One of the things the executive director (Mary Jo Spring) has touted as an improvement at the Hermitage has been the bringing in of commercial cleaners and virtually eliminating general staff.

The first group that came in were dressed like a hazmat team—rubber gloves, masks, and foot coverings. However, after a couple of weeks, they were replaced by a group that used no protective gear.

Both groups use "891 Husky Arena Disinfectant". The label explicitly states that animals are to be removed from the area until the chemical has completely dried. It also warns that the product is “corrosive” and “may be fatal if absorbed through skin.”

Click here to view the label

In actuality, the shelter staff would start putting down the cats' canned food as soon as the cleaners were done with an area. Canned food feedings consist of putting the food on paper plates. These were frequently placed on floors still wet with this cleaner. Since canned food is something of a treat (and for some cats, the only thing they can/will eat), not only was this risking contamination of the food, but functionally luring cats into the area.

Below are links to pictures showing puddles of disinfectant and cat food left near such a puddle (with food trailing into it).

FeLV
Renal
Village
Food/Disinfectant

A volunteer sent an e-mail to the shelter's official address with concerns about this disinfectant. The response stated that they did not use such a cleaner. It also stated that the shelter wouldn't be using volunteers over the next few weeks and that he would be contacted when he could come back. This last statement is known to be untrue. The only change following this exchange was that the volunteer's name was crossed off the “Allowed” list and added to the banned list. Both e-mails are linked below.

Initial e-mail
Shelter response

Since the cleaners were not following protocol, a complaint was filed with the Industrial Commission of Arizona/AZ Department of Occupational Safety & Health (complaint #206582629).

In responding to the complaint, the Hermitage's executive director stated:
"The chemist [for the disinfectant manufacturer] went on to explain that there was no special protective equipment needed because it does not cause harmful fumes or does not cause skin problems. I was assured if cats got product on their paws and licked them they would not get sick."

Full copy of the response

Finding it hard to believe that a representative of the company would have blatantly stated that the product could be used in a manner so contradictory to its label, the manufacturer (Canberra Corporation) was contacted, asking for clarification.

A response from the VP of Research & Development was received stating:
"We field many questions regarding use of our products and our standard procedure is to refer the end user to label directions, especially in the case of disinfectants which are regulated and label wording reviewed by the U.S. EPA. As misuse of these products are considered a violation of FIFRA, we again, as standard procedure, do not recommend off-label direction or applications."

Full copy of the company's response

Dr. Karter Neal, veterinarian at the Humane Society of Southern Arizona (and the Hermitage's vet since June) recently sent a message to the "Save the Hermitage Coalition". In that message she states:
"Because their stomatitis seems more a result of calicivirus then from auto-immune disease related to plaque on the teeth; our attempts at doing full mouth extractions have not been able to clear the stomatitis in several of these cats."

She also talks about feral cats having "open ulcers on their mouths".

Full copy of Dr. Neal's message (certain sections highlighted and paragraph breaks added, but otherwise unedited)

The above statements shed new light on the "stomatitis" outbreak.

The four active ingredients of the Husky Arena Disinfectant are known as "quaternary ammonium compounds". Exposure to these chemicals are known to cause oral ulcers and is known to potentially be misidentified as feline calicivirus.

Below is an excerpt from an information sheet available at UC Davis' Shelter Health Portal (http://www.sheltermedicine.com/portal/is_vsfcv.shtml) showing the similarity of lesions caused by feline calicivirus and quaternary ammonium exposure.

Excerpt from article

Based on this evidence, we have to wonder how many of those cats put down because of "stomatitis" allegedly as a result of calicivirus may have been suffering from exposure to toxic chemicals. The tragic twist to the story is that the previous shelter care is blamed for the deaths of cats that may actually be a direct result of the new management's policies.

The above information has been turned over to Pima Animal Care Center.

