Petition to re-open an animal shelter in SOMa
Thanks for posting the link. I've signed. I cannot believe that almost two years later, the shelter remains closed.
I'm not signing. There's a tremendous ongoing effort (thank you, Sheena) to approach the problems and pitfalls of the shelter in a reasonable, careful, and rationale way to address the need for a shelter.
Posting a petition is not one of them.
For starters, when local officials see that a significant number of signers are from places as far away as France and/or have no clue whatsoever as to what the facts are regarding the current state of affairs, it might be a bit much ado.
Elle_Cee said:
Why do you think posting a petition is unreasonable?
I believe my response provided a pretty clear and understandable reason why a petition is unreasonable.
Real people are doing hard work to try to solve the problem of the lack of a shelter. Rather than ignoring the effort that's being made, perhaps you could pitch in. Signing your name is just a feel-good moment that contributes nothing to the effort.
The petition also doesn't do anything but demand a shelter. Which is nice and all that, but devoid of any substance.
mjh said:
Elle_Cee said:
Why do you think posting a petition is unreasonable?
I believe my response provided a pretty clear and understandable reason why a petition is unreasonable.
Real people are doing hard work to try to solve the problem of the lack of a shelter. Rather than ignoring the effort that's being made, perhaps you could pitch in. Signing your name is just a feel-good moment that contributes nothing to the effort.
I have pitched in by fostering and have attended Maplewood Town Council meetings as well as South Orange Board of Trustee meetings. It’s true, though, that my contributions are dwarfed by the incredible, indefatigable ones made by the small, private animal rescue groups in SoMa.
The efforts both governments have made and are making to address the animal control issues in our two towns are laudable. However, in the ensuing year and a half since the shelter was closed, the long promised RFP has not materialized. Originally, animal activists were given to understand that the RFP would be focused on animal control needs. Instead, in the spring of this year, South Orange announced that the RFP would be open to all interested parties. In the meantime, the shelter has been rented out to a fitness company, thus further delaying the reopening of the facility. The petition is the rational statement of an opinion shared by many SoMa townspeople who’ve been waiting for the shelter to reopen since November of 2014. Elected officials are free to analyze the signers and decide whether the petition is the expression of an significant enough segment of the population to warrant action.
As for substance, in addition to stating the basic facts of the situation, the petition includes a 2014 statistic about euthanasia in Essex County and provides a link to a MOL thread, detailing the many animals adopted from the old shelter. The issues that the neighbors had with the old 298 Walton shelter can be resolved by the animal organization that wins the contract to reopen the shelter as long as there is willingness to compromise on both sides. The building at 298 Walton was built to care for animals and find them new homes. Those doors need to reopen to animals.
I have to assume there is a personal backstory here because I think telling potential petition signers to stuff it may not be the best approach.
Elle_Cee said:
In the meantime, the shelter has been rented out to a fitness company, thus further delaying the reopening of the facility.
...
The building at 298 Walton was built to care for animals and find them new homes. Those doors need to reopen to animals.
From past threads, there were significant issues with the building being used as a shelter. I believe the ventilation system was designed incorrectly and also that there was no true quarantine available. These things can be addressed, but it isn't as simple as just finding a new shelter to walk in and open shop, a lot of money would need to be spent to make structural renovations and to update the ventilation system. I believe there was also a drainage issue with the outside portion where the dogs were put to get fresh air. It is a shame that the building has these issues, this wasn't an existing building that was retrofitted to turn it into a shelter, it was built from the ground up for the sole purpose of housing the shelter. They should have gotten it right from the start.
spontaneous said:
Elle_Cee said:
In the meantime, the shelter has been rented out to a fitness company, thus further delaying the reopening of the facility.
...
The building at 298 Walton was built to care for animals and find them new homes. Those doors need to reopen to animals.
From past threads, there were significant issues with the building being used as a shelter. I believe the ventilation system was designed incorrectly and also that there was no true quarantine available. These things can be addressed, but it isn't as simple as just finding a new shelter to walk in and open shop, a lot of money would need to be spent to make structural renovations and to update the ventilation system. I believe there was also a drainage issue with the outside portion where the dogs were put to get fresh air. It is a shame that the building has these issues, this wasn't an existing building that was retrofitted to turn it into a shelter, it was built from the ground up for the sole purpose of housing the shelter. They should have gotten it right from the start.
You raise some valid points. I'm in favor of a shelter but the JAC location was also unfortunate since it was so close to a residential neighborhood. I'm not sure how a new shelter in that location would address those issues.
