these records could reduce the need for repeated Public Records Act requests, lower City staff time and costs associated with compiling responses, and improve transparency and accountability.
10. Questions for Consideration
Based on the additional historical information submitted, we respectfully ask whether future review might consider:
● extending historical analysis beyond the five-year period; ● evaluating the long-term decline in municipal prevention programs; ● examining the approximately 40% reduction in shelter intake within a broader historical context;
● reviewing the 1,252 documented found animals declined admission that are currently excluded from public shelter statistics;
● evaluating long-term outcomes for those animals;
● examining why multiple official reporting systems produce different shelter statistics; ● reviewing historical changes to public reporting fields and datasets; ● evaluating whether declining shelter intake reflects reduced community need or an increasing transfer of responsibility to residents and nonprofit rescue organizations.
Closing
We greatly appreciate the work of the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury and share the goal of improving transparency, accountability, and animal welfare within San José. 10 We respectfully request that this historical information be accepted as supplemental material for the Grand Jury record and included for consideration under Item 7.1 of the August 18, 2026 San Jose City Council meeting: Response to the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report concerning the San Jose Animal Care Center.
Our intention is simply to provide additional historical context to support a comprehensive evaluation and a more accurate understanding of how SJACC policies and performance have evolved over time.
Thank you again for your service to Santa Clara County and for your thoughtful work on behalf of the public and San Jose’s animals.
Suggested Attachments
Exhibit A – San José Deepening Animal Welfare Crisis (2026) Exhibit B – San Jose Animal Services Under Scrutiny as Data Gaps and Policy Shifts Raise Concerns
Exhibit C – San Jose’s Spay/Neuter Gap Is Shifting the Burden to Residents and Rescues Exhibit D – San Jose’s Expanding Return-to-Field Policy Is Putting Vulnerable Cats at Risk Exhibit E – Analysis of Found Animals Turned Away from San Jose ACC
This structure presents the information as a constructive supplement to the Grand Jury's work rather than a critique, while grounding each point in documented historical data from your report.
11 Outlook
FW: "Letters from the Public" for Agenda Item 7.1
From City Clerk
Date Wed 8/19/2026 7:38 AM
To Agendadesk
From: K K
Sent: Tuesday,
To: City Clerk
Subject: "Letters from the Public" for Agenda Item 7.1
[External Email. Do not open links or attachments from untrusted sources. Learn morel To Whom It May Concern,
It is never my intention to cause distress or offend anyone. However, remaining silent while animals continue to lose their lives is far, far worse. Because of this, and for the sake of these animals to ensure their protections are in place, I have chosen to be more direct and straight to the point especially in light of the recent Grand Jury report.
Before diving into these matters , I want to express my deepest gratitude to all who dedicate themselves to this cause, past and present. Thank you to those kind and diligent shelter staff, the amazing volunteers, the thoughtful TNR groups, the tireless transporters, the reputable and dedicated rescues, the compassionate donors, and the council members who have shown genuine interest in this crisis, most notably Mr. Peter Ortiz. Thank you for your tireless work.
Community Forum:
Let's start with the fact for years and years, this shelter has failed to meet the basic benchmarks of an animal care facility.
The shelter needs to keep this reality in forefront of their minds when engaging with the community. While I initially held out hope for the community forums-and still see their potential if they are restructured, the recent Zoom presentation completely missed the mark, despite the effort put into creating it.
The shelter's recent presentation appeared to take the stance that everything is fine and operating as if all standards are currently being met. The audience is not made up of preschool students; these are engaged, informed community members who already know the basics. They want to hear about genuine, substantive efforts to improve the situation, not defensive narratives and fluff designed to explain away stagnant conditions.
Presentations like that are a complete waste of everyone's time. We do not want to be spoken at; we want an honest, back-and-forth conversation.
Yes, this dialogue initially will be difficult, uncomfortable, and bumpy as it uncovers all the long running problems. There must be absolute focus, transparency, and honesty from the staff side to accomplish r
eal progress. We cannot move forward with empty platitudes and people being dodgy.
