A Chance for Caddo Animal Shelter: Let the Citizens Have a Voice

Marley is a typical example of what happens to dogs at Caddo Parish Animal Services.

A dog is brought in as a stray, or is owner-surrendered.  The dog might be perfectly healthy, as Marley is.  On intake, Marley is heart worm negative.  Thin, but otherwise fairly healthy and so considered "adoptable."

Adoptable dogs are put inside in plexiglass and cinderblock kennels with concrete floors.  The walls are painted in glaring neon colors.  The sound of barking dogs echo through the facility.  Over time a dog gets "kennel crazy" - sort of like cabin fever in humans.  A dearth of human interaction, constant noise, complete over stimulation.  It gets to you.

When this happens, the dog might become "aggressive" or just stir crazy and so is then moved to the "rescue only"  side of the shelter which is outside in the elements; there are usually several dogs in a kennel and they often have to fight for food.  Dogs like Marley will lose even more weight and eventually become unhealthy.

Our local rescues can only pull so many dogs.  Their funds are limited and donations get maxed out quickly.  Vet bills add up.

So dogs like Marley enter that downward spiral toward euthanasia.

Then we end up with high kill rates.

When Caddo Commissioner Matthew Linn proposed an amendment to the Caddo Parish Home Rule Charter in the October 2 work session that would help change the situation at CPAS, most of the commissioners were in favor and recognize that CPAS is "failing miserably," as Commissioner Mario Chavez said in his remarks.

Three of our commissioners, however, don't see a problem, and as I noted earlier in the week, interim Commissioner Louis Johnson thinks we have administrators in place "who are doing a great job."  That may be true in some departments but certainly not with regard to the animal shelter.

Caddo Parish Animal services euthanizes at least half as many dogs as they take in and the percentage is far higher with cats.

CPAS stats: September 2017

Of course part of that is due to the citizenry who refuses to spay/neuter their animals.  But there have been far too many grievous problems and examples of bad policy, procedure, and mismanagement at our shelter that could be improved upon.  Why does this cycle continue?

Commissioner Linn's proposal to change the charter to allow for an outside auditor is a step in the right direction, however some in our community see this as simply "a political ploy" and said "Commissioners like Matthew Linn have no credibility."  (That was a comment on Facebook when I shared my last blog post.  I don't want to call out the commenter by name).

This is disheartening.  Commissioner Linn is trying to do the right thing, trying to implement known best practices in government, and this is something that should have been done long ago.  In fact, had an auditor been involved back when administrators offered CPERS to the commissioners perhaps that tangled mess could have been avoided.

This is mixing apples and oranges.

This is now.

NOW is the time to fix this shelter and turn it into something we can be proud of.

What we need to focus on is not egos but on the animals like Marley who are at this moment suffering because there is nobody in charge to fix this problem and literally no other hope on the horizon for them outside of this proposed amendment.

We all need to unite in this issue.  We need to quit mixing issues and blaming people for past transgressions that have nothing whatsoever to do with this issue.

We have three commissioners who opposed the proposal: Doug Dominick, Louis Johnson, and John Atkins, and they oppose it for different reasons.

Mr. Dominick opposes primarily the cost to the voters.  By that theory the Caddo Commission should never place any more issues on the ballot.

Mr. Johnson, who is up for re-election October 14, believes things are great the way they are.

Mr. Atkins favors a new committee.

As I recall, the Commission rejected the recommendation of their last formed committee so I don't see the purpose of this.

As Mr. Linn pleaded in the October 2 sessionn, "Give transparency a chance."

I would add, let's give animals like Marley a chance, and the hundreds of other animals who will face stress, hunger, exposure to disease, and euthanization before this is resolved.

Call or email your commissioner and ask them to support this proposal; and remember, all Mr. Linn is asking the Commissioners to do is to bring this issue before the voters.  Ultimately, we get to decide whether or not to change the Home Rule Charter.  Why can't we have a voice?

