Change Is Coming to KCACC. But What Change?
BY: Co-chairs, KCACC Exposed 9/23/2009
After years of bitter battles, the writing is on the wall for King County Animal Care and Control.
- Both candidates for the office of King County Executive have indicated that they will try to shut down KCACC, and look to contract for animal sheltering with the Seattle Humane Society or other nonprofit organization, and to shift the investigation of animal cruelty and neglect investigations to qualified law enforcement agencies such as the King County Sheriff’s Office.
- The potential flooding of the Green River is forcing KCACC to shut down its shelter in Kent. Although the agency has indicated that it plans to move by November 1, it has not released any specifics about where it will move, how it will continue to house and care for all the animals in its custody, or what services it will be able to offer from its “temporary” shelter facility. Also missing are any plans for how the county is going to pay for such a temporary facility.
- Faced with a budget deficit of $56 million, Interim Executive Kurt Triplett announced last month that he was eliminating the budget for KCACC. Mr. Triplett continues to advocate this policy, although he has since clarified that he would not shut down vital animal services without an alternative in place.
- Last week, the Seattle Times ran a story that was a devastating indictment of KCACC’s failure to provide animal control services necessary to keep the public safe from free-roaming dangerous dogs. Although KCACC tried to blame these failures on its focus on “improving” animal care, its own statistics show a dramatic decline in levels of care, as well as no improvements whatsoever in adoption or outreach programs.
- The King County Auditor is expected to release a report later this month examining several facets of the operations of KCACC, including its statistics and population management. An auditor’s report on its euthanasia practices is expected to be finished by October.
With a period of such great change comes both great possibility, and great risk.
On one hand, it is becoming more and more clear to everyone that despite claims of reform, KCACC if failing in every respect – it is not providing humane care to the animals in its custody, it is not improving community outreach and adoption efforts, it is not conducting competent animal cruelty and neglect investigations, and it is leaving the public in danger by refusing to respond to calls about dangerous, free-roaming dogs.
The confluence of King County’s looming $56 million budget deficit and the threat of flooding from the Green River is also forcing change. Soon to be deprived of its ramshackle shelter facility in Kent, KCACC must look elsewhere, and due to its typically poor planning and lack of foresight, has yet to come forward with a plan for how it will continue to provide any animal services, let alone full sheltering and adoption services, after its anticipated move date on Nov. 1.
With the combination of these factors, we can be sure that something dramatic is going to happen, and soon. But what?
No one can answer that question yet. Interim Executive Kurt Triplett has told council that he is working on a plan to cure the ills of KCACC, which he plans to present with his budget a week from now. Several council members are once again watching this issue carefully, and have vowed to examine this plan with a critical eye. With both the council and the executive finally on the same page about the need for urgent and dramatic action, the prospects of change for King County’s animals are brighter than ever before.
Yet such a period of change also carries with it some inherent dangers. Will King County politicians yield to budget concerns and cut the animal services budget without ensuring that alternatives are in place? Will the Seattle Times article and the resultant furor cause politicians to try to improve animal control, while allowing animal care to degrade even further? Will the council give up on the commitment it made more than two years ago to save every adoptable and treatable animal in King County? Will the council and the executive focus only on getting services cheaper, and not insist that they also be better?
We have long maintained that there is a solution that will benefit the animals, the taxpayers, and the public. This is still the case. As King County’s strategic plan made clear last summer, the county can gain better services for less money by simply putting those services in the hands of the people who can deliver them more efficiently:
- Allow a qualified non-profit (or non-profits) with a track record of lifesaving and humane sheltering to take over the municipal contracts for animal sheltering, as well as the contract for the animals from unincorporated King County.
- Transfer the investigation of crimes such as animal neglect and cruelty to people who have the experience, resources, and training to investigate crimes, such as the King County Sheriff’s Office and local law enforcement agencies.
- Once these services are covered, all that should be left for KCACC to do (at most) is to provide animal control services to protect the public against free-roaming aggressive dogs. With that as its only mission, we hope that KCACC can focus its resources to do a competent job.
This is a plan that, in general terms, has been endorsed by both candidates for King County Executive, Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison. Partners within both the community and the county have indicated a willingness in the past to make this plan work.
It still can. But once again, the animals need your help.
Reading the same signals that we are, KCACC and its Officers’ Guild are turning desperate. The Guild and its supporters have set up a website devoted to the effort to “Save KCACC,” are attempting to organize a rally near the courthouse tomorrow, and have contacted animal rescue agencies throughout the region, trying to scare them into believing that if KCACC goes out of business, 12,000 animals a year will be homeless. (Read the letter that we wrote to these organizations in response, here.)
For the past two years, the Guild has been shameless in threatening litigation against King County if it were to find a better, more efficient, more humane way to deliver animal services. Now, hedging its bets, the Guild is also attempting to infect the Seattle Humane Society, playing upon the hopes and fears of that organization’s employees in urging them to vote to unionize under the Guild’s umbrella – to preserve the Guild’s power even if KCACC disappears. (Read more about this effort on http://www.kcaccexposed.org/ this week.)
As usual, the focus of KCACC and its Officers’ Guild is on saving the agency and the Guild, not the animals.
We are asking you to add your voice to the mix, demanding that the council and the executive remember the animals. Period.
Please take the time to write the council and Interim Executive Kurt Triplett, and tell them that while they weigh the concerns of public safety and budgetary constraints, they must also choose an option that will provide humane care for the homeless animals of King County, and the best chance possible for these animals to be placed into loving homes. Ask them to transfer criminal investigations, such as animal cruelty and neglect investigations, to those who do it best – law enforcement.
Encourage them to explore creative solutions, but to do so with the best interests of the animals firmly in mind, and with a continuing commitment to the goal of lifesaving that they set two years ago.
Over the past year, we have ensured that King County’s politicians know that the welfare of the county’s homeless animals is of paramount importance to the people of this county. Help us to remind them of that at this crucial time.
To contact the King County Council and King County Executive to voice your concerns about the animals of King County, you may use the following email addresses:
King County Council
bob.ferguson@kingcounty.gov; larry.gossett@kingcounty.gov; kathy.lambert@kingcounty.gov; larry.phillips@kingcounty.gov; julia.patterson@kingcounty.gov; jane.hague@kingcounty.gov; pete.vonreichbauer@kingcounty.gov; dow.constantine@kingcounty.gov; reagan.dunn@kingcounty.gov; marilyn.cope@kingcounty.gov; jennifer.giambattista@kingcounty.gov; tom.bristow@kingcounty.gov
King County Executive
kcexec@kingcounty.gov