This last meeting once again raised serious concerns regarding transparency. When questions are hidden from public view, we have no way of knowing whether the shelter is answering legitimate community concerns or simply cherry-picking "softball" questions while intentionally ignoring the rest.
I had 4 unanswered questions:
1/2. Who is the behaviorist or the behavior team?
3. Will these question texts also be uploaded for the public to view? (It was too difficult to read the answers and follow along with the presentation.)
4. Have pheromones been considered in the dorms, vet clinic, and in the back of animal control vehicles and even on staff? Parado
xically, medication to reduce anxiety, fear, and aggression can exacerbate the very things it aims to treat. (Judging the animals prematurely or out of context can cost an animal his or her life.)
Solution:
Focus on Smaller, Specific Topics: Break broad discussions down into smaller, highly focused topics rather than covering too much ground at once.
Extend Meeting Duration: Allocate more time to each session so complex issues can be thoroughly discussed without rushing.
Make All Questions Public: Ensure every submitted question is visible to the entire audience so everyone can view them in real time.
Complete Topic Discussions: Require that all questions regarding a specific topic are fully answered before the meeting is allowed to skip over to the next subject.
Yes, this work is not easy. It is difficult, and it is tedious. But it has been put off for far too long, and it must finally be addressed with g
enuine sincerity.
Taking these hard steps is the only way public trust will ever be established.
Transparency. Cameras. Control.
The issue is not whether a policy or rule was broken; the real question is whether that rule or policy ever had any valid merit to begin with.
Look at what the shelter is willing to throw away: free, dedicated workers who collectively offered 12 years of service to the shelter and its animals. These individuals ran play groups to provide critical enrichment and exercise, preventing kennel stress and despondency. They created innovative systems, implementing tiered QR codes for live updates on animals, food and water logs, health statuses, kennel hygiene, and walk schedules. They even ran training sessions and orientations for new volunteers, actively improving both the animals' quality of life, reducing the burden on the shelter staff, and improving the shelter's official st atistics.
Their ultimate "crime"? Taking positive videos of dogs; videos that conflicted with a shelter narrative.
Those very dogs were ultimately killed.
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All volunteers are strictly forbidden from taking pictures or videos on-site, and they have no access to the animals who need help the most. The shelter has made every additional step unnecessary and have slowed positive progress.
As the saying goes: If you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.
The shelter has attempted to defend its restrictive photo and video ban with various amorphous, baseless reasons that do not hold up to scrutiny:
"Volunteers need to spend less time on their phones and more time with the animals." This completely discredits reality. Volunteers use those phones and videos to showcase and share dogs' training progress, discuss remedies, highlight their true personalities, and share critical behavioral assessments with prospective rescues to get them out alive.
"It's to protect the staff." This raises an immediate and alarming question: What are staff members doing that puts them in vulnerable states? Furthermore, volunteers are not filming staff members—they are filming the dogs. But if st aff actions are so questionable that documentation is viewed as a threat, it forces another consideration: Should volunteers ALSO begin recording concerning interactions between staff and animals? For the saf ety of the animals, perhaps they
should. This would make it all the more worthwhile to have cameras in the facility.
This behavior clearly shows that the shelter does not value dedicated workers. They do not want more competent hands on deck; instead, they seem to be viewing competence as competition.
This is the hallmark of a toxic environment where creativity and capability are suppressed just to ensure "the king's crown doesn't tilt."
These volunteers are the eyes and ears for the city. City leadership and shelter management should want to know if there are problems on the ground before they spiral out of control. Instead, we are seeing active concealment by the shelter.
This censorship is deeply suspicious, and the community has every right to question what leadership is trying so hard to hide.
Solutions:
Previous transparency measures and protections did not go nearly far enough.
All pictures and videos of animals should be sanctioned. There should not be limitations. It is for the safety of these animals.
