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Susana Barrios
From:Deborah Felin <catpaws.deborah@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, June
To:Public Comment
Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] Orange County Animal Shelter
Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open
attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message.
Greetings,
I am writing in reference to the requested assessment to the City of Anaheim by Orange County Animal Care
Services.
Our non-profit cat rescue has been a partner with Orange County Animal Care Services for years. We directly
rescue cats, our volunteers participate in the Pet Food Pantry and we have provided at no cost to OCAC
thousands of dollars worth of kitten care kits to in turn give to people who find and bring in kittens in an effort
to engage the community in taking care of those kittens and diverting them from shelter intake, saving taxpayer
money and often also the kittens who are at risk of being euthanized if sick or not yet of adoptable age.
Additionally, we have operated our own spay/neuter voucher fund for years providing financial assistance to
residents of Orange County, many of whom are from Anaheim, to get cats fixed in an effort to stem the tide of
unwanted litters and the consequent suffering and death of too many of those kittens. In recent years,
specifically since OCAC abandoned its TNR support, demand on that program of ours has exploded to the point
we can no longer offer it and have had to suspend it. In one year we gave out over 900 vouchers, over half of
which were redeemed at a cost of over $50,000 to our small non-profit organization, which was not sustainable.
A recently issued Orange County Grand Jury report outlined many of the concerns and reached the conclusions
those of us in animal rescue have expressed for years, to deaf ears at Orange County Animal Care
administration.
Namely:
1. Orange County Animal Care services is killing more animals as a percentage of intake.
2. Staff shortages, lack of animal behavior assessment is resulting in more animal deaths
3. Abandonment of the TNR program has resulted in a statistically significant increase in cat deaths. OCAC
hides behind threat of a lawsuit as reason for abandonment of that program despite other cities and counties in
CA still offering it. I guess those other agencies have smarter lawyers.
4. There is no form of spay/neuter support, either vouchers or clinics at the OCAC shelter itself.
5. The shelter remains largely closed to walk in traffic long after other CA shelters have reopened.
Now OCAC comes to the City of Anaheim to ask for more money to do less and produce worse results. That is
cheeky. Small non-profit organizations are breaking under the weight of trying to address the animal suffering
and death left in the wake of OCAC administrative negligence and incompetence. We're the ones who should be
asking for more money. This is not just about animals. This also impacts the people - and there are many - in
your community who care for animals and are trying to do the right thing but so often lack the means. We have
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found it is often those people who have the least who care the most. We try to help them but we cannot take on
what OCAC should be doing.
I would urge you to reject OCAC's demand for more and more money to do less, and in fact hold them
accountable for the poor performance and inadequate service delivered to your residents.
Sincerely,
Deborah Felin Magaldi
Director
www.helensanderscatpaws.com
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