Advocates Urging No Kill Animal Shelter Policies Hold Well-Organized Visible/Audible Demonstration -- In The Rain -- Outside Mayor Garcia's "State of the City" Speech

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Advocates Urging No Kill Animal Shelter Policies Hold Well-Organized Visible/Audible And Digitally Distributed Demonstration -- In The Rain -- Outside Mayor Garcia's "State of the City" Speech

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(Jan. 16, 2019, 1:47 p.m.) -- Advocates urging the City to implement "No Kill" animal shelter policies at LB's City-run Animal Shelter held a demonstration outside the Terrace Theater where Mayor Garcia delivered his "State of the City" message.

And they did so despite pouring rain. They brought old-school signs and reached those beyond the site with digital VIDEO, audio comments and photos distributed via Facebook's social network platform.

And it didn't end after the Mayor finished his speech. Within minutes, demonstration participant Jacqueline Case -- a member of a Mayor-chosen "Animal Care Visioning Task Force -- called out the Mayor for a claim he made about adoptions from the City-run shelter.

And Ms. Case used her Facebook page to share VIDEO and photos of the group's demonstration.

Faced with continuing criticism from no-kill animal shelter advocates at City Council meetings and on social networks, Mayor Garcia didn't explicitly acknowledge the demonstration in his speech but said "In 2014, when this team was elected [the Mayor referred to the Council and himself as a "team"] we were euthanizing about 3200 animals...and last year in 2018, we dropped the euthanasia in recent city history, below a thousand" and then added: "[T]he truth is, adoptions are up and have been growing."

Within a few hours, Ms. Case countered on herFacebook page that the Mayor's statement "is a blatant untruth. There were 682 adoptions in 2017. AND, 632 adoptions in 2018."

In her video of the demonstration, Ms. Case commented that she's a member of the Mayor's "Animal Care Visioning Task Force" but (with a laugh) added: "I hope I still stay on the Task Force." (Mayor Garcia declined to include as members of his chosen Task Force individuals in the leadership or publicly prominent supporters of No Kill Long Beach.)

The demonstration was organized by supporters of no kill shelter practices but not by No Kill Long Beach itself as an organization group. To LBREPORT.com's knowledge, the demonstration is the first in recent LB history on any City Hall practices held at the site of the Mayor's "State of the City" speech.

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