Orange County's Grand Jury once
again blasted the county animal shelter again this week in their 2nd
report of the year, making it the 5th Orange County Grand Jury Report on the
Orange county animal shelter.
In reading these reports, I
find it amazing the animal shelter staff has accomplished what it has.
But what is truly outrageous is
the lack of action by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the responsible
entity for the shelter.
As a result of the this latest
report, the Public Relations officer for the county immediately issued a press
release stating the report was “flawed” and that the County will be providing
formal responses to the Grand Jury report within 90 days, as required by law.
This is not an encouraging sign
and indicative of what we have always come to expect from the supervisors.
To give you an example of the
supervisors attitude, when the shelter was experiencing a financial shortfall
last year, former Supervisor John Moorlach stated “I don’t know why those of us
who have decided to not have pets should subsidize those who do.”
Really?
How does that apply to the
orphan animals for whose shelter care is mandated by the state?
Shall I make a list of the
“special agenda” items the supervisors approved that we taxpayers subsidize
even though we all do not benefit?
There is no question that there
is need for leadership and a desperate need for a new shelter facility to
replace the current 74 year old county shelter.
You would think, in wealthy
Orange county we would have a state of the art animal shelter, but instead we
have the worse county animal shelter of all the surrounding counties.
Most of the problems the
shelter is now experiencing could have been circumvented if the Orange
County Board of Supervisors had replaced the shelter ( as they have been promising
for 20 years ago) or appropriately and adequately funded the current shelter.
Instead, it operates
underfunded and understaffed with a roof that is ready to fall in, old cat
housing (trailers) which “increases the vulnerability and exposure to disease”
and improper dog kennels which prevent humane cleaning, just to name a few
problems pointed out in the reports.
So what is it with our Orange
County Board of Supervisors?
Are they “addicted” to power
and so not open to the Divine guidance for which they pray at the beginning of
each board meeting? In one of the Sunday messages at my church, it was stated,
“if a person is in the grips of an addiction, it can make it very difficult for
them to hear the voice of the Divine.”
The 18 cities which contract
with the county for animal services have 90 days to respond to the last Grand
Jury Report of May 21, 2015.
Will any of them withdraw from
the county and join with neighboring cities to build their own pro-humane
animal shelter as the city of Mission Viejo did 20 years ago?
Stay tuned!
I know a few are!
I just hope the city council
members of the remaining cities aren’t addicted to power too.
June
18, 2015
Voice
of OC
By Rose
Tingle
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