I forgot about the residential neighborhood, another valid issue. If I recall correctly, residents were worried about noise before the shelter was built, and voiced their concerns at town meetings. They were told the noise would not be an issue. Once the shelter was built and residents could hear the dogs barking, they were then basically told "Well, it's here now, what do you expect us to do?" As there is not an animal shelter there at this moment, the noise issue would also have to be dealt with before allowing it to reopen as an animal shelter. To do otherwise would not be fair to people in the neighborhood.
lbr said:
If you believe that South Orange/Maplewood should have an animal shelter, as we once did, please click through to and sign this petition that was originated by the local group SOMA for Animals. Thank you.
https://www.change.org/p/sheena-collum-give-us-back-our-shelter-give-our-animals-a-chance-f7b50bbb-b552-44fc-852a-33b73ddbf408?recruiter=120253005&utm_source=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper&utm_medium=copylink
Thank you for posting this. I thought the statistics were very important. I have argued this philosophically for years but I have always wished that I had the numbers at my fingertips. Thanks for the courage to post this.
And thank you for your fundraising efforts for my dear friends at Furry Hearts.
If there were a $500 fee to sign the petition with all proceeds going to the shelter, I would support it. Support being different than sign.
Let's be clear...VP Collum has educated herself on the issues, helped make TNVR a reality, and started a very useful discussion with People for Animals(?) about how to run a cost effective operation which provides the services most needed by local pet owners (spay and neuter, 7 day holds for lost pets, followed by transfer to one of the area's low/no kill shelters, etc.). She has led an RFP process which will allow thoughtful consideration of proposals that come in, rather than just having the highest bidder win. She is moving things forward after a really ugly situation.
[see the last page of the recent long Shelter thread in the Pets section for her long and detailed post]
Now that we have TNVR in place we can consider multiple options, including in-town services, a partnership with Saint Huberts or possibly the new shelter that Millburn will be building to serve the coalition of towns they lead.
It seems like the purpose of this petition is to reopen the shelter to help deal with a glut of animals primarily from other communities in the region, presumably where spay and neuter efforts are less pervasive. Like Saint Huberts, JAC, when it was open, brought in animals from out of town (often regional and Southern shelters) to keep the cages full and have adoptable animals ready. My family, for example, now has a dog that Saint Huberts rescued from the Elizabeth shelter (6 years old and never "fixed" until at St. Huberts).
The broader problem of unwanted dogs is a very real one, but I don't believe that it is the responsibility of local South Orange government (or taxpayers) to ensure that we have a full shelter with the capacity to help deal with the problems of irresponsible breeding elsewhere in our region/country.
If there is a viable organization that wants to put in an RFP to reopen as a full-fledged shelter, it deserves consideration, but I think that the currently designed broader RFP process is well designed to serve the needs of the South Orange residents that elect our BOT. I will not sign a petition driving for one specific solution over others under consideration.
susan1014 said:
It seems like the purpose of this petition is to reopen the shelter to help deal with a glut of animals primarily from other communities in the region, presumably where spay and neuter efforts are less pervasive. Like Saint Huberts, JAC, when it was open, brought in animals from out of town (often regional and Southern shelters) to keep the cages full and have adoptable animals ready. My family, for example, now has a dog that Saint Huberts rescued from the Elizabeth shelter (6 years old and never "fixed" until at St. Huberts).
susan1014 - Can you please elaborate on this? Thanks.
Elle_Cee said:
mjh said:
Elle_Cee said:
Why do you think posting a petition is unreasonable?
I believe my response provided a pretty clear and understandable reason why a petition is unreasonable.
Real people are doing hard work to try to solve the problem of the lack of a shelter. Rather than ignoring the effort that's being made, perhaps you could pitch in. Signing your name is just a feel-good moment that contributes nothing to the effort.
I have pitched in by fostering and have attended Maplewood Town Council meetings as well as South Orange Board of Trustee meetings. It’s true, though, that my contributions are dwarfed by the incredible, indefatigable ones made by the small, private animal rescue groups in SoMa.
The efforts both governments have made and are making to address the animal control issues in our two towns are laudable. However, in the ensuing year and a half since the shelter was closed, the long promised RFP has not materialized. Originally, animal activists were given to understand that the RFP would be focused on animal control needs. Instead, in the spring of this year, South Orange announced that the RFP would be open to all interested parties. In the meantime, the shelter has been rented out to a fitness company, thus further delaying the reopening of the facility. The petition is the rational statement of an opinion shared by many SoMa townspeople who’ve been waiting for the shelter to reopen since November of 2014. Elected officials are free to analyze the signers and decide whether the petition is the expression of an significant enough segment of the population to warrant action.
