Eastman selected as Gainesville Mayor Pro Tem, County Commission hears concerns about animal shelter

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Editor’s note: An unusual number of government meetings were packed into the first and second weeks of December, and while I tried to write about the most important issues discussed in those meetings, there wasn’t time to cover other topics that may be of interest to the community. This article covers two of those topics.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Gainesville City Commission selected Bryan Eastman as the next Mayor Pro Tem on December 5, and the Alachua County Commission heard concerns from the public about issues at their animal shelter on December 10.

Eastman selected as Mayor Pro Tem, Sine Die for Commissioner Reina Saco

At the December 5 Gainesville City Commission meeting, Commissioner Bryan Eastman was selected as the next Mayor Pro Tem. 

Mayor Harvey Ward said the Commission’s tradition is to ask the serving Mayor Pro Tem for a nomination, Mayor Pro Tem Cynthia Chestnut nominated Eastman, and the vote was unanimous. Eastman will become Mayor Pro Tem on January 6, 2025. 

Eastman thanked Chestnut for her service and said, “I’m just excited to be serving with everybody up here and going forward into a new Commission in a new year.”

During the evening portion of that meeting, the Commission and the public thanked Commissioner Reina Saco for her service; she did not run for re-election, and James Ingle will be sworn in to her seat on January 6. Although her term continues until January 6, Saco did not attend the General Policy Committee meeting on December 12 or the joint City/County meeting on December 16.

County Commission hears concerns about animal services

Just before public comment at the December 10 meeting of the Alachua County Commission, Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler asked County Manager Michele Lieberman to provide an update on the County’s response to allegations of animal cruelty at the County’s animal shelter. 

Lieberman said there have been accusations that the animal shelter is underfunded and understaffed, and “there has been an increase in the last several years in both budget and [staff positions].” She said there are currently nine vacancies that are in various stages of the hiring process, “so sometimes the staffing issues are a direct function of the fact that there are vacancies within those positions, not that the positions don’t exist.” 

Lieberman said the operating budget has increased by 9% over the last several years, including $400,000 this year, and additional capital funds have been put into improvements at the shelter to continue operating until a new shelter can be built. 

UF pain management specialist will review shelter’s pain management policies

She said the County recently accepted an offer from UF to send their leading pain management specialist to review the shelter’s pain management policies “and make sure that we are utilizing cutting-edge practices for domestic animals.” The County has also “explor[ed] the idea of hiring a Medical Director… to conduct bi-annual procedural reviews, audit selected cases, and oversee cases that have unsatisfactory outcomes.”

Regarding turnover, Lieberman said, “This is not a great job. It’s not always the easiest thing to do, working in those conditions and with the animals and in the shelter. So we are also committed to reviewing the salaries, particularly of the lower-level positions, and the qualifications, to make sure that we are bringing in those people who are knowledgeable and hopefully that we can retain them.”

Lieberman said Alachua County’s Animal Resources budget is at least twice that of St. Johns, Leon, and Clay Counties and 2/3 of Marion County, which has 100,000 more people. She continued, “That’s not to say that we can’t do more or be more efficient, more effective, or do things better. I think there’s always those opportunities. I just wanted to give the Board kind of an idea where we’re at.”

Lieberman: “We cannot review things that we’re not aware of. When we become aware of them, we go and review them, promptly.”

She said that, as County Manager, she is responsible for the operations of all areas of County government, but “we cannot review things that we’re not aware of. When we become aware of them, we go and review them, promptly… We do review them, and we’re committed to the animals.” She thanked shelter staff for their hard work under difficult circumstances.

Lieberman added, “This is a public shelter. It is open to the public, and we welcome every single person to come. Please volunteer your time. Take time there, be a foster, come walk and play with dogs, or whatever our volunteers can do. And we ask people, please, come be part of the solution. We need volunteers, and we need fosters. A shelter is not an ideal place for an animal. No matter how great we can make the facility, it will always be a stressful place for an animal.”

Public comment

During public comment, a woman who didn’t give her name said she and her neighbors take care of a lot of community cats and two of the cats were sick over Spring Break, when Operation Catnip is closed, so they took the cats to Animal Resources, which she said promised to provide medical care for free. She said they called for a week, asking when they could pick up the cats, and she learned that one of them had been euthanized without telling her beforehand because cancer was found. She continued, “It breaks my heart that Tom, my beloved feral cat, is dead because of Animal Resources. He was a great cat, and this shouldn’t have happened to him.”