Doug Dominick: District 1
Lyndon B. Johnson: District 2
Steven Jackson: District 3
Matthew Linn: District 4
Jerald Bowman: District 5
Lynn Cawthorne: District 6
Stormy Gage-Watts: District 7
Mike Middleton: District 8
John Atkins: District 9
Mario Chavez: District 10
Jim Smith: District 11
Louis Johnson: District 12


Further Reading:
SIGIS: Caddo Commissioner: Give Transparency a Chance
The Shreveport Times: Caddo Commission Mulls Over Adding Independent Auditor
The Shreveport Times:  Out of Control Animal Shelter
Association of Local Government Auditors
SIGIS:  Problems at Caddo Animal Shelter Continue

Caddo Commissioner: "Give Transparency a Chance"

Caddo Parish Commission Work Session: 10/2/17

The Shreveport Times published a powerful Letter to the Editor last week about the abysmal failure of the Caddo Parish Animal facility that needs to go viral:

Jack Whitehead writes:

Something's wrong here: we have a Caddo Parish administrator in charge of an animal control operation that is obviously out of control. Check the record. Woody Wilson keeps doing the same thing in hiring incompetent animal shelter managers while expecting a different result.  

When does someone start asking meaningful questions about Dr. Wilson's competence here? Does he get supervision? Then, too, what will it take for him to even start thinking about privatizing our "if in doubt, kill 'em" animal sheltering program?  

Management by government isn't working. Management via private means, with public financing, would give us a chance to find managers motivated to make this operation work — for the animals and for us, the citizens. We could do right things right, if we just tried, for a change.

You know the cycle to which he refers.  Something horrific happens at CPAS, like mistakenly euthanizing the wrong cat or dogs tagged for rescue mistakenly being euthanized,  and the animal community gets up in arms.  We all march down to the Caddo Commission meeting, rail at the commissioners for their ineptitude, and nothing changes.  We might write letters or blog posts, we might organize meetings with our commissioners, but nothing changes.

Many politicians and citizens not involved in the animal community refer to us as "those crazy animal people."

We now have a chance for change, and I'm not talking about yet another new director of CPAS.

At the Caddo Commission work session on October 2, Commissioner Matthew Linn introduced
a proposal to amend the Home Rule Charter under which the Commission operates and allow for a provision for the Commission to hire an independent auditor.

Simply put, the way the Commission now works, the parish audits itself.  It's the equivalent of  Parish Administrator Woody Wilson writing his own test and grading it himself.

What Linn has figured out is that an outside audit is needed if anything is going to change.  It's simply good government.  Why wouldn't we want to follow known Best Practices in government and allow more transparency in what is going on in our local government?  There are legislative guidelines for local governmental bodies to follow and the Caddo Commission is not following those guidelines by virtue of their charter.

My theory is that Caddo Animal Services is just a distraction for whatever is going on elsewhere in the parish. Why does Mr. Wilson keep installing people to head that department who are inept?  If we are all up in arms about a mistakenly euthanized cat then we aren't paying attention to anything else.  The Parish Administrator should have fixed this ongoing problem and inept department by now.  I'm not saying anything nefarious is happening elsewhere in other areas of parish government, but how do we know?

Local animal advocate Cindy Marrus passionately appealed to the Commission on October 2, and in

Cindy Marrus: CPC Work Session 10/2/17

her three minutes recapped the latest atrocity at CPAS and pleaded, "How can you allow what's happening out there?  Aren't you embarrassed?  Don't you have pride?  Don't you care?"  Her tone was pleading and sorrowful - she wasn't ranting.  (You can listen to her remarks here; skip ahead to about 8:56).

Under Linn's proposal, the Commission could call for an audit of any department under their purview, including Animal Services.  You would think this would be a welcome change to the Home Rule Charter which currently does not provide for this.

