Animals in Placer County, CA Need Your Help!

• We want animal abuse and neglect to be prosecuted! No action has yet been taken to prosecute any of the aforementioned cases!   Animal  neglect is a form of animal abuse which is rampant in Placer County. For too long officials have been soft on issues of animal abuse and neglect. These are serious cases of animal neglect and therefore abuse. How many cases will it take before situations like these are prosecuted? We say enough!  If public officials drop the ball on these highly publicized cases, can we expect them to follow through on cases that are not publicized? It undermines public trust when officials can't be relied upon to prosecute people who engage in activities that endanger lives. Lives of animals do count, and we want to send a clear message that animal abuse and neglect in Placer County will no longer be tolerated!   

• Census Bureau statistics report that Placer County’s population has more than doubled between 1980 to 2005 when it grew from 117,000 to 317,000 and it is still growing. The Placer County Animal Shelter, located at the DeWitt center, was built in 1974 and is tax supported.  In 2000, Placer County Elected Officials promised a new animal shelter in Auburn within five years. They have reneged on that promise! They instead want to build near the highway 65 corridor and have that building serve as a housing unit for 3 of the county’s Animal Control Service agencies along with the Placer County SPCA.  They are considering modifying the Auburn shelter and  even talking about demolition, but not until 2010. We want Placer County Board of Supervisors to uphold their original promise! We won't oppose the building of a new shelter in Roseville but only if does not overshadow or replace the urgent need to remodel or rebuild the existing shelter in Auburn. We want county officials to uphold their promise to build in Auburn and to make immediate improvements to the current shelter.  

• We also want the bureaucratic hierachy revised so that Placer County Animal Shelter is no longer undermined by  bureaucratic processes that delay urgent action and decisions by Placer County Animal Control managers.  The current system which requires Placer County Animal Control to funnel  all managerial requests through the Dept. of Health and Human Services leads to delays and failure to provide solutions for problems demanding immediate action. This leads to the frustration of an already overburdended and underfunded Animal Control staff as well as failures to improve conditions for the animals. Placer County Elected Officials should demonstrate more confidence in the abilities of Placer County Animal Control managerial staff by removing the constraints of the current system and make Placer County Animal Control a "stand alone" department which reports directly to the County CEO instead of channeling through the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

Those of us who have concern and compassion for animals have seen enough! We want changes and we want them now!