Change.org - Euthanizing healthy animals?

Content warning: The following contains references to animal abuse. The ask is simple: stop the daily euthanizing of young, healthy, and adoptable dogs at Riverside County Animal Shelters. But, according to petition starter Rhiannon, the director of these shelters— Julie Bank—has a resume that clearly illustrates her intention to continue allowing shelters to excessively euthanize their animals. Rhiannon believes all animals should be given a fair chance at life and of finding a loving home. Sign her petition if you agree. STOP euthanizing adoptable dogs at Riverside Animal Shelter! And TERMINATE Julie Bank! 747 have signed Rhiannon Taylor’s petition. Let’s get to 1,000!

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(1) STOP the DAILY euthanizing of young, healthy, and adoptable dogs at Riverside County Animal Services / Shelters. Many of the dogs at Riverside shelters are not given a fair chance to be seen before being euthanized. Dogs under 3 years of age with zero medical issues are being killed consistently at the shelter.  Dogs with medical issues and/or seniors have an even slimmer chance of making it out of this shelter alive. Riverside County Animal Shelter hours are limited to 1pm - 3:30pm Monday - Saturday (closed Sundays) : giving an extremely small window of time for adopters and rescuers to pick up the dogs.   RIVERSIDE COUNTY OUTCOME STATS (2021 Year to date): 2021 OUTCOME STATS RIVERSIDE COUNTY OUTCOME STATS (2020): 2020 OUTCOME STATS All stats can be found on Riverside County Animal Shelter website: https://rcdas.org/index.php/about-us/statistics RIVERSIDE COUNTY BUDGET: (pgs 247 - 253 Animal Services is under "Public Safety") FY 2020 - 2021 Animals Services accounts for 1.5% of the Public Safety Budget: $23,423,264 67% of budget is for Employee Salaries + Benefits: $15,764,047  which is with a 24% Staff Reduction (223 to 170) from previous FY 2019/20 budget for Services and Supplies: $9,164,267 All Riverside County budget info: https://rivco.org/about-county/budget-and-financial-information Riverside Animal shelter is overcrowded but there are always alternatives to euthanasia! Funding needs to be raised to help move these dogs from Riverside and re-located to the no-kill, empty shelters in other areas of the U.S. and Canada. Let’s use the pledge money for all euthanized dogs to start a fundraiser to help save current and future dogs at Riverside Animal Shelter!   (2) TERMINATE Julie Bank as Director Julie Bank has a long history and record of excessively euthanizing animals at all of the shelters she has been in charge of. PUBLIC RECORD (taken from a previous petition to get her terminated during her NY Director term in 2012): Director of Education ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) 1988 - 1998 For ten years, Bank worked for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for animals in New York City in shelter operations and adoptions. She served as their national director for their humane education programs. It might be useful to review the number of animals euthanized while under the care of the ASPCA. Director of Public Programs Arizona Humane Society 1998 - 2000 After two years at AHS, Bank took the position of Deputy Director for Maricopa County Animal Care and Control, also in Arizona (2002-2006). There she managed public programs and their development. She also directed MCACC’s fund raising, PR, marketing, education, and volunteer and public programs. Deputy Director Maricopa County Animal Care & Control 2000 - 2006 In 2006, Bank accepted the position of Executive Director at the North County Humane Society and SPCA in San Luis Obispo County, CA. During Bank’s tenure as NCHS Executive Director, the San Diego Humane Society assumed the control and management of the NCHS shelter, renaming it SDHS—North Campus. Bank was still there. Of greater interest is one crucial fact: The criteria SDHS used to rate an animal’s medical status is more harsh than the one NCHS had used. Under the new SDHS guidelines animals that NCHS would have rated as treatable and/or manageable would now be destroyed. Bank raised no objection. In his article, “ASPCA Chief’s Tenure Marked By Unconscionable Policies,” Nathan J. Winograd offers a number of startling revelations about what happened during Julie Bank’s tenure as Executive Director of NCHS. He reports that, “During the [Maricopa County Animal Control Director] Boks–Bank’s tenure, Maricopa County described itself as a national model for Animal Care & Control. Bank was not only part of executive team running the agency and making policy decisions, but she was responsible for selling it publicly, both locally and nationally, as its chief public information officer. Despite claiming to be “near No Kill,” the agency managed to reduce killing only about 10% over the Boks-Bank’s tenure together, declines exceeded by communities without a No Kill ambition. In the end, Maricopa still killed half of all animals, nearly 30,000 per year, never doing any better than the national average. But you wouldn’t know that from the public relations propaganda put out by Bank and her team at the time, which dishonestly claimed they were making tremendous progress and leading the agency toward a No Kill Maricopa County. Indeed, Maricopa County is nowhere near No Kill even today. “ “In addition,” Winograd reports that, Here’s what one article discussing Bank’s record at Maricopa has to say: “Under [Ed Bok’s, Director--] tenure, the Maricopa pound slaughtered tens of thousands of animals a year, opened up a $600,000 a year structural deficit, and forced the agency into receivership. Volunteers were forced to walk dogs with ropes because the agency was not allowed to buy leashes, even while Bank was telling anyone who would listen that they were the most progressive adoption agency in the nation and on the verge of achieving No Kill (they never did better than a 50% save rate, less than the national average).” Executive Director North County Humane Society and SPCA 2006 - Apr 2010 Executive Director Animal Care and Control of NYC Apr 2010 - Oct 2012 In April of 2010, Julie Bank was hired by the city of New York as Director of NYC Animal Care & Control. Since she took over the shelter operations, more dogs and cats were being killed then ever before. Between the 5 boroughs of Manhattan on a low average there are about 30 dogs killed nightly, and they are killed 7days a week, Thats at least a 210 dogs a week. Most of the dogs coming into the shelter system in New York are pit bulls. More then 60% of the dogs that come through the doors are adoptable.    Superintendant Animal Welfare Oklahoma City Animal Welfare Division Jan 2015 - Jul 20161 year 7 months President and CEO Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA Aug 2016 - Jan 2019 Pasadena Humane Society CEO Julie Bank on Friday resigned suddenly from the job she held for two years. Bank declined to discuss the reasons behind her quick exit when reached by phone. She’s being replaced on an interim basis by Ruthie Hughes, the vice president of administration.  Director Riverside County Animal Services Mar 2020 - Present1 year 7 months Riverside County, California, United States "Leader of animal care and control functions for the County of Riverside. Responsible for a team of 200. Oversee all administration, operations, communications, fundraising, and planning. Oversight of four facilities. Develop intensive, ambitious business strategies, short-term goals, and long-term objectives." - taken from LinkedIn  (3) NEXT STEPS would be to raise FUNDS to help transport these dogs to less crowded no-kill shelters. Will share a GoFund me once we can get this spread and determine a safe location to potentially send these dogs to. PLEASE SHARE!

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