And, because we are dealing with vulnerable lives and can no longer rely solely on shifting narratives, we must implement absolute accountability:
Body Cameras: Mandatory body cameras should be worn by all relevant staff, including animal control officers and v eterinary personnel.
Facility Surveillance: Cameras should be installed in all dorms, the veterinary clinic, and the back of every transport van.
This level of transparency is the only way to separate the wheat from the chaff, protect the animals, and gain an honest, undeniable understanding of how daily operations are truly being handled.
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Amorphous Behavior Team and Practices:
We also need to examine the amorphous, troubling practices of the shelter's behavior team.
Many have heard alarming reports that the behavior staff member has resorted to bear-hugging animals and intentionally provoking reactions. As if living in a chaotic, high-stress shelter environment isn't traumatic enough for an animal removed from any semblance of familiarity, actively trying to provoke them is completely illogical and cruel.
To put this into perspective, consider the guidelines set forth by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV) regarding behavioral evaluations. The shelter is not complying with their recommendations.
Suffice it to say, information indicate that those conducting behavior assessments are throwing hands in dogs' faces, perhaps banging on kennels, and using other provocative tactics. This is entirely counterintuitive. In reality, these methods do not evaluate a dog's true temperament, instead they actively train a dog to be fearful of hands and terrified of their kennels and humans.
What are the actual processes used during these behavior assessments? How are these people hired and elected to these positions? The shelter should be required to publish unedited videos of their behavior staff conducting these assessments using their current techniques, so the public and experts can evaluate their methods.
A minor class here or a basic certificate there does not automatically translate to genuine talent and competence.
Solutions:
To correct these dangerous and counterintuitive practices, concrete changes must be adopted:
Adhere to Industry Standards: The guidelines established by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV) on behavioral evaluations must be taken into strong consideration and strictly followed. These are recognized experts in the field.
Bring in Independent Experts: Rather than relying on other 'shelter circles', the shelter should bring in truly independent, reputable local experts to properly train and evaluate the staff.
Toxic Workplace Practices
There are deeply concerning reports about the shelter's internal culture, where volunteers and even staff feel forced to walk on eggshells or face active bullying. This creates a hostile envir
onment that ultimately impacts the welfare of everyone involved.
Most alarming is the apparent reward system for negligence and apparent high school level bullying.
Then, staff members who perform poorly or act negligently are promoted—yes, promoted—and then seemingly shielded from accountability; the following are only a few examples:
Dogs dying in a van, yet the responsible staff members retained and received promotions. •
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Dogs and cats dying in their kennels or succumbing to a lack of basic post-operative care and proper protocol, while problematic veterinary staff are ca tered to and protected rather than questioned.
Retaliation and intimidation, including having hours cut for those who fail to "toe the line," alongside ongoing petty nitpicking.
A glaring lack of professionalism, with some staff displaying unacceptable behavior even online, in the shelter toward customers, volunteers, and other staff.
Everyone deserves a healthy workplace, not just a select few.
Solutions:
Implement Exit Surveys: Exit surveys should be distributed to every departing staff member and volunteer, providing a safe, confidential space to fr eely recount these issues.
Launch Independent Investigations: Actively investigate the reported incidents of negligence, retaliation, and poor welfare standards.
Take Prompt Action: Immediate corrective action is required. If a specific staff member's name repeatedly surfaces in connection to these violations, removing them is the only appropriate course of action.
Promoting and Protecting Questionable and Concerning Records.
Recently, community members rallied to save a dog slated for euthanasia. Not only were they made to wait hours past their scheduled appointment, but they were told, "Not even the best here can handle that dog."
That dog is now thriving and living his best life. He could have lost his life with a snap of a finger.
This raises a serious question:
Why are everyday community members and volunteers able to safely handle these dogs even within the shelter, while full-time, paid staff are apparen tly unable to do so? If shelter employees
lack the basic capability to handle the animals in their care, why are they employed there at all?
