Comments on: Employees seek reinstatement of Sonoma County Animal Control director

By: Proud Animal Activist Wacko

Proud Animal Activist Wacko — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:30:17 +0000

As far as us “wackos” doing something before the arrival of Amy Cooper, we were plenty involved with the shelter. Unless this is the first time you’ve actually paid any attention to what is happening in that hell hole, you’d already know that.
Without the “wackos” this shelter would have been in a far worse place than it is now. Pay attention, Mickie.

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By: Enough Already

Enough Already — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:58:59 +0000

The Agricultural Commissioner, and the County Administrator should be held accountable. The Commissioner did not communicate performance problems to the Animal Control Director before failing her on probation? The Administrator did not know what was happening in the Commissioners office? Who is in charge of insuring taxpayer dollars are well spent and public interest met? Appears no one…

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By: Mickie Cinollo

Mickie Cinollo — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:32:12 +0000

The County Shelter is an open admission shelter. That means that they accept all animals regardless of space or adoptability. It’s easy to be “No Kill” when you turn away animals that arent easy to place. “No Kill” is often code for “Ship it elsewhere and kill it” usually to the County Shelter. The shelters euthanasia numbers include animals requested to be euthanized by their owners, nuisance wildlife that are prohibited from being released by fish and game laws and severely sick, injured, suffering or aggresive animals that either cannot be saved or are not safe to be in our community.
The Shelter works extensively with rescues but they do not release animals to everyone who claims to be a rescue without legitimate and legal rescue status (501.c3.) This is to avoid collectors/hoarders and people who just want an animal without paying the fees (which dont even come close to covering shelter costs such as vet care, vaccines, surgery and microchips.)
As for the “Wackos” being responsible for the drop in euthanasia numbers, why didnt they do something before Amy came? It seems a little strange that the numbers went down so much after Amy arrived.

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By: NOTUTOO

NOTUTOO — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:58:29 +0000

County personnel on probation are never given a reason for dismissal when they are let go. That goes for heads of departments to the lowest worker. You can, by law, fire a probationary employee without cause as long as they’re probationary. This department head does not officialy know herself why she was fired. Had they given her a reason she would then be able to grieve the firing. Obviously her works did not compensate for whatever reason she was let go without cause. It could be anything, from porn on the computer to using a county credit card for personal reasons to just a bad personality clash. We’ll never officially know. speculate away…

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By: Mickie Cinollo

Mickie Cinollo — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:52:26 +0000

The critical Animal Shelter Director position would be filled again so there would be no savings to the county by loosing Amy Cooper. Besides Amy is well worth the money as she brought together employees, volonteers, other animal agencies, the community foundation and many others for the sole purpose of providing improved services for the citizens and animals of Sonoma County. She wrote a grant proposal and recieved $15,000 for Spay/nueter programs as well as thousands in funds to improve the shelter livestock area, imlemented the shelters e-newsletter, officer profiles and more. Her only critisism seems to that she put boundries on the vocal minority of extremests instead of spending taxpayer money wasting her time catering to them.

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By: catlover

catlover — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:51:00 +0000

How many animals could have been saved with $100,000 a year ( or even half of that )? 28% of our animals killed? that’s too many … I work in animal rescue and the shelter has refused to release some animals that might have been saved … these animals were killed instead.

We need a progressive thinker in that position. We need a no kill shelter that utilizes all resources to save animals.

The silence surrounding this issue is so familiar. This is our shelter and our animals and we need all information made public.

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By: Allen Rafanan

Allen Rafanan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:59:49 +0000

County leadership is really falling down here. Apparently there is a department head who is not communicating to the supervisors or the administrator about important personnel issues. Clearly the removal of a high-profile manager is NOT something that should have surprised the management. But up the chain there is an administrator who has no satisfactory answers except that “department heads are individually accountable for running their departments.” So basically we taxpayers WHO PAY THESE PEOPLE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS are expected to think that this is just how it works and everything will be okay.

This is a disaster. Elected leaders should recognize that sticking their heads in the “confidential personnel issues” sand is insufficient. At the very least they should review Neville’s performance. Maybe even this weird “individually accountable” policy adopted for department heads.

These services don’t belong to department heads; they belong to the taxpayers.

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By: The Dogfather

The Dogfather — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:46:36 +0000

Just because the last review was positive, doesn’t mean the second will be as such. In the State of California, Amy Coopers employment was “At Will.” Meaning she could quit, or be dismissed for anyreason, or no reason at all. If it comes down to saving the taxpayers $101.000 annually, so be it. A big part of those euthanasia numbers dropping was due to us “wackos” on the outside applying pressure. Don’t be so quick to give Amy Cooper all the credit.

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By: Hotseatmama

Hotseatmama — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:21:09 +0000

Maybe the wrong person was fired. The Board of Supervisors should take a good hard look at the Agricultural Commissioner. Has she had a performance evaluation since coming to this county a year and a half ago????

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By: Doggus Poooopus

Doggus Poooopus — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:18:49 +0000

1.Somebody is patting themselves on the back for saving $101,000 a year.
2. Somebody felt threatened by someone doing their job well.
3. all of the above.

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By: goodbyemike

goodbyemike — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:44:58 +0000

So Agricultural Commissioner Cathy Neville fired Amy Cooper 48 hours before her probationary period was to end. Somthings stinks worse than a wild skunk here.

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