Houston, TX - I recently wrote about the Lies and threats coming from the City of Houston and also about Houston's Mayor Parker's 2009 No Kill campaign promises that have gone unfulfilled. Houston Fox 26 reporter, Randy Wallace, reported on this issue last night. Here is the Fox 26 report.
I am very glad that Randy Wallace reported on this important issue. The kill rates at BARC, and the other 4 kill shelters in Houston/Harris County, is unfortunately a dirty little secret that many Houstonians do not know. In fact, it is highly guarded secret at the three non-profit kill shelters i.e. Houston SPCA, Houston Humane Society and Citizens for Animal Protection, as they refuse to release their records to the public. It is no wonder that many Houstonians are unaware of what is happening in their own city. So, I am very glad that a TV reporter is willing to report on these hard, uncomfortable, issues.
However, I disagree with a few of the statements in the report. I guess that should come as no surprise considering most of the statements came from BARC or City of Houston leaders.
First, considering that BARC’s kill rate is very close to what it was in 2009, I have to disagree that they are making “great strides”. I don't consider a drop in the kill rate of only a few percentage points, in two years as "great strides". Here is BARC's intake and outcome reports from the last few years.
I also disagree with Alfred Moran's statement that they are following Nathan Winograd’s 2009 assessment of BARC. In fact, they are doing very, very little that Winograd recommended. Alfred Moran even attended part of Nathan Winograd's Building a No Kill Community seminar last April in Houston, but it seems to have made little difference.
The reporter also stated that city of Houston is still working with Winograd, but this is not true. The city has not worked with Winograd since his assessment of BARC was issued in September 2009. Both Alfred Moran and his predecessor, Stephen Williams told people, including me, that they were going to work with Winograd in the future. Last April, Moran stated that he wanted to bring Winograd back to BARC to train employees, but he has never contacted Winograd.
I also disagree that “under Parker's watch, BARC has changed dramatically" and that she is responsible for replacing all of the horrible employees mentioned. In mid-2009, Mayor Bill White hired “change agent” Gerry Fusco and paid him $208,000 to "transform" BARC. While I believe $208,000 was a ridiculously exorbitant amount of money to pay someone for six months work, one of the things that Fusco accomplished at BARC was firing a lot of employees such as the horrible people who were washing puppies down kennel drains, slamming animals heads in cage doors or starving them for fun. In fact, citizens were told that Fusco would not work on increasing the adoption rates at BARC until he had hired the new employees and had new procedures in place. We were told that increasing adoptions was the last thing that Fusco would work on and he certainly kept his word.
I went to a volunteer meeting in January 2010 to meet some of the new employees, like David Atencio. The new employees were already in place. Parker had nothing to do with that, since she took office in 2010. If the city's excuses i.e the bad employees, have been gone for almost 2 years, why hasn’t there been more improvement in the kill rate during that time?
Also, Moran stated that it was "non-sense" that the numbers on the intake and outcome reports gathered in public information requests and those posted on BARC's website, for the same time period, do not match. Intake and outcome recprds gathered through public information requests to BARC are posted here. Compare them to the reports posted on BARC’s website. If you compare reports for each month, you can plainly see that the numbers do not match. In addition, here are emails from a BARC employee confirming that BARC does not include certain animals or categories of animals on the reports that they post on their website. This exclusion adds up to several hundred animals per month, several thousand per year, that are missing from the reports posted on BARC's website. It is as if these animals do not exist or their lives do not matter. It makes no sense to simply exclude these animals. They are at BARC. They are using BARC's resources such as kennel space, food, medicine and employee time. Does BARC exclude these animals from their budget reports that they send to the mayor and city council? If so, they would be shorting themselves out of money for several thousand animals, so that seems doubtful.
No, the reason that thousands of animals are missing from the reports that the public sees is that if BARC excludes thousands of animals from their intake numbers, their save rates "look" better. It would make the public believe that BARC is doing a better job of getting animals out alive than they really are.
Finally, as a voter, I am very disappointed that in 2009 the mayor stated on several occasions that she would do everything in her power to transform Houston into a No Kill city. See her promises linked here. Now that people are realizing that she has not kept her promises, she has decided that she will "re-define" what the words No Kill mean. In the Fox report, she stated that No Kill means all healthy, “adoptable” animals should be saved. It doesn’t work that way. She can't claim to change the meaning of words when she doesn’t live up to her promises.
No Kill means saving all healthy and treatable pets. Euthanasia is reserved for only those animals who are truly too sick or injured to be saved, and in which keeping them alive would be cruel. Ending the life of healthy and treatable pets is killing. It is NOT "putting them to sleep" as Moran states. Putting them to sleep would mean that they are going to wake up. They are not.
Parker knows exactly what the term No Kill really means. She has read Nathan Winograd’s book, Redemption. She was aware of the definition in 2009 when she made those No Kill promises, and she is aware of the definition now.
Unfortunately, this is ploy is typical of the politicians and leaders of kill shelters and No Kill naysayers. It is just an attempt to try to fool the public. They just keep changing the definition of No Kill to cover up whatever failure they are running.
And of course, surprise, surprise Parker is now claiming that No Kill isn't possible in Houston. Quite the about face from 2009 when she was trying to convince all the animal lovers to vote for her. And how would she even know if it is possible if BARC, and the other four kill shelters, have not really attempted to follow the successful No Kill model yet? More excuses for failure.
Also, I think the twenty seven open admission, No Kill shelters in North America would disagree with Parker's proclamation. Austin, Texas has been saving 90% or more of all of the animals entering their doors (not just "healthy, adoptable" animals) for the majority of this year. The difference between Houston and Austin is that Austin’s progressive city leaders stopped accepting excuses for killing. They passed a law that mandated many parts of the successful No Kill model of sheltering. Houston needs to take a cue from Austin.
Houston needs city leaders who will make life saving a priority, not just an afterthought when running for re-election. It is up to we citizens to elect city leaders who actually care about saving lives.
See No Kill Texas Advocates’ Voters' Guide with Houston candidate endorsements.
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