When I visited the shelter the following day, my experience was mostly pleasant—aside from one staff member—though there wer
e delays regarding microchip information. I also learned that this particular dog had to be taken to a SNIP bus for neuter surgery. It appears that most big dogs, especially those labeled with behavior concerns, are simply nudged out to external vets in the area. So, it's not a question of the behaviors preventing these dogs from getting their surgeries....
Outside vets are accomplishing it.
This raises even more glaring questions:
Why are there FOUR salaried veterinarians with benefits on staff if they cannot handle all the animals appropriately? What does it say about the caliber of a veterinary team that passes off basic behavioral needs to outside clinics? Why are their schedules not crafted to cover all days?
While I do not know all the details, I urge you to thoroughly investigate another tragic situation involving a dog who was successfully taken out by many volunteers "hundreds of times". Because of alleged mishandling by the vet director, a dog fight occurr ed in the dorms leading to a redirect
nip or bruising. That dog was subsequently euthanized, perhaps by the same person.
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More questions: Why are staff members who are clearly unequipped to handle various types of animals, who have shown a clear history, continuously employed a government municipal shelter meant to cater to ALL animals and given opportunities upon opportunities when they cannot perform the basic duties of their jobs? Volunteers in the same shelter environment with the same animals are outperforming them. Why?
Time and time again, it is the exact same story. This was a dog who had gotten along fine with volunteers at the shelter, only to pay the ultimate price for human error.
Solution:
Remove Underperforming Staff: If personnel cannot safely and competently handle animals, they should not be employed at a municipal shelter. Better hiring standards must be implemented immediately.
Consolidate Positions and Increase Salaries: Restructure the organizational chart by consolidating redundant or ineffective administrative positions. Reallocate those funds to significan tly increase the salary of crucial, specialized roles to attract and retain true competence.
Stop Targeting Competent Advocates: This incompetence is precisely why skilled volunteers and advocates are viewed as a threat and wrongfully pushed out. They should be immediately reinstated.
Value Free Labor and Expertise: A strong reminder is needed: the work volunteers perform is done entirely for free. Most often, they are the ones taking money out of their own pockets to provide enrichment, rescue, transport, and critical time for these animals. From the city's perspective, this represents an immense net-positive role—both operationally and financially— that should be
fiercely pr otected and respected, not sidelined or undermined.
Consult the Experts: Competent volunteers should be brought into counsel regarding dog behavior and life-saving pathways, and anyone dismissed for petty, retaliatory reasons must be reinstated.
Expand Veterinary Coverage to Weekends: Adjust and fix vet schedules to provide on-site care through the weekends. This ensures animals receive continuous medical attention and eliminates the need to offload cases t
o expensive outside veterinarians, which costs the city an arm and a leg.
Shield of Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue, while real, is often too loosely used and even overused. It should never be used as an excuse to hide poor performance. A police officer, doct or, or social worker cannot hide failing results behind that excuse, especially when lives are in their care. And if compassion fatigue is causing such severe operational issues, the staff member's hours must be r educed, their position
modified, or they need to be reassigned.
More often than not, compassion fatigue is simply a symptom of a deeper problem: the shoes are entirely too big for the person hired for the position. When poor hiring practices occur, this is the inevitable outcome.
This raises critical questions for leadership and oversight:
What are the metrics by which the shelter monitors staff efficiency and performance? Are these metrics shared with the city council?
How do city council members learn when a staff member is chronically not pulling their weight? What is done to ensure this does not take place?
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Solution:
Public scrutiny of poor performance should not be used to speak on compassion fatigue. That's a disingenuous misuse of the term entirely.
Backyard Breeder Issue No One Wants to Touch:
This major issue cannot continue to go unaddressed.
When a shelter manager was recently asked what was presented to the city regarding backyard breeder operations, they reportedly responded by saying they didn't know how it would be enforced. If the shelter manager doesn't know, then who should? Who is supposed to spearhead these solutions?
If we keep hearing the same tired excuses—compassion fatigue, too many animals, bursting at the seams, it's a systemic issue—the conversation simply becomes meaningless noise.
