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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Death & Destruction orchestrated by Ms Charlene Pedrolie

I wouldn't normally write about this subject with the new direction this blog is taking, but as many of you know me well, you also know just how passionate I am about my own Rescued dogs, 2 of which are Pit bulls. My eldest of 13 from a HIGH Kill Shelter in Arizona.

I first read about this horrible woman and the inhuman situation she's causing within the New York City Animal Control & Care via the Pit Bull Forum. I am appalled at what the NY Department of Health is allowing this MONSTER to inflict upon the helpless and speachless animals left to her care.

There is a petition to have Ms. Charlene Pedrolie removed from office, please consider signing it once you've read about the horrible conditions she's subjecting these voiceless creatures too.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/770880947

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VERY DISTURBING NEWS -- PLEASE CROSS POST

After a 9 months search to hire a new executive director, the Department of Health hired Ms. Charlene Pedrolie, a nationally-recognized business consultant with NOT a shred of sheltering or animal medical experience.

Within weeks, 3 veteranarians and several vet techs resigned because of her misguided change of protocols. To add fuel to the soon to be raging fire, Ms. Pedrolie fired Ursula a head vet tech. Last week I was told by an insider that many of this medical team who resigned were bribed into returning with offers of large pay raises at a huge cost to this already grotesquely underfunded system that euthanized 20397 dogs and cats in 2006. Since Ms. Pedrolie's arrival more than 13 people have resigned and many are looking for new jobs.

An enormous turnover of staff. The core of what was a decent organization.

The resignations came from:

Liz Keller Director of Operations
Dr. Cruse, DVM
Dr. Lordes, DVM
Dr. Demmerli, DVM
Dr. Opperman, DVM
Dennis Owen Behavior
Katie Dawson New Hope Coordinator
Peg Guilotta
Adrian Brown
Daniel Valentine
Christine Torezz
Maria Onorato
Jenny Temba
Charney Fayer
Lisa Boden
Mark Halvorsen

This massive kill shelter system with a yearly intake of more than 44,000 animals is now under the control of a woman who’s egregious errors in judgment have thrown the system into chaos. ie. Euthanasia which was normally done in the morning, was now directed by the corporate-saving business woman to be done at night with skeleton crews on hand. Fortunately, this was reversed. In another cost saving measure the administration of antibiotics to prevent upper respiratory infections was discontinued. Ms. Pedrolie was warned by the Cornell Institute that this program's demise would be very bad for the animals but she ignored them. And now the animals are sicker then ever. Which puts them on the euthanasia list. Of course their numbers don't show up as euthanasia because the shelter "rarely" puts down adoptable animals. Sick animals are not considered adoptable.

But this was not enough damage for Ms. Pedrolie and the Department of Health.

A few weeks after she arrived, 7 major NYC rescuers and groups were banned from pulling animals from the shelter as partners of the New Hope Program. The animals these hard working people pull are the larger or older dogs, many Pit Bulls, Pit mixes and shepherds, the animals at the most at risk of euthanasia.

My name is Laurie Bleier and I am the director of the Brooklyn Animal Foster Network. My group is one of those now banned. In two years we removed more than 1,000 animals from NYCACC as New Hope Partners and through our Care-A-Van adoption events with State Senator Erik Addams. Every weekend Spring Summer and Fall you could see us on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope with 15 or more animals we just picked up from the shelter on Linden Blvd. My group would stay until every one of those homeless dogs, cats, puppies or kittens found safe homes. It was extremely rare that anyone went back to the shelter. And if one did we put a hold on the animal and pulled him/her a day or two later.

Ms. Pedrolie told me that my group was banned because one of my dogs in foster care was found to be emaciated. After a thorough investigation by the ASPCA’s Humane Law Enforcement those charges were found to be baseless and the case was dropped. You can call Joe Pentangelo at (212) 876-7700, ext. 4450 for confirmation of this. Just as a reporter for a major ny newspaper now working on this story did. In my estimation, Ms. Pedrolie made this story up in an effort to discredit a group that pulls pits and mixed breeds.

Now 9 weeks after our exoneration we still cannot pull from the shelters. She refuses to give us back our New Hope status. http://nycacc.org/newhope.htm We have 33 new applications to foster and we have no animals to deliver to them. MANY MANY dogs and cats are needlessly being put down because 7 rescuers are being unjustly prevented from doing what they have been doing for years. And doing it quite successfully.

Where is the due process in my case? No response to letters written to the board members.

Lastly, in the last two years my company, Brainstorm LLC redesigned the nycacc.org website pro bono. The website which could not be found on google searches a year ago now gets more than 4 million hits a month. Brainstorm produced countless fliers, e-blasts and posters for NYCACC. All pro bono. I tell the Board of Health, the board members of nycacc and Charlene Pedrolie -- if this is how you treat your allies I shudder to think how you treat your enemies.

The famous journalist H. L. Mencken once wrote that the job of any good journalist is to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." That being said this letter and the postings I see at Craigslist today are going out to every media outlet in the boroughs.

I ask you good people of NYC, what happened to the NO-KILL MANDATE of NYC?
PLEASE call Charlene Pedrolie on her direct line and demand the rescuers and groups who have been suspended from the New Hope Program be reinstated.

Here is her direct number 212 442-2059 or on her cell phone 732-939-7948 .