As for substance, in addition to stating the basic facts of the situation, the petition includes a 2014 statistic about euthanasia in Essex County and provides a link to a MOL thread, detailing the many animals adopted from the old shelter. The issues that the neighbors had with the old 298 Walton shelter can be resolved by the animal organization that wins the contract to reopen the shelter as long as there is willingness to compromise on both sides. The building at 298 Walton was built to care for animals and find them new homes. Those doors need to reopen to animals.
Thank you for explaining all of this in a compassionate and logical fashion. And as for the link provided to the old MOL thread, it inspired someone to send me a couple of additional pictures of pets that they adopted from the old shelter. I'll post them as soon as I find the thread from last year, which was started to put a face on the problem. Maybe we can all be warmed by focusing on some of the good that this community once did for animals.
susan1014 said:
Let's be clear...VP Collum has educated herself on the issues, helped make TNVR a reality, and started a very useful discussion with People for Animals(?) about how to run a cost effective operation which provides the services most needed by local pet owners (spay and neuter, 7 day holds for lost pets, followed by transfer to one of the area's low/no kill shelters, etc.). She has led an RFP process which will allow thoughtful consideration of proposals that come in, rather than just having the highest bidder win. She is moving things forward after a really ugly situation.
[see the last page of the recent long Shelter thread in the Pets section for her long and detailed post]
Now that we have TNVR in place we can consider multiple options, including in-town services, a partnership with Saint Huberts or possibly the new shelter that Millburn will be building to serve the coalition of towns they lead.
It seems like the purpose of this petition is to reopen the shelter to help deal with a glut of animals primarily from other communities in the region, presumably where spay and neuter efforts are less pervasive. Like Saint Huberts, JAC, when it was open, brought in animals from out of town (often regional and Southern shelters) to keep the cages full and have adoptable animals ready. My family, for example, now has a dog that Saint Huberts rescued from the Elizabeth shelter (6 years old and never "fixed" until at St. Huberts).
The broader problem of unwanted dogs is a very real one, but I don't believe that it is the responsibility of local South Orange government (or taxpayers) to ensure that we have a full shelter with the capacity to help deal with the problems of irresponsible breeding elsewhere in our region/country.
If there is a viable organization that wants to put in an RFP to reopen as a full-fledged shelter, it deserves consideration, but I think that the currently designed broader RFP process is well designed to serve the needs of the South Orange residents that elect our BOT. I will not sign a petition driving for one specific solution over others under consideration.
The purpose of this petition is for people who would like to re-open a local animal shelter to have a voice, and let their views be known to our officials. If our officials don't know what people want, they are making a decision without having the most vital piece of information an elected official in a democracy can have.
The current plan is to issue a very broadly-worded RFP that any type or organization or business can respond to. So that makes it ever more vital to let officials know by signing this petition that what you want is to re-open an animal shelter--if that is what you want. Signing the petition doesn't mean we get a specific provider--it doesn't even mean we get a local shelter again. But it does mean that your voice will be heard if you want a shelter again. It means your voice will count.
And the purpose of re-opening a local shelter is not to help deal with a glut of animals primarily from other communities. The purpose is to deal with the animals in our community. Anything otherwise is an assumption not coming from this petition.
Yes, by not re-opening a shelter Maplewood and South Orange are using up space that would otherwise be available to animals. The point is that Maplewood and South Orange should do their part--shoulder our own responsibility--for our animals without placing the burden of our animals on someone else.
St. Hubert's elects to take in animals from a variety of sources--and that is their choice. That does not mean that if we re-open a shelter we have to do the same.
The Board of Trustees recently voted for TNVR, and it was a great thing they did. I thank them for a progressive position on community cats.
Now we have to turn to the questions of whether to re-open a shelter or not.
Part of what motivates my call for re-opening a local shelter is knowing that human emotions and animal emotions are far closer than was thought in the past. Current science, through such techniques as brain imaging, supports the theory that mammals experience emotions such as fear, joy, affection--just to name three--pretty close to how we experience it. An animal may not be able to "rationalize" it, but they feel it pretty much the way we do.
So the question of whether or not to re-open an animal shelter for me is not about warehousing some "dumb" animals--it's about giving animals that in many ways experience the world the same way as I do--and as you do--a second chance when they have lost a home through no fault of their own. And if we don't re-open a shelter, we rob other animals of that second chance.
