Friday, Oct. 18, 2002 | 9:56 a.m.
WELCOME to the Dog Doo Wars.
Peace in this valley has been nonexistent ever since the Animal Foundation, a non-profit spay/neuter clinic, entered into a contract with the city of Las Vegas in 1995 to become the city animal shelter.
Before the Animal Foundation received the contract, the city and county animals were housed at a shelter operated by a for-profit group. That group included two veterinarians and the owners of the building off Tropicana called Dewey, known today as the Dewey Animal Care Center.
And herein lies the beginnings of all the trouble. The Dewey people did not like having the city pull out of their shelter and enlisted the help of other animal groups to attack the Animal Foundation.
I know this to be true. As chairman of the board of the Animal Foundation, I remember what life was like before the city contract, when as a spay/neuter clinic we broke all records for spaying and neutering, and what life became like after the contract.
The facts are clear and they are these. Dewey operates a for-profit shelter and must meet its bottom line. The county taxpayers fund $1.2 million to handle the same number of animals that the Animal Foundation takes care of, about 20,000 per year. Dewey puts down around 50 percent to 55 percent of the animals it receives. Animals are kept for seven days and if they sneeze or cough they are dead. Roughly 1,000 to 2,000 animals are adopted out each year.
By contrast, the Animal Foundation is a non-profit organization that receives, including the new raise from the city, about $490,000 per year from taxpayers. The foundation depends on private-donor dollars and license and impound fees because it is the mission of the foundation to save every healthy, friendly animal. Not every one of the 80 to 100 animals brought in every day from either animal control, the public or from owners is friendly or healthy. But those animals that can be treated by veterinarians and brought back to health are, and that is expensive.
The adoption rate at the Animal Foundation's shelter has been as high as 9,000 per year and not lower than 7,000. The euthanasia figures are between 32 percent and 35 percent. Bear in mind, for reasons other than medical, animals that are considered behavior problems are seen by at least three persons, including a vet, before being euthanized.
We get them all: aggressive animals that have bitten children, pit bulls fresh from fights and animals that have been hit by cars. Owners bring us sick animals that they can't pay vet bills for or they are moving and can't take their 16-year-old cocker spaniel.
Each animal is evaluated in its own right and those we can save we do. Others must be put down because it is the more humane thing to do for the animal. Are mistakes made? When so much emotion is tied to every decision, mistakes will be made, but they are minimal in the countless decisions made every single day.
We do this job because we care deeply about the animals in this community and know we do a better job than just about any other shelter in this country. Our shelter is a model for municipal shelters and it was built with private, not taxpayers', dollars. We do this job for the city at about one-third what Dewey costs county taxpayers because we have wonderful volunteers and generous donors who insist that we keep animals 30 days or more until they find good homes.
I am stating these facts because our story is not being told for what I believe are personal reasons. As a member of the family that owns the Las Vegas Sun, my association with the group is probably the reason the Animal Foundation cannot get a fair or balanced story from the Review-Journal. Lest I sound like some whiny, it's-all-about-me pathetic character, I truly am trying to understand why the R-J's lock-and-load mentality has set its sights on the Animal Foundation. By their own libertarian standards we are the better shelter in town. Taxpayers pay less for our services and the private sector helps finance us.
The countless stories that they print about us always refer to a city audit that lasted eight months and focused on allegations made by disgruntled ex-employees and Dewey associates. Of the 18 audit findings, nine were tossed out, a third of those had to do with the old building we were in and the rest have been cleared by city inspectors and auditors. Yet those facts are never revealed in the R-J. Just allegation after allegation are thrown into every story.
That must mean the R-J supports Dewey even though Dewey has a dismal record of animal care and costs three times more to the taxpayers. Of the $1.2 million spent of taxpayer dollars, more than $400,000 goes into the pockets of the owners of the building. Under the Dewey lease agreement, the owners are not required to fix a leaky roof, clean up toxic mold or change a light bulb, for that matter. The money is pure profit.
The Animal Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the groups that have attacked us for years because we have finally had enough. Make no mistake, not one dime of the city money we receive, nor any donor dollars, will go to fight this battle in court.
Tom Mitchell, the editor of the R-J, in his Oct. 13 column, skewed facts, misleading his readers, even though his newspaper received a press release that was very clear. Referring to our attorneys, Mitchell said Matthew Callister had to get off the case because he was conflicted in that his firm represented one of the defendants. That is not true. Callister's firm never represented any of the defendants and Matthew is still very much on the case. Because the specter of First Amendment infringment was raised, Dominic Gentile, Nevada's preeminent First Amendment attorney, also was hired.
These are the facts. And you can read them here in the Sun because the R-J won't print them.
So what do you call a newspaper, and its editor, that has the facts and chooses to distort them or disregard them all together? What do you call a newspaper, and its editor, that makes a mockery of the principle our forefathers held so dear -- that the pen, mightier than the sword, shall not be abridged, such an important tenet that it became the First Amendment? What do you call such an abomination of the ideals of good journalism?
I call it the Review-Journal.
archive
