I attended the Board Meeting last week and listened to people express their concerns with the current euthanasia status at LHS. Some of them were staff workers and volunteers who have witnessed the dog evaluations. They were upset over how the tests are being preformed and feel that the dogs are being set up to fail. They all expressed the same sentiment "Let us help LHS save these dogs" but that request went on deaf ears and 15 dogs are being put down today.
If I was running that meeting my opening statements would not have been to criticize the previous management and board but I would have pleaded with everyone in that room to go home and get on your PC's and find reputable rescues, get valid recommendations and referrals, put out email blasts to all your friends, co-workers and family and ask them to help. I would have enlisted and signed up everyone in that room including the reporters to come down to the shelter to help clean and walk dogs. I would have asked everyone in that room to come up with new ideas on fundraising, networking and fostering but instead the parties running that meeting had already made up their mind what they were going to do to resolve the issue at LHS.
R.I.P. my four legged friends and I'm sorry we couldn't help you.

This is an email from Steve Sacchitelli to Diana Jeffries, Nikki Dawson and others in regards to LHS
Subject: Crisis at Liberty Humane Society in Jersey City


EVERYONE PLEASE READ MY COMMENTS IN RESPONSE TO THE E MAIL FROM NIKKI DAWSON BELOW. PLEASE CROSS-POST WIDELY.


To Diana Jeffrey and Nikki Dawson, I have copied you here to give you the opportunity to respond, a courtesy you have not afforded Joanna Hopkinson, fired under the interim board made up of Diana Jeffrey, Bonnie Yost and Laura Moss, as you attempt to paint her as a "hoarder".

Is it true that you negotiated a gag order for Ms. Hopkinson and also for Janet Rusell, the former Development Director? If so, why? What is it that they might have to say that you would rather everyone not hear?

I was in the shelter about a week before Ms. Hopkinson was fired. It was crowded, yes. Was it spotless, no? Was it the hell-on-earth you are depicting? Absolutely not. I had made arrangements with Ms. Hopkinson to start a series of adoption, fund-raising and press campaigns. We were going to succeed.

But now, here we are, with an interim Board of Directors made up of the old members of the Board of Directors. The founders, the members, the Presidents, the Managers, all of whom presided over a shelter operation with kill rates in the range of 45 to 50%. Is it possible you didn't want this movement to succeed because it would highlight your failures?

I have more questions for all of you:

1. To Ms. Jeffrey, on contractual obligations:

Were you not the one who wrote and negotiated the contract between Jersey City and Liberty Humane?
Did that contract not require you to build approximately 75 proper dog runs sometime in the early to mid 2000s?
Why was this never done?
Do you think if it were the crowding at the shelter would be less of an issue?
Why do you not take any of the responsibility for the situation we have now?

As an attorney who has made a career of holding public officials accountable to their fiduciary duties, I find your apparent breech, here, especially troubling.

2. To Ms Dawson on your description of the shelter:

You circulated this note, below, claiming the shelter is holding 99 dogs in a shelter equipped only to house 50.
Does the current contract with the City of Jersey City not require that the shelter be able to hold up to 75 dogs?
Why do you think this contract was signed if the facility can only hold 50 dogs?
Are you an employee of the shelter? What is your role here?
Are you the one performing the actual "euthanasia"? Is death, in your view, more humane than the crowded conditions you complain about?

3. To Mr. O'Keefe and the rest of the board who so publicly resigned, on your obligations:

Did you not receive a $9,000 grant from the city of Hoboken, ear-marked specifically to buy proper cages?
What happened to this money?
Do you think if those cages were purchased these animals would not be dying now?:
What was the actual budget overage under Ms. Hopkinson's no-kill shelter? I have heard it is in the range of $30 to $40K.
As Board members, when a shelter Director hands you a no-kill shelter with a major donor behind her and a $40k budget problem, did you think it was more appropriate to fire the Director, kill the animals or quit rather than RAISE $40,000 TO KEEP THE ANIMALS ALIVE?

4. To Ms. Jeffrey, Ms. Yost and Ms. Moss on the firing of Joana Hopkinson:

In Diana Jeffrey's own words, Ms. Hopkinson was fired to stave off the appearance that one major donor pulled too much weight (paraphrased).

Really? A Director and a major donor, committed to 'No-Kill', were fired and potentially ostracized over politics? What about the animals?

Did you consider, for all of the complaining of budgetary woes, that alienating this major donor could make those problems worse if he pulls his money?
Ms. Dawson complains that there are only 2 kennel workers caring for and cleaning up after all of the animals. If this is true, why, then, would you fire an Executive Director PAID FOR BY THIS DONOR AND COSTING THE SHELTER NOTHING WHILE YOU KEEP A PAID MANAGER ON STAFF?

If it were me, I would keep the FREE Director and turn the PAID Manager into 1 or 2 paid kennel workers. Management 101.

