Council's <nobr>May 7</nobr> Choice: Approve Verbally Fogged Animal Shelter Killing Policies Or Allow Overdue Agendized Discussion Of No-Kill Shelter Policies

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Council's May 7 Choice: Approve Verbally Fogged Animal Shelter Killing Policies Or Allow Overdue Agendized Discussion Of No-Kill Shelter Policies

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(May 5, 2019, 7:20 p.m.) -- Councilmembers Jeannine Pearce, Lena Gonzalez, Suzie Price and Stacy Mungo have agendized an item for the May 7 City Council meeting that would effectively approve policies at the LB's Animal Shelter described in ways that mimic "no kill" verbiage but effectively enable LB's city-taxpayer-operated facility to continue killing dogs and cats on management-decided terms. If approved by a Council majority as it currently stands, their item which can be viewed in full here would effectively ratify the record of LB Mayor Robert Garcia and all incumbent Councilmembers who over a period of several years have stubbornly refused to agendize a presentation of options offered by "no kill" advocates to reduce kllings at LB's taxpayer-funded city-operated animal shelter.

On its Facebook page, No Kill Long Beach writes in pertinent part:

On May 7, LB City Council will vote on an agenda item that is designed to definitively keep killing as the centerpiece of the Long Beach shelter...Although the City tries to dress it up and use No Kill terminology, the model is a shameful attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the public and is the polar opposite of No Kill...In other words, Compassion saves is more "business as usual," with the killing of our shelter pets slated to continue.
....Councilmember Jeannine Pearce, after supposedly "working with" animal advocates on a statement to support No Kill commits a classic "bait-and-switch," ignoring animal advocates' repeated requests for a commitment to a No Kill shelter...
Your voice is needed to put a stop to the relentless attack on No Kill orchestrated by Mayor Garcia and these City council members. Come to Council on May 7 and be a voice for our shelter animals.

To paraphrase John Kennedy's words from another context: those who make overdue change impossible, make political changes inevitable.

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We make no predictions as to whether the issue may or may not affect the current state Senate runoff involving a Council incumbent and in four 2020 re-election races by Council incumbents. In an era of election upsets, we presume nothing...and the state Senate election may be a very low turnout in which a few hundred votes could swing the result.

What is clear in our view is that LB's Mayor and Council incumbents have over a period of years stubbornly refused to agendize an item even to discuss, much less take voted action to implement, "no kill" practices at LB's city run animal shelter. In this, we believe they are on the wrong side of history. We believe the record shows that that in trying to avoid that overdue public discussion, the Mayor and Council have only escalated the chronic issue further.

In 2014, Dr. Patricia Turner, Ph.D. launched "Stayin' Alive Long Beach" (now retitled "No Kill Long Beach") and endorsed.then-Mayoral candidate Garcia. When he didn't deliver, they began publicly criticizing him. Stung by the criticism, Garcia tried to hand animal shelter issues to LB's City Auditor, which backfired when the Auditor's performance audits validated a number of No Kill's criticisms of animal shelter management. The shelter's manager (an individual LBREPORT.com believes accomplished much despite budgetary and other constraints) was given another management assignment.
After the City Auditor performance audit recommended creating an animal shelter "strategic plan" (a non-legally-binding document to be created by management), Mayor Garcia named a non-binding "animal care visioning Task Force" supposedly to help create the "strategic plan" from which he visibly excluded audible/visible "no kill" advocates (while including at least one loud critic.) [That backfired too, since at least one of his appointees has since revealed that she supports "no kill" policies.]
In fall 2018, no kill advocates began using the period for public comment on non-agendized items at each week's Council meeting to publicly urge the Mayor/Council to agendize action on animal shelter isues.
With no action from the Mayor/Council, no kill advocates held an audible/visible/live-video-streamed demonstration in the rain outside LB's Terrace Theater to publicly protest Mayor Garcia's record on animal shelter issues at his annual "State of the City" message.
In early March 2019, city management organized a public meeting at El Dorado Park (which no LB electeds attended) for the announced topic of discussing the so-called "strategic plan." No kill advocates showed up, ignored the planned topics and turned the meeting into a de facto Town Hall in which most speakers urged implementing kill policies.
At an April 16, 2019 Council "study session" on LB's animal shelter, city management, Mayor Garcia and nearly all Councilmembers avoided even speaking the words "no kill" until Councilwoman Price (to her credit) did so. An intellectually honest colloquy between Price and newly-named shelter manager Staycee Dains ensued which made clear that management's proposed "compassion saves" policy contains verbiage similar to, but differs in key practices from, "no kill" policies.

On May 7, all of this will come to a head at a moment when it might have political consequences.

Councilwoman Gonzalez, a co-agendizer on the May 7 item, is running for a state Senate seat. It's expected to be a low-turnout special election and her LB record will matter as over half of LB can vote. (Vote by mail ballots begin flying May 6.) In a low tuyrnout election, a few hundred votes by animal advocates could matter.
Councilwoman Pearce, the item's lead-co-agendizer, is up for re-election in March 2020. Narrowly elected in 2016, Pearce has angered a number of her constituents by supporting high rise Land Use density in her district's crackerbox-scarred parking-scarce neighborhoods
Councilmembers Supernaw, Andrews and Austin all up for re-election in 2020 if they decide to seek it.

If the Council approves the item as now agendized, "no kill" advocates may practice "trust but verify" with new shelter management, but that doesn't mean they'll remain quiet in the upcoming elections.

In blunt terms, if the Council adopts the May 7 item that no kill advocates consider basically a camouflaged version of the status quo, how many votes might that cost state Senate candidate Gonzalez in her runoff happening now? How many votes might that cost up to four incumbents who may vie for re-election in 2020?

At this point, no one knows for sure.

However in LBREPORT.com's opinion, it would behoove at least a couple of Councilmember(s) on May 7 to offer a friendly amendment, or if necessary make a substitute motion, to hold off a policy setting decision until after the Council conducts an overdue deserved agendized discussion that unflinchingly confronts the pros and cons, costs and benefits, of implementing no kill shelter policies. On that agenda item, it should allow Dr. Turner of No Kill Long Beach to present the group's proposals for at least 15 uninterrupted minutes, including PPT slides, and then field no-nonsense questioning by Councilmembers.

That would be respectable Council policy setting, not rubberstamping what LB's management and non-voting Mayor want done.

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