I'm afraid that I don't have a clean set of data sources at hand, but anecdotally, there seems to be a steady flow of dogs from Southern states to Northern shelters, and suburban shelters definitely go to the higher-kill urban shelters looking for the most adoptable dogs (e.g. not pit bull mixes....) to save and bring to their facilities.
If you dig into it, much of the issue has to do with impoverished communities where there are neither providers nor money for what we would consider appropriate veterinary care.
Unfortunately, improved spay and neuter services for Newark is not as sexy a goal as a shelter in South Orange.
https://medium.com/@HumaneSociety/kind-streets-e12c000e1432#.2orajvakk
cramer said:
susan1014 said:
It seems like the purpose of this petition is to reopen the shelter to help deal with a glut of animals primarily from other communities in the region, presumably where spay and neuter efforts are less pervasive. Like Saint Huberts, JAC, when it was open, brought in animals from out of town (often regional and Southern shelters) to keep the cages full and have adoptable animals ready. My family, for example, now has a dog that Saint Huberts rescued from the Elizabeth shelter (6 years old and never "fixed" until at St. Huberts).
susan1014 - Can you please elaborate on this? Thanks.
Improved spay and neuter services for Newark has never been the issue. It's never been on the agenda.
My point exactly....
citizenjane said:
Improved spay and neuter services for Newark has never been the issue. It's never been on the agenda.
susan1014 said:
I'm afraid that I don't have a clean set of data sources at hand, but anecdotally, there seems to be a steady flow of dogs from Southern states to Northern shelters, and suburban shelters definitely go to the higher-kill urban shelters looking for the most adoptable dogs (e.g. not pit bull mixes....) to save and bring to their facilities.
Dogs are regularly transported from the south to the north. Southern states, thanks to low spay/neuter rates, lax animal control, temperate climate, and plenty of wide open space, produce an excess number of adoptable dogs, while northern states, especially urban areas, tend to have plenty of back-yard-bred pit mixes and very little of anything else. Unfortunately, few people going to a shelter will even consider a pit mix. They'll ask for anything but a pit mix. If they can't find a suitable dog at a shelter, they'll go to a pet store, and don't get me started on the evils of the puppy mills that supply pet stores.
Dog transport happens throughout the country. Southern rescues will partner with northern rescues and send a steady stream of dogs. It is not a nefarious scheme practiced only by the JAC, as some posters here on MOL would have you believe. Dogs from my home town, San Antonio, are regularly transported to Chicago and the Pacific Northwest, and the recipients are thrilled to have them. Puppies are especially in demand. They adopt out easily for a premium price, providing the revenue needed to provide medical care and training for the dogs who aren't as easy to place.
susan1014 said:
My point exactly....
citizenjane said:
Improved spay and neuter services for Newark has never been the issue. It's never been on the agenda.
Okay, I thought you had misspoken. But you are introducing a red herring into the discussion by bringing up Newark. Or do you want 298 Walton to take care of Newark's animals?
Speaking of dog transport, here are the two dogs I'm bringing up from San Antonio in the back seat of my car and hoping to find homes for when I get back to South Orange next week.
Persephone is a ten-year-old St. Bernard mix (but small for a St. Bernard; only about 70 pounds). She's a friendly, outgoing dog who loves to hang out in beer gardens. Her tail never stops wagging.
Puppy is a 6-month-old lab/hound mix who adores other dogs but takes a little while to warm up to new people.
citizenjane said:
susan1014 said:
Yes, by not re-opening a shelter Maplewood and South Orange are using up space that would otherwise be available to animals.
... they have lost a home through no fault of their own. And if we don't re-open a shelter, we rob other animals of that second chance.
Based on these statements (within your larger otherwise reasonable post) you appear to be starting with the presumption that 'our animals' have lost something that they were entitled to, something that was theirs. You would certainly be entitled to this belief, but I don't think it will help your cause.
The red herring in this discussion is 298 Walton. It's just a building. The local residents were badly burned by the JAC and will never willingly accept another shelter there. Getting a new shelter in South Orange when there are other more cost effective and equally or more humane choices is an uphill struggle. Insisting that it be in that building is just adding unnecessary difficulty to that struggle.
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If you believe that South Orange/Maplewood should have an animal shelter, as we once did, please click through to and sign this petition that was originated by the local group SOMA for Animals. Thank you.
https://www.change.org/p/sheena-collum-give-us-back-our-shelter-give-our-animals-a-chance-f7b50bbb-b552-44fc-852a-33b73ddbf408?recruiter=120253005&utm_source=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper&utm_medium=copylink