RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA'S CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS' CONCLUDING COMMENTS ON THEIR 5-0 VOTE FOR CHANGING THEIR CITY'S ANIMAL
CARE SERVICES FROM OCAC TO THE MISSION VIEJO ANIMAL SHELTER,FOR THEIR RESIDENTS ON MARCH 23, 2016
Council Member Bradley McGirr said the last Grand Jury Report that severely criticized OC Animal Care was the 5th Grand Jury report that criticized them and although the county recognized the findings they specifically, didn't just ignore them, they chose not to implement any of those Grand Jury Recommendations. There had been multiple investigative reports on the OC Animal control and a number of legal challenges including the Logan case complaint with its 24 page report which he read. He added that the County has been fined, and been found to violate OCEA. There have been employees that have sued the OC Animal Control due to unsafe conditions. They have received written and verbal complaints for years from veterinarians, former employees, members of the public and various organizations including poor morale, unfair hiring and promotion practices, and most importantly mistreatment and mishandling of the animals.
Council Member McGirr continued that he'd spent a lot of time on this issue and added that if we were going to rank OC Animal Control on a scale with Mission Viejo, Mission is an 11 and OC Animal Control is a 3. He added that has nothing to do with the people at OC Animal Control. He told a story about recently adopting a dog for his Mom and said they went to every shelter in the County looking for the right dog, because this was his Mom! They repeatedly went back to Mission Viejo because the people working there that were so smart, and educated regarding the animals. He quipped that the animals at the MV Shelter were treated better than his own animals. They get walked constantly, there's a grass area for them where you can play with them, etc. He said they ended up going back to the OC Animal Control on a cold, rainy day in January. The dogs were soaking wet and they adopted the smallest dog there, a little Chihuahua, that was shivering in the cold. In comparison, Mission has a roof over the kennels so the dogs are dry and there's a cattery that he said he didn't think any cat would want to leave.
Council Member McGirr confirmed that he completely supports staff's recommendation to go with the Mission Viejo Animal Shelter. He recalled that he and City Manger Cervantes were at a meeting of the Community Association of Rancho about a year ago and Dr. Jennifer Hawkins (The Director of the OC Animal Shelter), who was relatively new at that time, spoke and he was amazed when Dr Hawkins talked about being happy that the euthanasia rates had gone from 50% to 33%. The head of the HOA of Canyon, at that time, said they had a dead deer sitting out on Bell Canyon Rd. for a number of days and had called the County repeatedly about this but couldn't get anybody to pick it up. She was told that was the lowest priority they had at the County Shelter which made him think more about what services they were getting for $119,000 a year. He noted that Mr. Bland mentioned his dead skunk and continued that he'd had a bat in his house, with a 2 year old child also in the house, so he called Animal control and was told it would be 3 days before they could respond so he had to call the local Sheriff's department who then called animal control who then came out that night and got the bat. Council Member McGirr also recalled a story about a dog off the leash mauling a lady's mother. The people who reported that said they were getting no help from OC Animal Control about investigating this so the City staff got involved and they investigated it. He added that recently there were dogs off leash who bit a horse out by Robinson Ranch and concluded that they just weren't getting satisfactory service.
He stressed that , "Our Job is to do what's best for out residents". He noted there are a lot of pet owners in RSM and he recognizes the additional cost but, as of this week, the County raised it's cost by $14,000 and about 3 months ago they wanted an additional $30,000 because they weren't recovering their licensing fees. He added that the new county shelter was originally estimated to cost $25 million and now the county is estimating $35 million, but if it comes in for under $35 million he doesn't expect any refunds. He said he doesn't have any faith in the County of Orange fixing costs at any point in time. Their contract costs have gone up 150% over the last year and new costs will be incurred with the new shelter so he believes the currently stated $125,000 differential cost of service for MV over OC will not remain. He reported that he had put this issue out on social media and received 98 comments with No Negative Comments and added that people love their dogs and cats. He noted all the good services from Mission Viejo and all the great opportunities for volunteer service plus the close proximity and concluded that Mission Viejo has far better services to render to our City than the County ever could. He also concluded that Animal Care Services is one thing that has always been lacking in this City and we have the money so residents will be getting far better services for their money, and to quote Amber Allison, that's what a City of excellence is all about. His vote was for the Mission Viejo Animal Shelter. He added he would be honored to move this item.
