This is deja-vu all over again. Wasn't it 2-3 days before the last board meeting when all the sh*t stirrers came out of the woodwork and started spreading ugly rumors?

Where were all of you in January, February, March, etc. and etc. when all of this was coming to a head. I know that NONE of you were at the board meetings where you could have seen first hand what was happening at LHS.

Do you really consider this humane - "Indoor stainless steel dog enclosures and crates did not provide sufficient space or meet the minimum square footage requirement as partially evidenced by the sores on dogs noses caused from rubbing it against the cage bars and the bleeding tail on another dog that was split open from banging into the walls of the cage"? Really? That is humane? Because that is from the April inspection report.

And you can have all the runs in the world but it doesn't make a bit of difference if you don't have the staff to take care of them. The HSUS recommends 15 minutes per day per animal for basic care. That's feeding and watering and cleaning it's cage. Nothing else, no walking, no socialization, no medications. Nothing. That's it.

You do the math. One staff member can get to 4 animals an hour, 32 in an 8 hour shift. There are close to 400 animals at LHS. Do the math, it doesn't lie.

And it's just a reality that not all animals are savable. You just can't save them all so you treat them as humanely as you can while they are here. And that doesn't mean keeping them in cages that they can't even stand up in.

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This information is available at the monthly board meetings which are always announced. The next board meeting is tomorrow night, Tuesday, August 17, 2010, 7:00 pm at City Hall.

Anyone wishing to speak, they are to e-mail board@libertyhumane.org.

If you want your questions answered, you may have to put forth a little bit of an effort.

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John Neu completely funds Joanna Hopkinson's position. LHS receives additional funding through their contracts with Jersey City and Hoboken.

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LHS is non-profit.

Joanna Hopkinson is paid 80-90k/year. This is entirely funded by a single donor, John Neu. The resignation story is that the Board wanted to fire Joanna and John Neu said that if they fired Joanna he would pull all of his funding. My personal opinion is that the board should have said fine and fired her anyway but instead they copped out and resigned. LHS should never be dependent on one single donor for all of their funding to begin with. The Board felt that their hands were completely tied and that they had no other choice.

Don't know how much the staff is paid but I don't think it is much. It is both a mentally and physically tough job.

If by Directors you mean Board Members - no they are not paid... it's all volunteer.

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This is not what he meant. The Board needs LHS to break even and had worked out a budget so that they would be able to break even. Continuing to run the shelter at a loss would have meant that there would be no money to feed the animals, medicate them, pay the staff, etc. Request some of the Board Minutes from earlier this year. You can see for yourself that the Management at LHS couldn't stick to a budget to save their lives.

LHS kept taking in more and more animals and they weren't doing anything to get them adopted, out to foster or out to rescue. I am thrilled to see that they are really ramping up their efforts to get these animals out but all of this writing was on the walls months ago (for both the Board and Management) and they sat around doing nothing for way too long.