The official Hermitage blog claims that "The Hermitage is not going under, is financially solvent". To assist potential donors in evaluating those claims, I am publishing the Hermitage's September Profit and Loss analysis from their own September Board meeting. This document is three pages.
Hermitage September 2008 Profit and Loss Page 1
Hermitage September 2008 Profit and Loss Page 2
Hermitage September 2008 Profit and Loss Page 3

I am also publishing the Hermitage's September Statement of Financial Position, which is also three pages. This document is especially interesting because it compares the Hermitage's current financial situation with where it was a year previously.
Hermitage September 2008 Statement of Financial Position Page 1
Hermitage September 2008 Statement of Financial Position Page 2
Hermitage September 2008 Statement of Financial Position Page 3

Lastly, there is a one page Statement of Cash Flows.
Hermitage September 2008 Statement of Cash Flows


The accounting is done on a cash accrual basis.

This information was all presented prior to the board going into executive session, and is therefore public.

To view the files, which are large, wait until each page is fully downloaded--then move your mouse so that the arrow cursor is over the page. At this point, the arrow will turn into a magnifying glass with an x in it. Click, and you will see the page at full size.

It has occurred to me that if the lawyer on the Hermitage Board ever wakes up and reads what his Executive Director is publicly posting, it might be removed. So here it is in its entirety. The direct link is in the previous post. I would also like to point out several factual errors -- Paula LaRue and Rosalie Torske are not now, and never have been, members of the Save the Hermitage Coalition. The Coalition has no disagreement whatsoever with the stated mission of the Hermitage -- indeed, it is the actions of the Executive Director and the Board contrary to that mission that have brought this diverse group together. And Hermitage does not truly believe that the best place for a cat is a loving home, otherwise they would drop the politics and permit former volunteers and staff members adopt the remaining cats.
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Rosalie Torske and Paula LaRue leave a path of destruction
Dear Supporters,

The Hermitage has been taking the high road and we have not lashed back when we have been criticized by a coalition of disgruntled, former employees and volunteers. This coalition was formed because of a fundamental disagreement in our mission. We will always remain a sanctuary but we will try to find homes for our kitties. Whether a kitty has special needs or is eminently adoptable, the best place for a cat is in a loving home. Employees and volunteers do not own The Hermitage cats and if they can be placed in a good home, they will.

That being said, we need to bring an important issue to the forefront. Two former employees of The Hermitage, Rosalie Torske, Assistant Director and Paula LaRue, Office Manager have gone beyond the grounds of decency and are trying to bring The Hermitage down. Angry that she could not take over the position of Executive Director (even though she does not have the experience needed for the position); Rosalie Torske set out to destroy the shelter. She recruited Paula LaRue to join her and together they destroyed our QuickBooks files (with our accounting information) stole proprietary and confidential files and donor list and are spreading malicious lies. They obviously do not care about the cat’s welfare, but only their own petty egos.

A police report has been filed and we will take full legal action against them. We ask you if you suspect either one of these people might have taken money from you illegally, please contact us.

In closing we want you to know The Hermitage is not going under, is financially solvent and our cats are getting the best care that they ever have. We ask you for your continued support. Join us in the continued success of Arizona’s first no-kill, no-cage shelter and help us find loving homes for our beloved kitties.

We invite you to visit our shelter and see just how wonderful our home for kitties really is.

The Hermitage Cat Shelter
Posted by rjb2020 at 9:52 AM
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Some days the blog just writes itself; but this is the first time, albeit unwittingly, that Mary Jo Spring has done it herself. I believe the phrase is "hoisted by one's own petard". http://hermitagecatshelter.blogspot.com/

There are now only 156 cats at the Hermitage, and approximately 100 of these are ferals. And the executive director wants them out. As Ms. Spring publicly stated to the newspaper in July, in her view, the ferals "take up space". She had as many as she could euthanized before there was a public outcry, and claimed that they were suffering and needed to be put down due to stomatitis, a gum infection. Within the past 10 days, I have received information from people both directly and casually associated with the shelter that they believe another round of ferals will be euthanized as soon as the Litterbox Lariat activities are wrapped up, and the process of outsourcing HR/payroll/accounting is complete (cleaning is already outsourced).

