This is a really good exposé on LAAS conduct and on Best Friends Animal Society. There is a LOT more, dig it up.
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Brenda Barnette's Animal Services Mishaps
Do unproven groups and extremist Pamelyn Ferdin have City Hall's ear?
This is an expanded version of the original online article.
Local animal-care organizations want to help the city's troubled Animal Services department. But in a series of unsettling incidents, respected nonprofits were edged out when a locally unproven group nabbed a contract to run a city shelter — without competitive bidding — and a major donor claimed that animal-rights extremist Pamelyn Ferdin was involved behind the scenes in dreaming up the city's new pet-adoption banners.
On Aug. 12, the Los Angeles City Council preliminarily agreed to give Best Friends Animal Society the contract to manage the vacant Northeast Valley shelter in Mission Hills.
Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Los Angeles, only found out about the opening a few days before the City Council met, yet her respected group has been in L.A. for more than 130 years.
Only Best Friends knew about the opportunity from city officials — and, not surprisingly, it was the only group to apply.
At a follow-up meeting on Aug. 16, the City Council finally had a quorum to finalize its selection of Best Friends Animal Society — a decision supported by city Animal Services general manager Brenda Barnette and opposed only by City Councilman Richard Alarcon.
Teri Austin, president of longtime animal-rescue agency Amanda Foundation, pleaded: "There is no harm in seeing another deal. We are just asking you to look at something else." The Amanda Foundation was established 35 years ago in L.A.
"Where did the deal come from? No legitimate local organizations were informed about it," says SPCA's Bernstein.
In fact, well-known animal organizations never heard about the chance to run the shuttered Mission Hills shelter that was granted to Best Friends until it was too late to apply.
Then, just days later, City Hall was beset with another troubling controversy spawned by yet another nonprofit group embraced by Barnette — the newly founded Bernheim Foundation, underwritten by wealthy Beverly Hills lawyer Steven Bernheim.
Bernheim's neophyte foundation made headlines on Aug. 28 for its badly bungled plan to erect huge, 70-foot-long banners on a second city animal shelter, the East Valley Shelter in Van Nuys.
With Animal Services chief Barnette's blessing, Bernheim hired tree cutters to pare trees at the animal shelter so Angelenos could see the new banners, which exhort people to adopt pets.
The hired crew got out chainsaws and, ignoring the protests of shocked city shelter employees who heard the racket outside, illegally cut down the entire grove of 14 costly, mature, environmentally certified pepper trees that had been painstakingly placed around the Van Nuys shelter for optimum shade.
But at least passers-by could better see the Bernheim Foundation's new banners.
In a front-page Daily News article decrying the trees' destruction, the rich donor, Bernheim, let it slip that radical activist Pamelyn Ferdin had quietly gained a toehold in the city's Animal Services Department, as the person who had hatched the idea of hanging the banners.
Former child actress Ferdin has made news in recent years for trespassing, screaming at a high-ranking Animal Services employee on his front porch — and working with a violent group that, among other things, planted a car bomb and fire-bombed a home to terrorize UCLA research scientists. Five of her extremist friends, although not Ferdin, were banned by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge from coming within 150 feet of UCLA researchers' homes at night. Ferdin then ignored a court injunction and passed out fliers showing the UCLA researchers' faces, home addresses and phone numbers.
Ferdin is married to animal-rights extremist Jerry Vlasak, a doctor who for years duped the media into believing he was a surgeon at Loma Linda University Medical Center, and who once told a Utah reporter who asked him if murder was justifiable: "Whatever it takes to stop someone from abusing animals is certainly morally acceptable."
By phone, Ferdin, who was out of town, denied to L.A. Weekly that the pet-adoption banner plan was hers.
But when lawyer Bernheim, who paid for the banners and tree cutting, was asked a day later whether he worked with Ferdin, Bernheim gave the nod to both Ferdin's radical activities and his own ties to her, replying: "I don't wish to comment on that because of her affiliation — I am pretty sure she is not in the state, anyway."
The pepper trees have been replaced. City taxpayers and private donors — not Steven Bernheim — footed the bill. And Brenda Barnette has denied that Pamelyn Ferdin has any kind of pull at the city Animal Services Department.
Meanwhile, seasoned animal-care groups are still deeply puzzled by what is unfolding several miles from the Van Nuys shelter, where the City Council handed the other nonprofit group, Best Friends, the contract to reopen the Northeast Valley shelter in Mission Hills.
City Council president Eric Garcetti is distancing himself from the actions leading to that contract award, while ardent animal-rights activist and City Councilman Paul Koretz is defending it.
Garcetti, a candidate for mayor, has repeatedly claimed he runs a "transparent" ship as council president — amidst chronic criticism about the secrecy and poor preparation that beset the L.A. City Council. The decision to select Best Friends without competition was placed on the agenda by Garcetti and sponsored by Koretz.
