The Daily News published an article on July 30, 2011, reviewing Brenda Barnette’s performance at her one-year anniversary as General Manager of Los Angeles Animal Services. Two days later, on August 1, the paper then published another article after the Los Angeles City Council publicly reprimanded Barnette for inferior performance in several crucial areas overseen by Barnette.
The July-30 article discussed the controversies as seen by her supporters and critics who are not happy about the actual numbers of killing skyrocketing. Barnette was hired to make the killing significantly decrease, but under her watch, the kill rate has gone in the wrong direction—Killing of dogs and cats has jumped by 10.7% in the ten months since Barnette began compared to the same ten months the year before.
One year earlier, on July 11, 2010, Barnette told an audience at the “meet & greet” event held by her endorsers that the Mayor appointed her because she promised to bring successful solutions to Los Angeles Animal Services; a failing city department. Regarding the killing of dogs and cats, Barnette said that she was going to make “a significant difference in 3 years and reach a 92% save rate in 5 years.”
Barnette’s 5-year plan has abruptly become a 7-year plan, as she told the Daily News.
The General Manager’s increased killing and inconsistent statements are a concern to those who hoped that Barnette would move toward the “no-kill” as she promised. They are shocked that she has delivered a large increase in killing. Local philanthropist Richard Cox, in a comment to the Daily News article, captured the feeling of betrayal by asking, “When did DOWN start meaning UP?”
Barnette launched a new, but poorly functioning, LAAS website that has generated widespread complaints and calls for restoration of the old one “because it is so confusing and difficult to navigate.”
Barnette initially refused to restore the search-by-shelter function which she removed from the site. This important function helped rescuers and the general public identify which animals are available at their nearby shelters. Barnette insists it is better to prevent people from searching locally and force them to sift through hundreds more animals at all six city shelters.
Her claim is that Petfinder.com or Adopt-a-Pet.com, the leading search sites for available animals at the pounds and rescue organizations, forces the same expansive searches as her new LAAS site. On the contrary, Petfinder.com or Adopt-a-Pet.com has a function on its home page that enables searching for adoptable animals within an area as small as one zip code—which is a far smaller area than a range covered by one L.A. city shelter. Barnette’s excuse clearly contradicts the facts.
Barnette eventually restored the search-by-shelter feature but she gave the button leading to the feature the name “New Hope Shelter Search” which is unrecognizable to the general public. “That sounds like a button leading to shelters other than LAAS,” said one rescuer very familiar with LAAS. “It would be clearer if it was labeled ‘Available Animals by Shelter.’” On the parallel website in Spanish, Barnette chose not to provide Spanish-speakers any search feature at all.
The new LAAS website also removed searches for lost pets, leaving it nearly impossible for city residents to find their lost animals and possibly causing the needless death of lost family pets. Upon intense complaints, the feature was restored, but placed under the “general info” tab, mixed in with unrelated topics like deceased animal pickup and household hazards. The general public frantically searching for a lost pet should not be challenged by time-wasting puzzles.
The website is the gateway to any business, and at LAAS, it is a crucial lifeline for many animals. Rescue partners and shelter volunteers begged and pleaded that Barnette restore LAAS’ original website (at least until she cleans up the mess on her new one), but to no avail. She vowed that she would fix the new site, but months later, many of the broken links and other problems persist; some cannot be resolved because they are flaws with the basic website design, such as “scrollbar within a scrollbar” navigation that leaves visitors unable to clearly see information.
Meanwhile, Barnette’s disregard for the public’s input has alienated many. Laurel Kinder, who runs the Kinder Rescue and Project Flying Chihuahua of Studio City, told the Daily News about Barnette, “She doesn’t give me the time of day. Only nasty letters.”
Of all the complaints against LAAS under previous General Managers, the website was never an issue. It was one of the few problem-free aspects of LAAS. There is no reason to fix a “problem,” which does not exist, when there are abundant and very serious problems that need to be urgently addressed.
Barnette not only has failed to collect fines but “ignored city policies,” said Councilman Zine in the August-1 Daily News article. Councilman Englander also stated, “they don’t have a plan in place,” and “it just doesn’t make any sense” — to fly by the seat of her pants.
Spay/neuter enforcement and resources are dismal, cruelty enforcement is still weak, public outreach and education are almost nonexistent, adoptions are declining, TNR (Trap, Neuter and Release program) needs the General Manager’s attention, the volunteer and foster programs Barnette said would thrive under her watch are wilted, and now Barnette needs to answer the Council about serious allegations of forged time cards and animals stolen and sold by her employees. The 10.7% increase in killing dogs and cats is a major issue. These real problems deserve time and resources before meddling with the already functioning website.
Barnette is working to privatize the underutilized Northeast Valley shelter in Mission Hills, which was built under Proposition F, voted and paid for by taxpayers. This $19-million city asset is slated to be leased to Best Friends Animal Society for $1 per year. This plan, if approved by the city, will provide the wealthy private organization, whose annual spending budget exceeds $35 million, the most adoptable animals that the city should be adopting out to receive the adoption fee revenue. The taxpayers voted and paid for this shelter to help increase adoptions of the city’s impounded animals and enhance public safety—not to benefit any private organization. Although Best Friends Animal Society would be operating on city property using city resources, there is no effort by Barnette or the city to ensure that Best Friends would be accountable to the public under the California Public Records Act, just as the city shelters are accountable.
The hard facts of Barnette’s one-year-anniversary report card, verified by her own statistics posted on the city website, show that the killing of dogs and cats has increased by 10.7% in only 10 months. Her supporters praise Barnette as a no-kill leader, but no-kill leaders reduce the killing, while Barnette has overseen an unprecedented rate of increase in killing. Her supporters blame the economy, but the economy was already bad before Barnette took the high-paying position, promising solutions and less killing.
Dana Bartholomew of the Daily News writes that Barnette’s response to her critics is, “It’s nothing to brag about,” referring to her poor no-kill performance in the past year.
Pamelyn Ferdin, in the July-30 Daily News article, stated: “… under Brenda, we’ll get to no-kill if people let her do her job.” Some view Ferdin’s remark as setting the stage for blaming the public for Barnette’s failure to bring down the kill rate compared to when she took over. In fact, the public is letting Barnette do her job, and the buck stops with the General Manager.
When Barnette began as General Manager, she repeatedly said that to solve problems, we should all agree on three things: 1) the need for more adoptions; 2) more spay/neuter; and 3) cruelty enforcement. The public had already agreed to these three items long before Barnette arrived. Without any interference from the public, Barnette has failed to improve any of these three agreed upon crucial goals—instead, she has delivered the 10.7% increase in killing.
As a resident of the city of Los Angeles and the head of a rescue organization, I pray that Barnette will follow through on her original promise and show us the “significant difference in 3 years and reach 92% save rate in 5 years” (don’t change it to 7 years, please!), and protect the city’s funds, its assets and its animals.
The responsibility of the General Manager of one of the largest Animal Services systems in the United States is to focus on solving real problems. Los Angeles should be a model of excellence, not a heartbreaking example of escalating death.
______________________________________
Marie Atake is Founder & President of Forte Animal Rescue and a former Commissioner on the Board of L.A. Animal Services.
Comments