The Hermitage changed vet care from Encanto Pet Clinic to the Humane Society, six months ago, ostensibly to reduce costs. Through euthanasia, adoption, and stopping the intake of cats from the public, they lowered the number of cats from over 300 to 156. Their own records indicate that only 20 cats currently at the shelter are healthy adoptables. At the August board meeting, Ron Zack, the treasurer, complained that although there were fewer cats, the vet bills had not changed much, and were mostly due to the dental care for the nonadoptable feral/sanctuary cats. Hel-looooo! That's like being surprised taking the young, healthy people off a health insurance plan doesn't significantly reduce medical costs.

Ms. Spring has been talking very openly to staff about how much she wants to get the ferals out. Her statements to visitors are quite different. Since she is an utter failure at fundraising, her survival strategy has been to cut costs, regardless of what the money was used for, and focus on the "savings" in her reports. You can make your own predictions. If you have room for a feral, a scooter, GI or special needs cat, now is the time.

Updated info as of 10/22/2008.

Checking $23,749.51
Money Market $10,465.92
Total $34,215.43

Building Fund $556,064.53

Ironic that the public Board Meeting minutes for September include discussion of building a new facility, when the building fund is now being tapped for operational expendes.

Click here for full September Board Meeting Minutes.

My favorite excerpts are: Mary Jo's comment about how HR continues to be a challenge; the discussion about having introductory and probationary periods for employees; the Hermitage's version of Rio Nuevo, where the board fantasizes about building a new facility when they were just weeks away from starting to tap the building fund for operational expenses; and finally this:

Tom: how many volunteers would we like? 30 solid volunteers, espec to do tours and tabling outreach. (We have 7 good volunteers now.) We don't need cleaners.

Not wanting to truly have public meetings where riff-raff can attend, the board is publishing on the official Hermitage website that its meetings are held at the Ward council offices, while in truth, they are at the offices of Tri-Tronic, Tom Tulowitzski's place of business. However, as Tom found out in October, that doesn't help much when suddenly those who disagree with you include other board members, invited volunteers who are doing the lion's share of the work, and employees you require as part of their job to be in attendance.

Ms. Spring publicly and repeatedly called the Coalition members "terrorists" at a recent AWASA meeting. AWASA includes representatives from animal welfare and rescue groups from all over southern Arizona, so her presentation was not the most helpful thing she could have done for her cause, and I imagine there were many private side conversations by the other attendees afterwards. However, I am glad that she expressed her view to such a public group, because her mindset should now be quite clear to even casual observers.

Ms. Spring has been very concerned about controlling access to the Hermitage's public events, particularly today's Litterbox Lariat, the biggest fundraising event of the year. Image is everything for a nonprofit that relies on public funds, and the Hermitage's visage has suffered a great deal in recent months. By requiring advance purchases directly from shelter admin staff, she planned to control who could attend the event, even though it was being held at a public venue --undesirables simply would not be sold tickets. At the event itself, tickets would be held at a reception desk outside the La Mariposa building where the event was being held. Prior to entering, each peson would be greeted, checked off the Will-Call List, and then given a pin with color-coded ribbon, a different color for board members, donors, staff, etc. This would permit the uniformed police officer inside the event to immediately identify any riff-raff who did not have tickets and escort them from the premises.

But there are some problems with this plan; Ms. Spring does not know how to operate her own computer, and when the event coordinator and two staff people setting up the event all resigned last week, she had no idea where to look for the final Will-Call List, and therefore does not know who purchased tickets or how many. She may therefore be extremely suprised this afternoon at some of the direct legitimate sales that were made. Additionally, some supporters became unhappy after purchasing their tickets, and gave them to others.

