THIS IS THE LETTER I EMAILED TO PETER WRIGHT ON 11 JULY 2014. HE IGNORED IT. Dr Peter Wright BvSc President RSPCA NSW Subject: Threatened Closure of Blue Mountains RSPCA Shelter. Dear Dr Wright, I am writing to you because I would really like to know why the RSPCA NSW Board of Directors appear to be backing the intention of CEO Steve Coleman to close down & eventually sell the Blue Mountains RSPCA shelter. This decision has caused a great deal of very bad publicity for RSPCA NSW in the Blue Mountains whose residents made the shelter possible, as well as financially supporting it until 2003. When I resigned as the Branch Administrator in October 2003 RSPCA NSW seized the opportunity to take over the management of what was a very successful Branch consisting of a beautiful & very busy animal shelter set on 4.5 hectares & two retail shops which sold accessories for animals & animal related gifts for owners. In 2007 things were to become a lot worse for the Branch when Steven Coleman became CEO of RSPCA NSW. It wasn’t long before he had both shops & the shelter valued & obviously set his plan in motion to sell off all the Branch assets. Eventually, without any consultation with the Branch he closed down both shops & leased them out before offering them for sale, it appears that he leases them out to enable assets to be described as ‘no longer used by the RSPCA’ in the Financial Report & possibly CEO Coleman describes them as such to the Directors in order to gain permission to sell them. I joined the Blue Mountains Branch in 1976 & quickly realised the urgent need for a shelter, an Animal Shelter Fund was launched & in 1977 shops were rented to raise funds, those shops eventually became the front line for our shelter. We advertised our need for a shelter through the shops, we gave out educational leaflets through them & raised money to build & to support our shelter. With soaring rents we decided to purchase shops & we did that in 1989, the Katoomba premises cost us $125,000 & the Springwood premises were $135,000, we had mortgages on both shops & paid them off quickly.The reason for closing the shops has been given as their failure to be viable. I fail to understand how shops that are fully paid for, that are exempt from land rates & that are staffed by volunteers could not be viable. Despite the fact that we worked incredibly hard to purchase those premises the proceeds from the sale of Katoomba shop has been taken to Yagoona, as no doubt the proceeds of Springwood shop will be if the Directors allow it to be sold. When the 11 acres in Mort Street came up for sale in May 1980 for $35,000 we had raised $20,000 but we knew that Mount Victoria member Margaret Thompson had died & bequested her property to the Branch, so we were able purchase the land & build 2 rows of kennels.We negotiated with BMCC & from 1st Jan 1983 their impounded dogs came to our shelter. For 31 years the RSPCA in the Blue Mountains acted as agents for the BMCC in providing impounding facilities for dogs & later cats, but despite that long and harmonious partnership RSPCA NSW Steven Coleman gave them 6 months to find other premises, he has refused to allow them an extension beyond 21 November. You may imagine how popular RSPCA NSW is with the Blue Mountains City Council. CEO Coleman has threatened to close the shelter on 21 November. The staff have been given notice for that date. The woman who has lived in the shelter cottage for 20 years paying a peppercorn rent in return for overseeing the shelter after hours has been told to leave. CEO Coleman is trying to lease it out for a short period of time as it is much easier for him to get a sale approved by the Directors for a property that is no longer being used by the RSPCA. The online Financial Report of RSPCA NSW under ‘Sale of Assets’ has the words “none of these assets were being used by the RSPCA at the time of sale” He has effectively destroyed the most successful Branch of the RSPCA in NSW. Steven Coleman has gagged the Branch Committee by threatening them with expulsion from the RSPCA if they intervene. He has withheld the membership list from this Branch for a considerable number of years so their membership has dwindled from the 1,000 members they had when I left, to probably a few Life Members, earlier this year he told the Committee that they couldn’t have the membership list because of the recent changes to the Privacy Act, I rang the OAIC & was told that recent changes had no effect on membership lists & there was no reason that RSPCA NSW should withhold it from the Committee. I told this to the Committee & they relayed that to the CEO who then emailed them to say that the Act does not compel RSPCA NSW to disclose the information. Such arrogance. So the Branch has no idea who it’s members are, this CEO certainly knows how to destroy a Branch. Prior to 2003 we used to send out newsletters to our members every 8 weeks to tell them what was happening at the shelter & the shops, they felt involved, we were their RSPCA, that’s why we had 1,000 members. When the news of the shelter closure was mentioned CEO Coleman was asked what would happen to the animals & his reply was “That’s not my problem”. Since then he has had to think up a better answer, so he has come up with the incredible idea of fostering. Good grief, that is turning the clock back 33 years. I was once so proud of my association with RSPCA NSW, now I just feel embarrassed. He keeps telling people that the Blue Mountains has a very active Branch. It is now about as inactive as a Branch could be, how could a Branch be active when the members (if there are any) don’t even know each other. In an effort to stop the shelter from closing I have a petition on change.org/en-AU entitled ‘RSPCA: don’t shut the Blue Mountains animal shelter’. The covering letter is addressed to the Board of Directors & the CEO Steven Coleman. We have collected many thousands of signatures protesting against the closure, both online & on hard copies. There is also a Facebook page “ Save Our Blue Mountains RSPCA Shelter” which started out as a collection of historical photographs of the Shelter being built. Dr Wright, I’m asking you for the shelter to be returned to the management of the Blue Mountains Branch, at no cost to RSPCA NSW, as it was prior to 2003, we managed it very successfully for the first 22 years of it’s existence. We have a Business Plan, but would need the Springwood Shop to be withdrawn from sale, to allow the Branch to use it as a fund raising shop. The only answer I get from Steven Coleman is “No” when I ask why he says “Because you wouldn’t be able to” . Well he is quite wrong & he knows that. He wants to lease the shelter & then sell it to put money into the RSPCA NSW account. Well selling the shelter & our shops might look good in the short term, but in the long term RSPCA NSW will lose millions of dollars in bequests & donations from the residents of the Blue Mountains, RSPCA NSW will never be forgiven by the residents or by our City Council if this goes ahead & CEO Steven Coleman & the current Board of Directors will be remembered in RSPCA history as the people who allowed it to happen. On Wednesday 23 July at 7.00 pm a public meeting is being held in the historic Carrington Hotel in Katoomba the owners have donated the use of the Carrington Library to us. A few weeks ago CEO Coleman agreed that he would attend a public meeting, so I went ahead and arranged one. Now he is saying he has a prior engagement which he will try to change. Hmm. It would look even less good for RSPCA NSW if he doesn’t attend, a directive might not go astray. My regards to you, Silvia. (Life Member RSPCA NSW) silviaford
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:31:20 +0000
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