During the meeting on October 2, Linn noted that he had provided literature about Best Practices in auditing and local government to the commissioners and some had even attended a meeting about it. He's done the research.

Ultimately, the voters have to approve this; all Linn is asking the Commission to do is to bring it before the voters.

Three commissioners voted against the proposal: Doug Dominick, John Atkins, and Louis Johnson.

Mr. Dominick said his concern is the cost of bringing this before the voters: if done in a special election (which nobody suggested) it would cost $225,000, but done during another regular election, like our mayoral election for example, the cost would be around $20,000.  Dominick also suggested that this should wait until the committee that meets every four years to discuss the Home Rule Charter convenes.  They last met in 2016 so my question to Mr. Dominick is how many more animals are you willing to see killed before you wait for this committee to meet in three more years?

Mr. Dominick suggested that a committee to audit financial issues might be okay but not operational issues.  "That's a whole 'nother ball of wax," he said.

But what if operations are your problem?

John Atkins expressed concern about changing the current charter and said that he believes the Commission could achieve the same results by forming an audit committee, which in essence is the same as I said before: writing and grading your own test.  This is not transparent and subject to a host of political shenanigans, vote trading, bargaining, etc., - not that I'm suggesting anyone would do that, but clearly an independent audit is preferred and is a known best practice.

Incredibly, to me, Louis Johnson said he thinks things are just fine the way they are.  He said, "We have people in place who are doing a great job...".  It seems that Mr. Johnson confused the issue as a no-confidence vote against Parish Administrator Woody Wilson, and that's simply not what's on the table. While Mr. Johnson said that we can offer compassion to the woman whose cat was euthanized, he said he was offering "a confidence vote for what we have in place."  So, the abysmal failure of CPAS is just fine with Louis Johnson.

Mr. Johnson, by the way, is serving as interim Commissioner after the resignation of Ken Epperson.  The election for this seat will be October 14.

Remember, all that Mr. Linn is asking them at this point is to bring this issue before the voters - asking for the authority to have an independent audit of parish departments if needed. In concurrence,  Lyndon Johnson noted "what we're doing is not working," because the charter right now does not allow for independent audits.  In the meeting Johnson also noted that "we know there are issues with animal services and we need to make a change and see if we can do something different."

Steven Jackson said, "I felt sort of remiss when I heard about this.  This is not a slight on anyone...it's about asking the citizens what is their preferred method for best practices."

Commissioner Chavez agreed: "Caddo Parish Animal Services has failed...We keep putting our trust in what's not working.  Something's got to give."

The list of atrocities at CPAS is lengthy, from selling animals out the back door, to bestiality, and countless accidental incidents of euthanization. It's been going on for over a decade.  Clearly the Commissioners, nor anyone else, know exactly what's going on there.  Just try and volunteer at CPAS - good luck on that.

In truth the only person that knows what's going on in all departments of parish government is Parish Administrator Woody Wilson; the Caddo Commission does not because there's no transparency.  As Parish Administrator, we expect that Woody Wilson would want to utilize known Best Practices in government and offer transparency to voters, animal advocates, citizens.  He should be advocating for this change in charter.  He is not.

Linn said at the work session, "Yes, it's going to cost $20,000 to put this on the ballot but it's worth it to let the citizens vote and see if they want us to follow what is known as Best Practices...Give transparency a chance."

I think he's right.

Everyone in Caddo Parish should advocate for this, and to appeal to your Commissioner to support this.  Don't we want transparency?  Don't we want to ensure accountability?  Look at what the City uncovered when the water department was audited!  We have a chance to change.

If the Commissioners could fix CPAS, they would.  They can't because they can't get involved in the departmental operations there.  This proposal would give them the authority to do that and to uncover the Wizard behind the screen.

Find your Commissioner here. Ask them to support this amendment.

Further Reading:
Shreveport Times:  Caddo Commission Mulls Adding Independent Auditor
Shreveport Times:  Out of Control Animal Shelter
Association of Local Government Auditors