Ms. Spring apparently does not understand that the hard-working, law-abiding, middle-aged women who are the backbone of volunteer work in this country are simply not the sort of people who crash public events and create scenes of physical conflict. We have finesse, are organized and smart. We are the type of people who purchase legitimate tickets, go to an event in a calm manner, wear protest shirts and buttons, discourse in a civil manner with other attendees who may or may not disagree, each attempting to convince the other of their opinion, and eat the rubber chicken like everyone else. We may invite an attorney friend or a reporter as company. This is America, this is the way disagreements are handled. The only excitement I can see for the police officer is if someone chokes on a cherry tomato at the buffet and needs the Heimlich Maneuver. As I see it, Ms. Spring has three choices: embarrassing videotape of Hermitage Board members denying entry to legitimate ticket-holders at their biggest fundraising event of the year, held at a public venue, where there are many empty seats; a recording of Ms. Spring refunding money to ticket-holders on the spot in order to avoid troublesome legal ramifications; or simply permitting all legitimate ticket holders to attend the event.

People have been falling out of the woodwork to let me know that Ms. Spring has been job hunting, and a copy of Mary Jo's resume was just forwarded to me. Guess that's one place she won't be interviewing. I did not alter the format or create the weird indentation, that is her handiwork. I did blacken out her personal phone number and street name, that's it. You'd think someone who "Developed, implemented and evaluated marketing programs and advertising collateral from concept through completion" would have come up with a more attractive format for an item as important as a resume.

A few choice excerpts:
"Turned company’s financials around in just one year". Can't argue with that one, she just forgot to mention that the direction they were turned was downward.
"Expanded existing events and created successful, new fundraisers" When I read this, I was immediately reminded of Bill Clinton's infamous quote, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Only here, it depends on what the meaning of the word 'successful' is. The Indoor El Tour is new, and it will bring in $60 more that the Hermitage didn't have, so in that way, it is a success. She did create the spring fundraiser at La Encantada. And since she eliminated the WhiskerBowl Event, ditched the corporate Sponsor-a-Cat program, and gutted the donor pool so that the general public Sponsor-a-Cat program has fallen from $9,000 to $4,000, then yes, comparatively, the new events are a success.

I find the Human Relations portion for Hermitage the most entertaining: "Managed, hired, trained and motivated 20 employees...Directed, trained and coordinated group of 30 volunteers". If anyone knows any employees who were actually trained or motivated by Ms. Spring to do anything other than resign, or can identify a group of 3, let alone 30 volunteers who she trained and coordinated, please, let us know. It would also be nice if said individuals were actually still working there.

If anyone from other organizations where she has listed her copious experience would like to comment on the veracity of the claims regarding her work at their own businesses, please email the webmaster.

The following is an official Hermitage document. I have added a star next to the name of board members and their spouses.

PERSONS WHO ARE ALLOWED IN THE HERMITAGE CAT SHELTER OTHER THAN GENERAL PUBLIC 10/05/08

Volunteers & Board of Directors

Ginny Alexander*
Vern Alexander*
Jeannie Bolding
Judy Cools
Billie Cover
Tasha Cover
Sherri Cox
Kay Cuny
Sarah Dahlen
Glad Gammie
Pam Glantz
Pamella Harwood
Taylor Heidenheim*
Hope Hollenbeck
Carolyn Powers
Mary Rasmussen
Tom Rasmussen
Helen Shea
Judy Showers*
Kenna Smith*
Dawna Spencer*
Eunice Steinman
Joan Tulowitski*
Tom Tulowitski*
Nancy Wiseman
Ron Zack*

Now, this list was prepared only three weeks ago, but it's even smaller now. Vern and Ginny Alexander resigned, so I rather doubt they're still permitted in. I was told by the former admin assistant that Carolyn Powers was axed just because she has lunch with Sue Garvey, who is a former volunteer. So that leaves about 16 people who are not board members who are still permitted in the shelter. In the Executive Director's Report in the August Board meeting minutes, Ms. Spring states that there are currently 7 volunteers left, that the shelter does not need volunteer cleaners (on what planet does an animal shelter not need volunteer cleaners?) and they only want volunteers for tours and to do outside events.

The plan is to now put up a wall subdividing the entrance area so that access to the shelter will be further controlled. Visitors will now have to show photo ID, and then be issued a visitor badge before being permitted in the shelter. I wonder whether they will also have to put all liquids and gels in 3 ounce containers and remove their shoes for inspection.