by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The mayor’s Neighborhoods subcommittee is considering a plan to replace Animal Care and Control Chief John Merritt with a board made up of animal advocates.
A letter to subcommittee member Paul Riel recommended dismissing Merritt for a three-person board including Susan Shelton, a Clay County veterinarian, and representatives from the Jacksonville Humane Society and First Coast No More Homeless Pets. The interim management team would oversee the department for up to six months until a single director is named. The letter’s author, Victoria Pennington, served with Shelton on a 2001 animal care task force. Her recent recommendation echoes many of the task force’s points.
The subcommittee will recommend personnel and structural changes to be made within the department. Mayor John Peyton will make the final decisions.
The interim program is the latest salvo fired in a dispute surrounding Merritt’s leadership. In recent months, animal advocates have called with increased vigor for Merritt’s replacement. Merritt’s division brought down a publicity storm in May when it took custody of more than 100 dogs from a Mandarin man, putting at least 40 of them to death.
The Humane Society and the FCNMHP have lobbied the City to shift to an animal control policy which emphasizes adoptions and kills as a last resort. In the letter, Pennington questioned whether Merritt could oversee the change.
“John’s training and experience has been in the more traditional shelter settings that some may describe, for lack of a better phrase, as ‘old school,’ ” said Pennington. “I feel we need new people with new ideas.”
Among the division’s shortcomings, Pennington said, were insufficient disease management, which lead to the deaths of adoptable animals; poor customer service, which discourages adoptions; and bad relationships with animal welfare and rescue groups.
Pennington said her recommendations have already found support with at least one subcommittee member. Leona Sheddan, also of the Humane Society, distributed a similar restructuring recommendation at the subcommittee’s July 28 meeting.
In an e-mail accompanying her letter, Pennington told Riel she had met with Sheddan and “several other JHS [Humane Society] members,” about restructuring the division. She said all agreed that the interim board would be workable.
But the head of the department that oversees the division disagreed. Neighborhoods director John Curtin called the recommendation “crazy.” He said the animal advocates were seeing only one side of a complicated issue.
“You need a decision maker in that position, not a group, none of which have the mandatory experience,” said Curtin. “There’s a whole other side of animal control. People make a lot of noise about animal rights, but when somebody gets bit by a pit bull, that’s what’s going to get the mayor in trouble.”
With 14,000 animals living in Jacksonville, Curtin said control efforts must deal with dangerous animals and their propensity to spread disease. He said poor division leadership would “get the whole population real sick real fast.”
Curtin said the animal advocates’ voice may be heard disproportionately loud. He said they have been vocal throughout the process and that their views did not represent the community.
Curtin’s own job is up for grabs with the subcommittee, partially due to the struggles within Merritt’s division. Following Curtin’s interview with the subcommittee, several members questioned whether he was progressive enough to make necessary changes. About a month later, the subcommittee recommended the mayor replace Curtin with Roslyn Phillips, currently the director of business development for the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission.
Curtin said Merritt had done “a wonderful job.” He said adoptions were up 25 percent over the last year. He said he would be willing to work with other leadership, but would not support a change that was not in the community’s best interest.
In an e-mail to interim Chief Operating Officer Lynn Westbrook, Curtin took issue with Shelton’s presence as a leadership candidate. Shelton’s Clay County clinic has performed about 30 discount spay/neuter operations a week since January as part of the City’s SpayJax program. The cut-rate operations are paid for with City money.
Curtin said Shelton’s clinic performed 80 percent or more of the operations, and said she was working “both sides of the fence.
“The previous administration was very concerned about Dr. Shelton . . . when she was a City employee and then a contract employee,” said Curtin. “The same concern exists today. I do not consider this a good contractual environment.”
The FCNMHP oversees the SpayJax program and would join Shelton on the proposed interim board.