In addition to her showing no compassion towards the pets entrusted to her care, Marcia Mayeda, the head of Los Angeles County’s Animal Control department has even more disdain towards the people who work for her. Mayeda has a track record of appointing morally challenged or incompetent shelter managers (her last two Baldwin Park managers serve as prime exhibits) and as a result she has so disillusioned the rank and file, that they have a tendency to feign illness and call in sick just so they don’t have to deal with the capricious mood swings of their supervisors. Volunteers also have felt unwelcome and are donating far fewer man hours of service than they did when the popular former manager Lance Hunter ran things with a gentler hand.
Things have gotten so bad at Baldwin Park that last weekend there were only two kennel attendants taking care of the shelter’s population of over 300 pets. These two employees put in their eight hours but did not finish feeding the shelter’s pet population. Sheri Koenig neither authorized overtime for her workers, nor called other Los Angeles County shelters to lend manpower assistance. According to Baldwin Park insiders as a result cats in the shelter’s Building 5 were locked in cat boxes without food or water for over 24 hours. This is entirely unacceptable.
There are several job openings posted on Los Angeles County’s website for animal control jobs – but Mayeda has not filled them. We are not sure if she is leaving these positions unfilled so she can save money and thereby qualify for an end of the year bonus from the Board of Supervisors, or whether she cannot fill them because she is such a terrible boss and no one wants to work for her.
Either way it is only the poor pets who suffer – which is entirely unacceptable to anyone with a shred of compassion. Unfortunately the only ones who can ameliorate this situation and force Mayeda to act responsibly and take care of her agency and its pets are the five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors – Mike Antonovich, Sheila Kuehl, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Hilda Solis and Don Knabe. These elected representatives claim to represent the will of the citizens of Los Angeles County.
If indeed starving pets and providing negligent care is the will of Los Angeles County – we as citizens need to either fight to remove these unresponsive politicos and their horrific deputies from office or be eternally ashamed of ourselves.