There is no magical fairy coming to fix this crisis. The people in power, who have the authority and the insider knowledge, must actively leverage their positions to reduce their own inundation and take responsibility.
And yes, it's a systemic issue, and you are actively part of that system.
Solutions:
Establish a Multi-Agency Task Force: Set up a dedicated task force to go after backyard breeders.
Members must include shelter management, animal control, police and sheriff departments, city c
ouncil members, and active community members.
Create a Centralized Registry: Maintain an active registry of backyard breeders and individuals with records of animal neglect or abuse. All local shelters must be required to input and share data with this registry.
Stiffer, Enforced Penalties: Penalties for illegal and backyard breeding must be made significantly stricter—and they must actually be enforced.
Pass Necessary Ordinances: The city has the power to pass laws, so it is time to use that authority and enact these protective ordinances immediately.
A teetering shelter cannot make sense of things, especially when they are truly flooded. Please, as city council members, help the shelter by stepping in with the oversight, resources, and structural reform it desperately needs.
A summary of solutions and cost of inaction:
Comprehensive Exit Surveys: Conduct mandatory, confidential exit surveys for all departing staff and volunteers to capture their true experiences and root-cause feedback.
Reinstate volunteers and remove photo and video bans.
Full Transparency: Install operational cameras in all dorms and animal control transport vans, and mandate body cameras for every employee.
Thorough Financial Audit: Perform a rigorous financial audit to cut down bloated salaries and eliminate redundant, ineffective positions.
Backyard Breeder Task Force: Create a multi-agency task force—including shelter management, animal control, law enforcement, city council members, and community advocates—to crack •
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down on illegal breeding.
Oversight Task Force: To ensure true accountability rather than a rubber-stamp committee, we need a genuine task force. This must include strong, vocal critics of the current system to balance out the planted sycophants and ensure real, unvarnished oversight. It should be formalized and documented.
Cost of inaction:
Toxic Workplaces Prevail: Incompetence and toxic dynamics continue to be enabled and encouraged.
Needless Loss of Life: Animals pay the ultimate price with their lives for human error and systemic failure.
Financial and Resource Waste: Costly lawsuits, administrative crises, and recurring audits drain public resources. Time is money, and this endless cycle is entirely wasteful.
In the end…
Yes, you will not win a vote from a struggling kitten, a scared big dog, a wounded feral, or a trapped rabbit. They cannot speak up to challenge the judgments made against them, nor can they file a lawsuit. Because they are voiceless, they are too often overlooked by those in power.
I argue that these animals with beautiful souls deserve more protection from us, not less. As the intelligent and stronger species, it behooves us to act accordingly and offer them our kindness, ste
wardship, and defense.
I urge the council to look deeply into this situation. Animals cannot speak up, and it is rarely easy for human whistleblowers to come forward either. These issues demand dedicated, comprehensive attention, not piecemeal, cursory glances that result in zero timely progress.
Time is a luxury these animals simply do. not. have.
See the Reality Firsthand: Please, council members, do not take anyone's word for it, have your family members quietly volunteer and witness the actual process for yourselves. It won't take 6 months. The reality on the ground is not always as it is portrayed in polished reports.
Moral Constituents: These animals are your constituents morally, ethically, and karmically. Their innocent souls matter, and right now, we are moving backward when it comes to animal welfare.
While we mull these issues over and progress, it continues to cost lives. They do not get another tomorrow, nor do they get the endless second chances that the underperforming staff seem to expect fr
om the community. Their lives are extinguished, no fanfare. They are pile in a dump. That it. If we hold our own lives and human duties as important, we must ensure that same courtesy and respect are bestowed upon these vulnerable beings. It is a profound moral obligation. What we allow is what we end up representing.
(To the competent, dedicated people involved—including those staff members who currently have to remain quiet to protect their livelihoods—thank you. Please stay strong.)
Thanks,
Krishna
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