I urge all concerned people of Santa Clara County to write
letters of protest to the county supervisors, particularly the
Director of Animal Care and Control/Agricultural Commissioner, Greg
Van Wassenhove for the following actions:
• At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, the board of supervisors
recently approved of an extra full day closure at San Martin Animal
Shelter, further reducing the opportunity for rescue, care, and
adoption of abandoned, injured, sick and homeless animals.
I urge all concerned people of Santa Clara County to write letters of protest to the county supervisors, particularly the Director of Animal Care and Control/Agricultural Commissioner, Greg Van Wassenhove for the following actions:
n At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, the board of supervisors recently approved of an extra full day closure at San Martin Animal Shelter, further reducing the opportunity for rescue, care, and adoption of abandoned, injured, sick and homeless animals.
n At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, one full-time employee and one part-time employee have been eliminated, reducing the amount of staff available to provide care and services for the high numbers of needy animals.
n At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, our shelter doors will be closed an extra full day to people in need of adoption services.
n At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, our shelter doors will be open to the public only a few hours each day from Wednesday through Sunday.
n At the request of Mr. Van Wassenhove, our shelter doors will be closed one-third of the entire year.
What is accomplished by closing the doors? Why close doors on our shelter where the adoption rate exceeds the national shelter adoption rate by 44 percent? Why close doors on our shelter when approximately 64 percent of the intake animal population returns to the general public as a result of the adoption program? (Facts taken from Section 5, Housing, Land use, Environment & Transportation; FY 2006 Recommended Budget, Santa Clara County).
Who benefits? On the days that the shelter is closed to the public there are no adoptions; therefore no revenue is generated to support the shelter. The shelter, however, is staffed and functional on these days, and so there are still the operational costs to cover. Over time, the shelter will lose money. Ultimately, the extra day closure would do nothing more than substantiate any future budgetary arguments presented by Mr. Van Wassenhove to the board of supervisors in favor of closing the shelter doors permanently. This may allow for the long-awaited San Martin Airport expansion project to proceed unencumbered, but it will never solve the county’s $127 million deficit.
Where will they go? On Mondays and Tuesdays there will still be homeless, starving animals foraging for food in the streets, animals dying by the side of the road, animals left to starve in abandoned pastures. Will Mr. Van Wassenhove appoint additional Animal Control Officers to “step up rescue efforts” on the days that “no stray or found animals will be accepted from the public at the shelter”? (See “new schedule” at www.sccanimalshelter.org). How, exactly, does Mr. Van Wassenhove plan to “mitigate the impact on the community” on the days that the doors are closed?
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, please rescind this unjustifiable ruling and keep the shelter doors open. You cannot deny this shelter the capacity to provide humane sanctuary for animals in need. Every minute, every day that our Shelter doors are open, it provides life-saving and life-giving services to unwanted, abandoned, abused and neglected animals that are in desperate need of help.
How we treat our animals is a measure of our character and integrity as a community and most certainly, a measure of the humanity of our elected and otherwise appointed representatives.
Please write, email, fax or phone:
Greg Van Wassenhove
Gr*****************@er*.us
Division of Animal Care & Control
605 Tennant Avenue, Suite G
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Phone (408) 465-2900
Fax (408) 779-2255
Supervisor Donald F. Gage
Do******@bo*.us
Office of the Board of Supervisors
Government Center, East Wing 70 West Hedding Street
San Jose, CA 95110
Phone (408) 299-3273
Fax (408) 295-6993
South County Office: 80 Highland Avenue
San Martin, CA 95036
Phone (408) 686-8742
