Opinion: Animal Shelter Moving in Right Direction
Beth Cruz is a Bloomfield resident, blogger and president/founder of Shelter Showcase, a volunteer rescue group in Ceder Knolls.
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Thank you, Mayor Raymond McCarthy and the township, for starting to move forward with creating an Request for Proposals for managing the animal shelter. I have no personal stake in who runs the shelter, but like most people, I want to see a well run shelter and avoid future controversies, media relation disasters and lawsuits against our township.
Please ensure the RFP clearly states the requirements expected of the agency providing shelter management. Key performance indicators should be defined for all required services. The agency should provide reports with clear metrics to the township. There must also be a process to escalate complaints to the township and follow up with the service provider when needed.
With the history of the Bloomfield Board of Health ignoring the town council’s wishes, I recommend considering changeing the board from autonomous to elected members and appointing some new ones. This will help ensure shelter complaints are properly handled.
It may also be wise to consider that the Neighbor to Neighbor Network members crusaded against Memphis the dog and his return to the Coltenbacks. Memphis was misrepresented as aggressive and unpredictable when Jim Crosby, the expert paid by the Neighbor to Neighbor Network to evaluate him, stated otherwise.
As stated previously, “Jim’s recommendation should have been used to support Jeff’s adoption request, not deny it”, and Crosby has approved my statements about his evaluation.
Thank you again for doing all in your power to ensure we have quality management at our shelter.
Karen Banda
11:40 am on Wednesday, January 30, 2013
NTNN feels it deserves the privilege of managing the animal shelter. I have a few questions to them:
How many years’ experience have any of you had in shelter management? Please give names, shelters managed, dates, etc.
Since the Bloomfield/Bukowski Animal Shelter is a municipal shelter and not a private entity, what transparency can we taxpayers and residents expect?
Also:
How can you justify spending NTNN funds (donations) to pay Jim Crosby’s travel expenses to eval Memphis when others made it known they were more than willing to foot the bill?
How can you justify spending NTNN funds (donations)to pay for a 3-day training session for Open Paw when you are the only people to benefit from that training?
How do you justify being an exclusive club? How can you justify not including the veteran volunteers in your alleged efforts to make the Bloomfield/Bukowski Animal Shelter the best it can possibly be?
What are your plans for an open volunteer program to encourage and allow as many people as possible to volunteer to work with the animals and give them as much TLC as possible?
How can you justify your maligning and demonizing people who were your former colleagues and who put in far more years toiling in voluntary service under extremely harsh and heartbreaking conditions you cannot possibly imagine?
Karen Banda
11:40 am on Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Cont'd
What is your explanation for excluding people who worked so hard, devoted countless hours and spent hundreds of their own dollars helping the Fundraising Committee get off the ground and make the first tricky tray and other fundraising events the successes they were?
Fundraising aside, there is far more to successfully managing a municipal animal shelter than just being a known entity in town and in Karen Lore’s back pocket. Please fill in the blanks. Thank you.