Good evening Genesee County animal advocates! Well, we wish we had better news to report from today’s Board of Commissioner meeting. When we told you about the positive votes that were cast last week (reinstating the volunteer program, stopping the cell phone and identification seizure for visitors to the shelter and the hiring of an independent expert to evaluate GCAC and make recommendations), you may recall us saying “We would be astonished if Pegge Adams did not try to undo (the progressive) votes at her next opportunity” and “If Omar Sims and Brenda Clack had been here…we may have had a completely different result”. Basically, our three animal friendly Commissioners (Jamie Curtis, Tony Brown and Mark Young) were able to get these things voted in last week because Omar Sims and Brenda Clack did not show up for the meetings, and because Ted Henry left the meetings early in the day. We hate it when we are right about things like this, but it is a fact of life right now that we have 9 County Commissioners and in order to have real change we need at least 5 of them to be committed to doing the right thing. We have seen over and over that Omar Sims, Brenda Clack, John Northrup, Ted Henry and Pegge Adams are very happy with the poor conditions and statistics coming out of Genesee County Animal Control. They are protecting the antiquated policies and procedures and the Director that repeatedly makes bad decisions and creates controversy. It boggles the mind as to why they would do it, but they do. Today, 8 of the 9 Commissioners were present for all the voting. The only one not present was Archie Bailey. Despite Jamie Curtis’ valiant efforts to convince the Board that it is time to take positive steps and begin addressing the problems at GCAC, he, Tony Brown and Mark Young were simply out-voted. Our County Commissioners voted 5 to 3 to reinstate the cell phone ban and ID surrender requirement, allow Stepheni Lazar to prevent volunteers from volunteering even if they have followed all the rules and bring much needed help to the shelter, and to not hire the independent consultant to observe GCAC and make recommendations for improvement. What is the first official act Director Lazar took following todays votes? She cancelled tomorrows new volunteer orientation. Further, Pegge Adams brought in Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development personnel who are in the process of conducting an open investigation at GCAC. When she asked them to report on what they had seen last week, they indicated that the investigation was ongoing and they could not comment on the details. However she and Ted Henry pushed them to say that nothing they saw at GCAC required them to take immediate or drastic action. This is not surprising to us either, as MDARD is focused on minimum standards that were established in the Michigan Dog Law of 1919. Please read that again. MINIMUM STANDARDS…1919. Pegge Adams and Ted Henry did not ask if they saw things they would recommend improving or that were not best practice. They simply wanted to know if our shelter in 2014 would be considered compliant with a law that was passed in 1919. You know, we have a pretty strict focus on what our County is doing related to Animal Control on this page. But having seen this today, one might wonder if their standards for “success” are any higher than this in other areas of County business. Perhaps many of the struggles we see in other areas of our County could be addressed if these five Commissioners aspired to standards that were higher than “minimum required”. But we digress… It is tempting to be very discouraged today. However, do not be. We have been telling you for months that the key to change at GCAC is changing the people who sit in these Commissioner Chairs. That can happen very soon. To remind you of where we are on that here is a list by district: District 1: Omar Sims is done in December. He did not run for reelection because he decided to run for State Representative (and lost by the way). Bryant Nolden (animal friendly) is the candidate we supported in the August 5th election, and he is expected to beat his Republican opposition in November pretty easily. We will remind you all when it is time to vote. Assuming all goes as expected, he will be change maker #1. District 2: Brenda Clack had no opposition in the elections. She will be reelected in November. She has a history of voting against the animals like she did today. District 3: Jamie Curtis won his election on August 5th and has no Republican opposition in November. Jamie Curtis will be change maker #2. District 4: John Northrup does have Republican opposition in November, but it is very likely John will be reelected. John Northrup has a history of voting against the animals like he did today. District 5: Mark Young has Republican opposition (Matt Telliga) in November. We have never spoken with Telliga before but we will be reaching out to him to learn more about him and how he feels about animals and GCAC. While Mark Young has shown us with his time and with his votes that he will advocate for the animals and work for positive change, we feel it is important to talk with all candidates and share our findings with you. Mark is the incumbent and has the UAW endorsement. However, District 5 is the only district in our County that sometimes favors Republican candidates. Mark has a strong history of advocating for the animals. If he is reelected, we have no doubt he would be change maker #3. District 6: Tony Brown is running completely unopposed, and has solid history of advocating for the animals and for positive change. He will be change maker #4. District 7: Mike Lynch won his election on August 5th and has no Republican opposition in November. We are very optimistic Mike Lynch will be change maker #5 District 8: Ted Henry had no opposition in the elections. He will be reelected in November. He has a solid history of voting against the animals like he did today. He has stated that he feels GCAC is a 5 star establishment. District 9: Pegge Adams won her Primary election on August 5th by only 40 votes. This is despite being the incumbent (recognized name) and having the UAW endorsement ($10,000 from UAW to spend on her campaign, UAW personnel supporting her with phone calls to memberships, etc.). If she had done a good job in her first two years the vote never would have been that close. Jim Slezak (Republican) is running against her in the general election in November. Pegge will have the same advantages in that election, and our County has a strong bias toward Democratic candidates. However, Jim Slezak is very well known. We do not know how Mr. Slezak feels about GCAC yet, but we will be talking with him later this month to find out. We will share the results of our conversations with you at that time. As you can see from the notes above, we feel very confident that we have at least 4 quality Commissioners that will take their seats in January (District 1, 3, 6 and 7). We need to make sure that we get at least one more out of either District 5 or District 9, and both would be amazing. Please understand that none of these Commissioners who we feel are animal friendly have promised us anything specific other than they will do their best and that they are committed to doing the right thing. Jamie Curtis (3) and Tony Brown (6) have already shown us that this true for them. Bryant Nolden (1) and Mike Lynch (7) have not yet had the opportunity to prove themselves, but both are dog lovers and have expressed genuine concern for the current state of affairs, which is what makes us so optimistic. You may have also heard that Pegge Adams stepped down as the Chair for the Animal Control Sub Committee today. This would be great news, except that Omar Sims made sure the responsibility was not passed to someone who would make positive change. Instead, in his capacity as the Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, he named Ted Henry as the new Chair. Ted Henry has been on the Animal Control Sub Committee for years. As indicated above, he thinks everything is running great as is. We expect that Ted Henry’s leadership will be just as poor as Pegge Adams. No matter which way you slice it, we think the next 133 days will be dark ones for the homeless dogs and cats in GCAC. But the good news is that come November, we can work together to make sure that when the new Board takes their chairs in January, it is a new day. Stay tuned for how you can help us make sure that this happens.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 02:16:03 +0000
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