10/21/2022
OUR PRESSURE IS WORKING! Thank you LA animal advocates & Angelenos who made HUNDREDS of calls & emails to Paul Koretz & city officials this past month!
After years of ignoring concerns about LA animal shelters as Animal Welfare Committee Chair, Koretz is finally doing something!
Yesterday, Koretz introduced a motion to determine the "budgetary needs" for LA Animal Services to fully operate and staff City of LA animal shelters.
Koretz’s motion frames the problem as a lack of $. This also overlooks Koretz’s role in misusing $ intended for animal welfare.
2 years ago, Koretz himself approved a $1.5 Million contract using Animal WELFARE Trust Fund donations to pay The Glue LLC to create a website/fundraise. To this day there’s NOTHING to show for what The Glue promised.
($1.5M could've paid for 60,000 dog walking hours at $25/hr)
Koretz approved spending 63% of the Animal Welfare Trust Fund in one year on a dubious contract! (source: Reseda Neighborhood Council)
Meanwhile, shelter animals have been suffering, and Koretz and LAAS leaders are blaming the suffering on lack of funds.
We still have a lot of work to do to hold Paul Koretz and the City of LA accountable to improving shelter conditions:
LAAS continues to suspend and terminate volunteers who whistleblow about shelter conditions. Instead of retaliation, we should be thanking these whistleblowers.
THEY are the REASON why Koretz and the City are finally taking action. Not only that, shelters rely on these volunteers to provide basic care for the animals. Volunteers are the only people who walk the dogs. Each volunteer suspension means certain dogs are denied walks.
Our pressure campaign is WORKING as seen yesterday by City Council moving to seek funding, but we can’t stop now while inhumane shelter conditions persist and whistleblowers face retaliation.
Keep calling into Animal Welfare Committee & Commission meetings and emailing the City!
Email City officials to demand that they:
1) Reinstate suspended volunteers who spoke up for better care for the animals. We need more whistle-blowers, not less! Usually it's the volunteers with the most responsibilities for the animals who speak up and get suspended!
2) Have the City process volunteer and job applications FASTER to help care for the animals (there are tons of people who want to volunteer but the City has been slow and inefficient). Supposedly, there is only 1 part-time clerk processing hundreds of volunteer applications.
3) Have senior volunteers lead volunteer orientations. This has been done in the past. Right now, there are hundreds of people who want to volunteer, but under the current system, orientation can take weeks or months to happen.
4) Advocate for more funding and resources to take care of the shelters including the kennels - not just for the dogs, but for all other animals AND for free spay and neuter services and education/outreach regarding them (vouchers run out too quickly)
5) Extend shelter days and hours open to the public so people can get more time to see animals, adopt them, & for volunteers to care for/walk the animals.
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We will continue to fight besides you all and pushing the City to do the bare minimum, it's JOB, now and when we become Los Angeles City Controller on November 8! No more messing around!
