Saturday started for me with smiling faces at an Open House in the parking lot of the old Edgewater Giant and future Edgewater Recreation Center, followed by reconnecting with the good people of Queenstown at their annual parade and picnic. But the day ended in disaster.
Donald Trump was grazed with a bullet while speaking at a rally, and once again the campaign for President of the United States of America was turned on its head in ways we don’t fully understand. I put out a statement that night condemning the attack and expressing sympathy to the Trump family and everyone else impacted, but was shaken the next morning by images of the former President with his fist in the air and shouting the words, “Fight, fight, fight.” This week, the fist and those words are the rallying cry of thousands at the RNC in Milwaukee.
Yet life goes on in Anne Arundel County, our microcosm of America, and we do the work, work, work of governing. We try not to fight, fight, fight.
On Monday night the County Council passed legislation to approve Comprehensive Rezoning and a Region Plan for Region 4 (Pasadena, Severna Park, and the Broadneck and Lakeshore Peninsulas). That’s controversial stuff, and it got done with a level of professionalism, urgency, and community engagement that we should all be proud of.
But what I want to focus on is a message brought to the Council at the start of its Monday meeting by Friends of Animal Care and Control, and subsequent messaging on social media. The short version of the message is that the county shelter is in chaos and that the animals are suffering, or will suffer if nothing is done. That’s a message that goes viral quickly, and it has. The problem is that a) it’s not true, and b) spreading it exacerbates the real problems that exist, potentially driving people away and putting animals at risk.
Like shelters across the country, ours has evolved from primarily a euthanasia center to a shelter and adoption center, but unlike most shelters, it’s also responsible for permits and licensing and enforcement of laws. It has officers trained to protect the public from animals, and to protect animals from humans who abuse or neglect them. In both cases they bring animals to the shelter, often against the will of their owners.
When you embed these diverse functions into the Police Department and house them in a building staffed by a mix of union, non-union, and volunteer human beings who all believe that they are sacrificing for the welfare of voiceless animals, and then you connect those humans with an online army of animal lovers through social media, it’s a recipe for stress, or as has been reported by departing employees in recent years, “a toxic work environment.”
We saw that stress in the battle for the lives of Odin and Lucy, we saw it when my predecessor floated the idea of contracting with SPCA to run the operation, and we are seeing it again with the abrupt departure of long-time Administrator Robin Catlett.
And this stress is taking place at a time when shelters across the country are experiencing high abandonment and low adoption rates, especially in the summer.
During my first term in office, we worked around the edges to help the organization by engaging with the Friends advocates and by bringing the administrator in for budget presentations - they used to be a part of the Police budget presentation. That resulted in some facility improvements, new staff positions including their first on-staff veterinarian, and funding for new management software.
But when voters granted my team another four-year term to finish what we started, I put reorganization of animal care and control on the to-do list.
The first step was taken in this year’s budget - to move licensing over to the agency that does that work for other government functions: Inspections and Permits. The processes at Animal Care and Control are antiquated, and it’s time for them to be digitized and put online.
We believe that the public safety work of Animal Control Officers and dispatchers should remain within the Police Department. They will need to collaborate seamlessly with the shelter, but their mission is aligned with public safety.
It’s the shelter function, and all of the services related to it, that all parties have agreed for years should be separated from the Police Department. Personnel policies, budget priorities, and management style don’t align well, and it’s time to do something about it.
Outsourcing to an existing nonprofit operator is in my view neither feasible nor in the public interest, but there are benefits to operating outside the restrictions of being a government agency. I’ve asked an interdepartmental team to work with the Office of Law to propose a quasi-governmental model similar to what we have for economic development, housing, and a few other functions. That work is well underway and a legislative proposal will be ready for review late in the summer.
At the same time, we are moving forward with the hiring of a new Animal Care and Control Administrator. Among the 36 applicants were some superstars, and second interviews take place next week. Finalists will be fully briefed on the changes we have underway, and whoever we hire will be tasked with managing the transition and leading the reorganized operation.
I met on June 6 with staff at Animal Care and Control as a group, toured the operation, and spoke separately with the acting administrator, the police supervisor, the on-staff veterinarian, and some staff who had specific concerns. I also met on June 3 with the chair and vice chair of the Animal Welfare Council, and on July 10 with the full committee. In each of these meetings I gave status updates on the process that I have described here, and in the last meeting heard thoughts about the direction we are moving from the committee’s leadership, leadership from the Animal Matters Commission, leadership from the union, and leadership from Friends of Animal Care and Control.
Before introducing a bill to the County Council, we will share its elements with these same groups, the stakeholders and experts. Their input will be integrated into a bill that the County Council will be asked to consider this fall.
I know how difficult it is for human beings to set aside their differences and cooperate when animal welfare is at stake. I spent much of my career creating and working within horse welfare organizations. This work brings out the best and the worst in us, not unlike politics.
In both arenas, the magic happens when we remember our shared goals, listen to one another, and do the actual work, work, work. Not fight, fight, fight.
I trust that we will.
Until next week…
Steuart Pittman
Anne Arundel County Executive