Laurie Bleier
Director

http://BrooklynAnimalFosterNetwork.org
718 –789-6865
718 789-1465 Fax

Sheltered Animals Aren't Criminals
Please visit http://www.victimsofcircumstance.org

This message was sent by: The Brooklyn Animal Foster Network, 392 14th Street, 4B, Brooklyn, NY 11215


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A petition to replace the Board of Directors of New York City Animal Care and Control

Sign here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/14/a-petition-to-replace-the-current-board-of-directors-of-nycacc

Dear animal lovers,

There is a crisis of management at NYCACC, the municipal kill shelter system which intakes 44,000 homeless animals every year.

I am hereby asking you to join me in calling for the City Council and the Mayor to convene an emergency hearing to create an Animal Care Task Force to oversee the replacement of the existing Board of Directors of NYCACC which has created this crisis.

This task force should be made up of humane professionals and animal advocates. This task force should also consider the conflict of interest that exists when the Commissioner of the Department of Health --who once said in an open public meeting, "you have to understand that from a public health perspective, I would't lose a moment's sleep if you were to euthanize every animal in your shelters if it meant that not one child was going to be bitten,"-- is also the Chairman of the Board of NYCACC.

The very board which hired Charlene Pedrolie, a corporate thug with NOT a SHRED of animal sheltering or medical experience, to promote their agenda and to ignore the No-Kill Mandate. Ms. Pedrolie's unenlightened change of protocols and abusive bullying of staff have resulted in mass resignations and an enormous turnover of staff. Suspension of animal rescuers has caused the needless euthanasia of adoptable animals.

The Board Members who make life and death (mostly death) decisions that result in the senseless slaughter of homeless animals.

Did you know that in the richest city in the world, the Department of Health under funds the NYCACC, providing less than half of what is recommended by humane professionals.

Did you know that according to law, New York City is required to have five full-time, full-service animal shelters. We currently have only three.

Concerns have been raised about insufficient animal rescue resources. Concerns abound about the invisibleness of the city shelters due to the lack of advertising dollars which could build awareness around the centers. Ask anyone where the homeless animals are in NYC and they will tell you the ASPCA or BideAwee. Most have never even heard of NYCACC. So thousands and thousands cats, rabbits and dogs a year languish in obscurity resulting in an endless slaughter of innocents.

The SAFER test which determines an animal's temperment, and which the board approved, is extremely biased against Pitbulls, Chows, Mastiffs and other large dogs. Nasty, small pure bred dogs and cats routinely pass just because of its size and breed. That is what the Department of Health wants and they have found an Executive Director who will execute their wishes.

Recent, outrageous decisions such as transforming an adoptable section with a holding capacity of 40 dogs into a boutique that now holds only 20. And the unthinkable trashing of perfectly usable old cages, which any number of less funded shelters in the metro area would have died for. These cages were left to rust in the lot and then carted for trash.

The seemingly calculated suspension of seven major NYC New Hope rescuers who do not discriminate against Pitbulls and Pit Mixes appears to be a conspiracy exterminate the breed without having to introduce anti-breed specific legislation which might offend the voters.

The ridiculous space-costing conversion of one New Hope room with 8 cages was transformed into a storeroom for a pet supply retail area that people rarely use.

The Board Members making the decisions for NYCACC are incapable of thinking like animal advocates. Even though advocacy for the animals is what they were appointed to execute.

I call for the immediate dismissal of Charlene Pedrolie and reinstatement and promotion of Liz Keller, the recently resigned Director of Operations and a genuine animal advocate, to Temporary Executive Director .

Lastly, we as animal loving New Yorkers who cringe at the slaughter of dogs and cats in China, must finally look at our own backyards and alleys. The animals can't wait. The time is now to demand that the New York City Council and the Mayor take notice...there is a crisis of management of NYC's Animal Care and Control which intakes 44,000 homeless animals a year. What are they going to do about it. Please contact the responsible parties below. Thank you.

Laurie Bleier
Director
http://BrooklynAnimalFosterNetwork.org
718 %u2013789-6865
718 789-1465 Fax

Who to contact to meet these demands:

City Hall

Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor
City Hall, New York, NY 10007
mbloomberg@cityhall.nyc.gov

Department of Health

Thomas Frieden, MD
Commissioner, NYC Department of Health
125 Worth Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10013
Tel: (212) 788-5261, Fax: (212) 964-0472

City Council

Christine Quinn
Speaker New York City Council
City Hall, New York, NY 10007
Tel: (212) 788-7210, Fax: (212) 788-7207

The CACC Board of Directors

Thomas Frieden, M.D.
Commissioner
NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
125 Worth Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10013
Tel: (212) 295-5347 Fax: (212) 295-5426
tfrieden@health.nyc.gov

John M.B. O'Connor
212-363-0868
joc@jocnewyork.com

READ THE AFFIDAVIT OF EDWARD BOKS, former Executive Director of NYCACC.

Excertps

31. Dr. Frieden and I had another long-standing argument during my tenure over the fact that he put a lot of weight in what was called the "length of stay" statistic. He considered the length of stay a direct budgetary issue that the longer an animal was in the shelter the more it was costing the Department of Health. And it just wasn't efficient. And he said, "Look Ed, you're required to hold these animals 48 hours. I want you to be able to have a disposition ready in the 49th hour for every animal."

84. If the concern or question is, does the Department of Health have the best interest of AC&C, or the animals in its care, at heart? The answer is clearly, "No, they do not." They don't support innovative programs, they don't support the executive director, they expect executive directors to kowtow and do as they're told. They don't expect them or want them to be innovative and progressive. They don't want them to be cutting-edge or leading-edge. They are basically looking for someone who is a yes-person willing to maintain the status quo.

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