15/01: Different Band, Same Song--Part 1
Category: Missing Cats
Posted by: admin
After unsuccessfully suing me for slander and failing to convince a judge to shut down this blog, Executive Director Mary Jo Spring left the Hermitage to "further her career" elsewhere, and the Hermitage Board paid out thousands of dollars in legal fees and eventually forked over thousands more in a financial settlement to me. This was all reported in both the daily and weekly papers. You would think that this would have made the board take a long, hard look at their behavior and make some changes. And you would be wrong.
I was contacted this week by Martha Price, a retiree who had joined the Hermitage as a volunteer this past August. Ms. Price had found the Hermitage on the internet, and was unfamiliar with the great unpleasantness of the previous year and a half. During her time at the Hermitage, Ms. Price served in a variety of capacities: she did laundry on Monday afternoons, fostered kittens, staffed the table at adoption events, put cat information on Craig's List, and helped in the office on occasion. Prior to her departure, she was scheduled to take over the coordination of the volunteer program at Petco and the Foster Parents Program. Given that, I would tend to think that she had as good a view of the overall organization as a volunteer would get, and the management must have felt she was a trustworthy individual.
In her five months with the Hermitage, Ms. Price never saw a board member, and only one other steady volunteer. The second volunteer felt that Debbie Brice, the shelter manager, was "a fake and not truthful", and stopped volunteering. Ms. Price said Monica St. Claire (the Development Director) had dropped her duties at Petco and with the volunteers according to Debbie Brice. Debbie herself wore many hats and was eager to be delegate some of those jobs. Martha did not know if this was being done at the direction of the board, or was the management staff's idea. Coordination was poor across the board, indeed, the last time Ms. Price showed up at PetCo to staff the adoption desk, no one brought any cats.
The Hermitage continues to adopt official policies more and more in line with kill shelters like the Humane Society, which is not surprising. There is now a $35 (??) drop-off fee for a cat, and there are no home checks (so yes, if they want to do one on you, you ARE being targeted). The most disturbing information Ms. Price gave me was that cats are now being put down for ringworm. She felt that the shelter manager twisted the meaning of no-kill by stating "We only euthanize animals with no quality of life, or for whom the treatment is worse than the disease", but in fact, put cats down for highly treatable illnesses.
I'm not surprised by any of this. PACC and the Humane Society put down thousands of animals with highly treatable illnesses in Pima County every year. They do it on a cost basis. But they do not claim to be no-kill, and the Hermitage still does.
As mentioned in the previous post, at the start of 2009, the Hermitage claimed to have approximately 120 cats. I've seen a copy of a letter from Debbie Brice to the volunteers, claiming that in 2009, the Hermitage took in 426 cats, and adopted out 348. That means the population of the Hermitage should have increased by 78. So that would bring the current total to almost 200. Ms. Price did a walk-through of the entire shelter on January 4th, and counted 85-90 cats. She also told me that in even the short time she had been there, the number of feral cats seemed to be declining, and that cats not listed on the "Rainbow Bridge" board disappeared; mind you, this is AFTER the great purge initiated by Mary Jo Spring. So, where are all those cats?
I was contacted this week by Martha Price, a retiree who had joined the Hermitage as a volunteer this past August. Ms. Price had found the Hermitage on the internet, and was unfamiliar with the great unpleasantness of the previous year and a half. During her time at the Hermitage, Ms. Price served in a variety of capacities: she did laundry on Monday afternoons, fostered kittens, staffed the table at adoption events, put cat information on Craig's List, and helped in the office on occasion. Prior to her departure, she was scheduled to take over the coordination of the volunteer program at Petco and the Foster Parents Program. Given that, I would tend to think that she had as good a view of the overall organization as a volunteer would get, and the management must have felt she was a trustworthy individual.
In her five months with the Hermitage, Ms. Price never saw a board member, and only one other steady volunteer. The second volunteer felt that Debbie Brice, the shelter manager, was "a fake and not truthful", and stopped volunteering. Ms. Price said Monica St. Claire (the Development Director) had dropped her duties at Petco and with the volunteers according to Debbie Brice. Debbie herself wore many hats and was eager to be delegate some of those jobs. Martha did not know if this was being done at the direction of the board, or was the management staff's idea. Coordination was poor across the board, indeed, the last time Ms. Price showed up at PetCo to staff the adoption desk, no one brought any cats.
The Hermitage continues to adopt official policies more and more in line with kill shelters like the Humane Society, which is not surprising. There is now a $35 (??) drop-off fee for a cat, and there are no home checks (so yes, if they want to do one on you, you ARE being targeted). The most disturbing information Ms. Price gave me was that cats are now being put down for ringworm. She felt that the shelter manager twisted the meaning of no-kill by stating "We only euthanize animals with no quality of life, or for whom the treatment is worse than the disease", but in fact, put cats down for highly treatable illnesses.
I'm not surprised by any of this. PACC and the Humane Society put down thousands of animals with highly treatable illnesses in Pima County every year. They do it on a cost basis. But they do not claim to be no-kill, and the Hermitage still does.
As mentioned in the previous post, at the start of 2009, the Hermitage claimed to have approximately 120 cats. I've seen a copy of a letter from Debbie Brice to the volunteers, claiming that in 2009, the Hermitage took in 426 cats, and adopted out 348. That means the population of the Hermitage should have increased by 78. So that would bring the current total to almost 200. Ms. Price did a walk-through of the entire shelter on January 4th, and counted 85-90 cats. She also told me that in even the short time she had been there, the number of feral cats seemed to be declining, and that cats not listed on the "Rainbow Bridge" board disappeared; mind you, this is AFTER the great purge initiated by Mary Jo Spring. So, where are all those cats?