10 comments
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Since the shelter sat generally empty it was not serving anyone. The city has a history of not fairly asking for and analyzing RFPs. This should have been done and ALL groups who were interested and had the budget should have been looked at. The other issue that should have been included is the shelter should have been limited to taking animals out of other city shelters that were due to be euthanized or owner turn ins (thus keeping them out of the shelters.) Public departments partnering with private organization have a long history of success all over the country and can serve the public and the animals well.
Those in the animal rescue community who opposed the Best Friends arrangement did so because it will essentially be recreating what Madeline Bernstein did at spca/LA: cherry-picking animals and leaving the rest to take their chances.
However, I would rather have Best Friends in charge than Bernstein. The thought that she will ever run a city shelter makes me shudder. ANYONE would be better than her. She only wants to get her face on TV and her quotes into newspapers.
She set up a system at Long Beach that required all impounded animals to go through Long Beach Animal Control. Then her staff would cherry-pick the most adoptable animals and transfer them to the spca/LA side of the divided shelter. The rest were left behind to be killed in the Long Beach Animal Control side.
Even those chosen for adoption weren't necessarily safe. If they weren't adopted or rescued, they were killed too.
It took years but finally Long Beach Animal Control has its own website and posts animals rejected by spca/LA so at least they stand a chance of getting out. Before, when Bernstein operated her go left and you live, go right and you die method of selection, the only way people could find their lost animals was to go to the shelter in person.
"Koretz's personal staffer Jeff Ebenstein, who handles many Animal Services issues, said the plan came from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's personal staff and city chief administrative officer, Miguel Santana, and was endorsed by Animal Services chief Barnette."
The plan came from the Mayor's office. Mayor's girlfriend, Lu Parker handpicked Barnette and pushed her through. Parker's "pet" animal organization (no pun intended) is Best Friends. Connect. The. Dots.
It's too bad that other groups were not given the opportunity to bid for control of the Northeast Valley Shelter, but Best Friends is an amazing organization that has completely changed the face of animal adoptions in this country. Their efforts have resulted in millions of pets being saved, they are not an extremist group, and I have 100% confidence they will do an amazing job with this shelter. As for Ms. Ferdin, extremism is never a good idea, and it's a damn shame she thought it was okay to cut down trees for her signs. Clearly, this woman gives animal rights activists a bad name.
"an amazing organization" and "not an extremist group", did you actually say that, Animal Lover? The only thing amazing about Best F(r)iends is how they get money from gullible people. Not an extremist group? They are one of the original extremist groups. Formed because they realized that collecting donations for animal rescue is easier than collecting donations for a group that worships any and all, including Satan. http://www.opposingviews.com/i...If you think Best F(r)iends is in this for the love of animals, think again. They will use this opportunity to solicit more church members. They will use this opportunity to get donations that might otherwise go to our local non profits. This is nothing more than another of Breeder Barnette's dirty deeds toward animals.
None of this surprises me, I have been following the Breeder Barnette fiasco for about 4 years now. She was part of a group in Seattle who were trying to undermine animal control there. They almost succeeded except for a lawsuit filed by the ACO Guild. When Barnette was confronted with showing her emails to back up the theory of the ACO Guild of a conspiracy, Barnette suddenly resigned and was hired in LA. She didn't come here to help LAAS, she was hired to destroy it so then the Mayor could yell "let's privatize". We can run her out of LA just like they did in Seattle. Barnette has to go, Mayor, suck it up and get rid of her.
It's not that Mssrs Garcetti or Koretz didn't know what was going on. We specifically called these matters to their attention. There was no reason for the City Council to move forward with the vote that day; especially considering the fact that they finally came to learn that no RFP was ever issued.
But this is what happens when you have a dog BREEDER (yes, Brenda Barnette is a dog BREEDER), to allegedly help curb the never-ending population growth of unwanted animals in Los Angeles. $200,000 per year to someone who previously made a living BREEDING MORE animals; who has boldly declared that she does not believe in mandatory spay/neuter, which is the LAW in the City of Los Angeles; and who neither has experience nor desire to do licensing, cruelty or s/n enforcement.
It's too easy to blame it all on Villaraigosa. It's also on a City Council which simply rubber stamps issues because they feel they know better, even though it's quite obvious that in numerous things, they don't....such as selling off a valuable property without competitive bidding. Knowing this, is it any surprise that the City is so far in debt and dealing with billions in pension losses and Housing Authority scandals.
Shamefully, these mistakes mean more dead animals in more shelter dumpsters than we had before. Yes, by her own stats, killing is up 11% in Barnette's time here. And that assumes that the animals she is shipping out en masse actually get adopted. We'll never find out, though, since she's not keeping track of that, either.
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