5. To Ms. Jeffrey, Ms. Yost and Ms. Moss, on population and your kill policy:

You have maintained consistently that there was never and is not a plan for a mass killing of the animals. But here we are:

Is it true that 12 dogs were killed this week? How many cats?
Is it true that 32 dogs will be killed on Friday? How many cats will you kill?

If so, there we go, cutting the population in half by killing them, as everyone swore, for months, was not the plan, apparently was the plan all along.

Worst of all, I'm hearing that THE STAFF IS NOT ALLOWED TO PLACE ANIMALS IN RESCUE OR TO DO ADOPTIONS.

NO RESCUE ALLOWED?
NO ADOPTIONS ALLOWED?
YET THE PLACE IS OVERFLOWING! GEE...

Several months ago Ms. Hopkinson held an adoption even that placed 37 animals in one weekend. This friday you will kill that many while restricting placements and doing absolutely no adoption events while you criticize everyone under the moon but yourselves.

It's past time you all stepped aside. Seriously.

Steve Sacchitelli


Email from Nikki Dawson:

Please see below. This is an appeal from an Interim Board Member at the Liberty Humane Society in Jersey City. Permission to cross-post

Three weeks ago, I was sitting in a crowded room listening to the Liberty Humane Society's then-president John O'Keefe read from a prepared statement. The rest of the five member board looked grim as John stood up and began reading. He announced that the entire board
was resigning, citing pending bankruptcy caused by what he described as a botched attempt at going no-kill, led by the executive director and the group's largest donor, that had led to overcrowding and was bleeding the organization's bank accounts. I knew that without a board, the Liberty Humane Society would be dissolved, taken over by the Attorney General, and the shelter would revert to a 7-day/euth impound facility run by the City of Jersey City's animal control division. Myself, along with two other past presidents of LHS in attendance that night, volunteered to take over as
the new interim board. I had no idea what awaited us.
The conditions at the shelter are...what's the right word? abismal, horrendous, shocking, horrifying, take your pick. It's difficult to put into words what it's like to see 99 dogs crammed into a facility built to comfortably house only 50. What it's like to witnesss 274 cats in a building meant for only 80. Perhaps the best description is a word we in this field know only so well: HOARDER.
The facility is disgusting. The animals are suffering. The smell is powerful, it knocks you over. Cats come in healthy, get sick and die. Kittens drop dead in their cages from panleuk every day. There are only TWO kennel attendants to take care of 99 dogs. Dogs live in cramped cages, that spend 23 1/2 hours in cages where they can't stand up or turn around, can't stretch their limbs, where they can't get away from their own filth. Their noses are rubbed raw and bloody and many have split pads from getting their feet caught in the wire pop up cages really meant for cats. And this place calls itself a no-kill shelter.
Our goal on this interim board is to end the suffering. But we can't do it alone. We have embarked on an aggressive campaign to get dogs evaluated, vaxed, s/n, and then placed. Placed in foster homes, adopted, or picked up by rescues or other shelters. That's where you come in. Please consider opening your doors and your hearts to a dog that did nothing wrong except end up in a facility where the humans made lots of mistakes. This situation is not the result of people who didn't care, it's the result of people who cared too much. But the animals are paying the price. Won't you help save one of our dogs?
We have so many nice, healthy, adoptable dogs that deserve a chance at a new life. Please help us, the interim board, make some badly needed changes. We can fix this; it is within our grasp. But we can't do it without your help. Won't you -- can't you -- find a place, just one place, for one of our dogs? Every day that goes by is a day that you
could help end the suffering and give one of our animals a chance at happiness.

PHDOG are you at Liberty viewing these evaluations and know first hand that they are not putting these dogs down or are you involved with someone there that's doing the killing and therefore don't see anything wrong with it.
We are all aware and have first hand information from within LHS that 12 dogs were put down and another 32 are going down this week. I think LHS should post the dogs that they euthanized and the reason behind each decision. Maybe David Norman and John H should spend some time with each dog before they euthanize them and then tell us if it's justified.
Something has to be done to stop this. There is a board meeting tomorrow night 7 p.m. at City Hall and people who are outraged by what is going on at LHS please come and support the rights of these animals who need our voice to save them.

First of all the HCSPCA was closed with the help of the volunteers and JC animal control. David Norman was not a single factor in the closing of the HCSPCA. In addition the new nomiated president Diana Jeffrey sidelined the volunteers during the HSPCA court proceedings where she had her husband represent past employees as new members but did not share this information with the volunteers when they had expressed that they wanted to run and operate the facility. David Norman was aware of this but kept it from the volunteers. His hidden agenda to constantly glorify himself and those he deems part of his circle is tiresome and yes most of us in the animal community think he is a joke.

Meowmix,
Please join the DOGJC group and post your comment there. http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/DOGJC/
Thank you.

I attended last night's meeting and was appalled to witness the board walking out. With that said it is time to stop the harboring of resentment in the local animal community and get together as concerned citizens who all share a love and compassion for the animals in our local shelter. We need to put our energy into building a collective that is positive with a constructive effort that is going to help LHS and the animals that are there. We must be prepared to be part of the solution and not remain part of the problem.