Council Member Michael Vaughn said he too was leaning toward Mission Viejo and was all in favor of making decisions that benefit residents and animals because he thinks they do deserve world class care. He said he believes they are more likely to get this from Mission Viejo than from the county. He added that they do have the money, however he did admit to having some reservations related to local control as a city regarding the terms of the Mission Viejo contract giving RSM enough say. He encouraged the staff to keep working with Mission Viejo toward that goal. He noted the observations on the contract that troubled him to be that Mission Viejo could terminate the contract at any time on a year's notice without cause whereas the County's contract is for no termination without cause. If terminated by Mission Viejo RSM may not be so quickly admitted back in to the county's system. He added he doesn't like vulnerability. The description of the services in the contract states that they are at the discretion of Mission Viejo. He said he was curious about how this would effect RSM's low cost vaccination program. He said however that he was looking forward to the residents and animals having more care.
Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Gamble said this was a pretty exciting day for her. She recalled that from 1995 to 2000 when RSM was exploring cityhood they called on a friend in Laguna Hills as well as others in South County to assist them. She added that when they became a city they transferred services from the county into the city, because that's what's done in the beginning. One of the driver's for this for incorporation, that occurred on January 1, 2000, was to make lives better for the residents of RSM whether they had 2 legs or 4. So they began to enhance services such as law enforcement, etc. She added that it's time now to pay attention to their 4 legged residents and they understand their obligations and costs now. She added that she gave her ire to the county when they were here, so she's not going to do that again tonight. She said she was grateful to Mission Viejo that they would consider a collaboration and RSM as a customer and wanted to thank them and their staff for that and for the consideration they showed to their neighbors in Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel and said she wholeheartedly supports this plan. She added that she'd like to help out with some type of fee study.
Council Member Jerry Holloway said they looked at cost and fee levels of services for those who own animals and those who don't. He said it's unfortunate that some services of the county are talked about in negative ways but that's the reality of it and sometimes it's literal numbers like those they saw related to the animal shelter. He expressed curiosity as to why they didn't talk to Mission Viejo sooner than this? He asked Jennifer, RSM City Manger, if they would always hear about complaints regarding the county animal services and she responded not unless the complaints came to the City rather than being directed to the county shelter as complaints from residents about service are not reported to us from the county shelter. He said this is going to be money well spent and he hoped they could talk about the fee structure sooner related to being able to control their own animal licensing fee structure. He said he would like to see some formal process through which they could communicate with Mission Viejo regarding any concerns such as the licensing fee structure. He closed by expressing the need for public input for the council on all matters.
Mayor Anthony Beall thanked all the speakers and people who wrote to the council members, not just tonight but over the years as well. He said over the years he's noted that often times there are impassioned pleas from folks and often times speakers are motivated by self interests such a making some money or other personal benefit. He said in general, those who have approached us on this issue and those who've taken the time to do that over this long period of time are motivated by the purest of motivations. He said it's out of love and he appreciates that. It speaks well to all of you and the big hearts that you have. When it comes to a shelter and euthanasia rates there's a moral issue that's involved and it shouldn't be ignored in the name of money.
Mayor Beall admitted that he now "gets" pets but didn't used to. He'd had animals growing up over the years but didn't really get it when he'd see people whose dog or cat would pass away and they acted like it was a member of the family. He said now he gets that animals can become part of our family and to Amber who is sad about her cat being so sick tonight, he feels for her. He said he wanted to salute everyone for their commitment to making this a better community. He added there are so many reason's why the Mission Viejo proposal is better including being much closer to home and the level of service. He added that the council and staff all try to deliver the highest levels of service to residents with a smile and he's confident that's what we'll find in Mission Viejo. The increased level of expense is related to getting what you pay for and there is a higher level of financial certainty with Mission Viejo, because there's an awful lot of uncertainty now related to county cost increases and unknown costs for the new shelter and so forth. Costs may end up being higher at the county, or maybe they won't, but we will end up getting a higher level of service. Public safety will be enhanced, faster response times, etc. He said the County has probably done the best they could with the resources they've had available, however for all the reasons we've all heard tonight we could do better and can afford to do better toward improving the quality of life for our residents and pets.
THE VOTE WAS 5-0 in FAVOR OF GOING WITH the MISSION VIEJO ANIMAL SHELTER and there was much applause from the audience.
Mayor Kogerman from Laugna Hills thanked all the RSM Council Members on behalf of herself and all the other LH City Council Members and staff.
Ms. Sharon Logan shared a Voice of OC story at: http://voiceofoc.org/2016/03/advocates-level-more-accusations-against-county-animal-shelter/ by Nick Gerda, who reported that Ms. Logan, Rose Tingle and Dr. Jim Gardiner, who attended the OC County Board of Supervisors Meeting on March 22, 2016, publicly challenged Dr. Hawkins report of a 6% kill rate in September at the County Shelter. The Supervisors then gave a directive to Dr. Hawkins, DVM, Director of Orange County Animal Services, to come back to them with data countering what had been said about her giving false statements related to a euthanasia rate of 6% at the County Shelter in September.
Ms. Logan thanked the RSM City Council for giving the animals a chance now to live more than 3 to 5 days.
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