Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets an "F" from the animals

Our Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a campaign promise to make Los Angeles a NoKill City for animals. After two years in office it is clear that he has failed miserably. Last week in order to stem the flow of animals coming into the shelters they decided to just refuse them because the shelters are full. The shelters are so overcrowded that now twice as many animals are dying from illness and injuries suffered in the shelters. Fewer are making it out alive. What went wrong? And is the Mayor going to do anything about it?

Last week General Manager Ed Boks announced that he would only accept owner surrendered animals during a small window of time midweek. This caused a huge public out cry which caused him to "revisit" his policy twice. Even PETA chimed in with a national phone campaign demanding that people contact the Mayor. Ultimately he rescinded the new policy saying he never meant to enforce it anyway. The policy was just an attempt to "educate the public" he said. In response the Daily News released an article entitled "Animal Services head makes a fool of himself - and us."

Meanwhile, unofficially they are still trying to refuse as many animals as possible. They are telling people to TNR (trap neuter return) feral cats, bottle feed orphaned kittens themselves and to re-home their unwanted pets with private parties or rescue groups, who are of course all full. The Rescue and Humane Alliance of Los Angeles believes that most people will just dump these pets on the streets if refused at the shelter.

A crisis still looming over the shelters is the lack of veterinarians. March 28th of this year writer and animal rescuer Daniel Guss of the Stand Foundation wrote an op-ed piece for the Daily News about the lack of veterinarians. They only have two veterinarians to care for over 56,000 animals a year in seven shelters spread throughout our large City. Eight positions are vacant. Boks denied that this was a problem saying those empty vet positions are for the spayneuter clinics which haven't been built. If we look at the budget reports, there were ten shelter vet positions before the clinics were even planned.

Fortunately, Councilmembers recognized the problem and got involved. Councilmen Dennis Zine and Richard Alarcon made a motion to solve the problem even after Boks denied the problem in his "Fact vs Rumor" page in the Department website. Since then Boks merely sent a letter to City Council basically saying that "things are fine. Thanks for your concern." Why does he refuse their help? As of the writing of this article, only one new vet was hired after yet another vet quit so nothing has improved. We are still down eight vets and the shelters are completely full. We have more animals than ever before in larger shelters yet fewer vets and vet techs.

Why are the shelters so full even after three new larger shelters were just built? Boks has been trying to keep the euthanasia rate as low as possible in order to make it seem that he is successful. The euthanasia rate is the number of animals euthanized divided by the total number that enter the shelter. In the past 12 months the euthanasia rate was about 38% or 21,000 animals. In the previous 12 months it was 39%. Instead of euthanizing the animals which are not adopted or returned to their owner, they are warehousing them. This is causing overcrowding with many animals in each cage and kennel. This overcrowding is causing animals to die from disease and injuries suffered in fights in the kennels. Part of this is also due to the lack of vets to treat these animals. In the last 12 months, 2,075 animals died in the shelter. During the previous 12 months only 1,109 animals died. The number has almost doubled. The percent dying in the shelter has risen from 2% to 4% of intake. Some of these animals could be someone's lost pet.

Why would Ed Boks allow these animals to just die in the kennels? This is the harsh reality of his "NoKill" plan. If an animal dies in the shelter on his own, it is not included in the "euthanasia" column. Boks is allowing this to happen in order to improve his numbers. If we add the number of animals euthanized and the number of animals that died in the shelter together, we get a better indication of what is happening. In the last 12 months 23,145 animals were euthanized and died in the shelter or 41.59%. In the previous 12 months it was 23,117 or 41.62%. There has been no improvement in the number of dead animals. Does it matter how they died? I personally would prefer that they be euthanized humanely instead of being left to die a painful death from illness and injury.

Another way to gauge the success or failure of a shelter is to look at the live release rate. The live release rate is the number of animals that leave the shelter alive be it by adoption, rescue, foster or returned to owner. In the last 12 months 30,007 animals left the shelter alive or 53.92%. In the previous 12 months 31,173 animals left the shelter alive or 56.13%. Live release has gone down 2%. 1,166 fewer animals made it out alive in the last 12 months. In Boks first 12 months here in LA, 751 fewer animals made it out alive than the previous 12 months. Boks is now doing even worse than his first year.