Examples from a former employee

Cheyenne Lukander, who wrote the initial article at Gainesville Public Information Services about the issues at Animal Resources and, according to her biography at that site, “takes part in multiple forms of advocacy having to do with the anti-war movement, and animal rights,” called in by phone to provide examples from a former shelter employee, including amputating the wrong leg of a kitten due to a mislabeled X-ray; she said the veterinarian blamed the veterinary students, euthanized the kitten, and falsified medical records to say that the kitten had died under anesthesia. Another example was a cat with two broken front legs that was left in distress without pain management and “died in the kennel with no explanation or autopsy.”

Lukander said, “It is clear that [Animal Resources] is severely understaffed and underfunded. It is not hard to imagine why a place like this cannot get employees to stay. In my investigation, I have repeatedly heard that both [the veterinarian] Dr. Stephenson and Director Julie Johnson are rude, sometimes unpredictable, and hostile toward staff. Not only that, but they have repeatedly dismissed animal welfare concerns, leading to several unfortunate deaths of animals that could have been prevented. I’m calling for a full investigation into these allegations.”

Another caller said, “This is not a lack of staffing; this is a lack of care” and called on the County to put more funding into the shelter “to provide safer living conditions, proper medical care, to be cared for by people who have their best interest, and by holding people accountable, such as the lead vet[erinarian] in charge.”

Questions about the site of the new shelter and classification of dangerous dogs

Tamara Robbins asked for information about a parcel of land that was supposed to be set aside for a new Animal Resources facility and urged the Commission to “take the off ramp with the University of Florida; I really believe they want to use – the vet school, they want to use the animals for research… I don’t trust the University of Florida, and in the public interest, you should be purchasing land and building our own publicly-owned facility.”

Robbins said an 11-year-old was recently bitten by a dog in Alachua, and Animal Resources “deemed the animal not dangerous. So I really call into question what is classified as dangerous, what is aggressive, and why is an animal that bites a child in the face, unprovoked, considered not dangerous?… This agency needs to be investigated… and the Director and anyone else in a high level needs to be put on administrative leave until you guys get to the bottom of what’s going on in this agency.”

More accounts of poor conditions at the shelter

Another woman said, “I’ve also heard many stories from past vet techs about how cats are kept in overcrowded, dirty kennels. They have soiled bedding, moldy food, unkempt litter boxes; bottle-fed babies have no structured feeding schedules. There was a kitten with an exposed leg that was left untreated for a week, resulting in tissue decay. There was a dog with a clotting disorder who bled out over the weekend because it was inconvenient for the vet to euthanize him on a Friday. A puppy with a brain injury was left crying in their kennel overnight, only to be euthanized the next morning. Many other volunteers and staff have reported that ceiling insulation has been found in dogs’ water bowls due to a rat infestation. There’s many cases of animal abuse that go ignored because of overcrowding, and many animals are released into the parking lot under the guise of ‘return to field.’ Many of these animals are later found dead.”

She said staff members and volunteers “report having their concerns dismissed or met with hostility when advocating for better animal care… I’m not here to attack but to demand better for all the animals, who deserve so much more. We need transparency, accountability, and most of all, better management.”

Prizzia: “We’re not blameless. There’s definitely been issues.”

After public comment, Commissioner Anna Prizzia said, “We hear you, and we aren’t just dismissing this or sweeping it under the rug. It is a very important issue, and this County is, in my opinion, one of the most committed counties that I’ve seen, when I look around our state, with regards to Animal Resources, and trying really hard. It’s a very difficult issue, it’s intractable and it’s really hard, and we have a lot of challenges. And we’re not blameless. There’s definitely been issues. In fact, we’ve had to terminate employment for people who weren’t cleaning cages appropriately… I hope that these issues that have been raised are going to go to our Animal Welfare Committee and be reviewed.”

She said this “is always going to be an issue as long as you don’t spay and neuter your pets.” She asked staff to look at whether the County could refuse to release any animal taken into the shelter that has not been spayed or neutered until it is either spayed or neutered or the owner pays the breeder’s license fee. Lieberman said her staff would review the current ordinance to see if they can do that.

Commissioner Ken Cornell encouraged the public to continue to bring issues forward. 

Wheeler: “Go see for yourself, rather than believing everything that you hear… You can’t believe everything you hear or read.”

Commissioner Wheeler encouraged the public to “go see for yourself, rather than believing everything that you hear; go see what’s going on out there… I’m particularly committed to making sure that we have the services that you are asking for, and a lot of them are being offered already, and you just may not know it. You can’t believe everything you hear or read, and I would encourage you to get [a volunteer form] and go out there and spend a little time yourself, do your own investigation rather than just tagging on to something that you hear… I do encourage you to go to the shelter and actually engage yourselves personally before you start sending a lot of information out that you may not be real sure of.”