At the very end of April Boks released the much anticipated Annual Report for 2006. In his report he stated that live release would go down 2%, which it now has. He said it will go down because intake will go up. Intake is about the same actually. After City Controller Laura Chick heard about this, she instructed the Public Safety Committee to investigate. She said she may even audit the Department. So what did Boks do? He merely rewrote his Annual Report. Now it reads that live release will go up 2% because of "new data." Two months later live release is indeed down 2% and going lower which shows that his second report was not honest.

Boks mentioned the budget in this same report. He went way over budget on veterinary expenses and medical supplies. This of course is caused from the overcrowding and lack of on-site vets. If we take a look at the 2004 audit of Maricopa Animal Control when Boks was the Director, they had these same cost overruns to the point that there was a large shortfall of cash. If we take a look at the depositions in the current lawsuit against Boks in New York City when he was the Director, we again have these same cost overruns, only this time Boks went to a bank and took out a line of credit without permission to make payroll. He was later reprimanded. He left both of these shelters a shamble on questionable terms. Most say he was pushed out though Boks said he left on his own.

In February of this year New York magazine stated that "workers unanimously point to (Ed Boks)" as the reason they were not able to meet their nokill goal. "One Alliance member snipes 'Boks' programs had catchy names, but they had no substance and weren't sustainable." Yet Boks claims to have made NY NoKill. People said the same thing about Boks in Maricopa. Boks claims in his bio to have "established the first municipal no-kill shelter in the United States while in AZ." Maricopa which is one county in the state had a 50% euthanasia rate. Later Boks revealed that he made one of the three shelters NoKill. It turns out there are only two shelters, and one adoption center. He later claimed to have made that center NoKill. After speaking to people who volunteered in that center, ill animals, animals with behavior issues and animals that just plain weren't adopted, were sent back to the shelter to be killed. That's not NoKill in my book.

Recently in LA, even more problems have surfaced. Dana Bartholemew of the Daily News wrote an article in May about a problem with the Animal Services Call Center. A threatening dog was running around a school playground while the teachers were frantically calling the Call Center. No one picked up the phone. They were on hold for 45 minutes then finally gave up. Fortunately a member of the public was able to lure the animal away from the children. Boks refuted this story saying that the well respected journalist made it up. I verified this same problem with the Call Center. I later discovered that Boks had changed the protocol which is what caused the call not to be routed to a live person at the shelter. Councilmen Dennis Zine and Tony Cardenas realizing that this was a definite public safety issue made a motion to investigate the problem. Boks has yet to respond to City Council.

Meanwhile Boks is having Town Hall meetings to brag about his "success!" He is saying that euthanasia is at it's "lowest ever!" Cat and dog euthanasia only is down a tiny bit at this moment because of the warehousing. Boks also bragged about success in the first half of last year. All he did was warehouse animals from the fist half of the year into the second half. When the shelters filled up, his euthanasia rate went sky high, yet he released absolutely no news about it. His year end results showed absolutely no improvement. I predict the same will happen this year.

After my first article in March Boks wrote "Fact vs Rumor #4" refuting part of what I wrote. After documents which supported the claims were sent to the person who oversees the Department for the Mayor, Deputy Mayor Jimmy Blackman, Boks backpedaled and changed part of his rebuttal yet he still lied about a few issues. Again, Boks ordered a paid volunteer to write his own fan website and he provided the content. Imagine, the head of an LA City Department touting himself and attacking all naysayers.

Where do we go from here? I see no quick fixes to these problems. The shelters are totally full. They will have to start euthanizing animals to make room for more as we're in the middle of baby season. Boks' complete and utter failure to make LA NoKill is now a big ugly stain on Antonio's already stained term in office. Antonio's recent divorce, rumors of infidelity, loss in the LAUSD battle and his problems with LAPD and LAFD aren't helping his faltering reputation. He's losing control of the City. The Mayor needs to take charge, keep his campaign promises and make some major changes.