A History
- The 2000 MCAS Citizens MCAS Task Force chaired by Dove Lewis, directed the county to charter a process for progressive humane sheltering at MCAS. It emphasized and incorporated the community’s values and included participants from the community including veterinarians as major participants. It was about ending the needless killing of companion animals. Animals were not to be put to death unless they were irremediably suffering or had a behavior challenge that even after behavior interventions presented a serious public safety risk.
The implementation of humane sheltering charter included:
- An MCAS shelter Review Committee
The committee included staff, volunteers, rescues, interested citizens, and, twice a month, a diplomate in behavioral veterinary medicine attended. The diplomate in behavioral veterinary medicine also was on contract to provide animal behavior advice on various agency cases.
The Shelter Review Committees meetings were conducted as open public sessions. Their goal was to seek options and solutions for animals in need. It was not to kill them.
- October 2015: The dismantling of the citizens’ task force directive for humane sheltering
The dismantling of MCAS’ humane sheltering mission began with the hiring of Jackie Rose as MCAS Director in late October 2015. Behind closed doors and without scrutiny, Director Jackie Rose created policies contrary to humane sheltering. These policies are still in place today. Director Rose created an authoritarian agency, removing by fiat all public participation and an open democratic decision making process.
The Shelter Review meetings became a private affair: managers only. Decisions about euthanasia no longer permitted public, staff, volunteer or expert participation or input. In new policy statements, staff, citizens and volunteers were denied any say in euthanasia decisions and told they were not permitted to explore options. Meetings once held weekly, during which animal dispositions were discussed and reviewed, now could occur at any time any day of the week. No quorum was required. A pilot behavior and training program, initiated by staff and volunteers to train dogs with special needs to become adoptable, was shut down without explanation or notice.
- April 2019: Jackie Rose left to assume the directorship of Ventura California Animal Control after a 2016 and 2018 poor performance audits. Jackie Rose was ousted ‘retired with honors’ from Ventura Animal Control late 2023 after community backlash over precisely the same leadership she showed in MCAS, beginning with the unjust euthanasia of a specific dog.
- February 2020: MCAS Client Services Supervisor Wade Sadler took over as acting director, an assignment made permanent shortly after a hasty public advertisement for the director’s position. There was no credible search for a replacement. The directorship was handed down. The failed policies and practices created by Jackie Rose continued under Wade Sadler.
- July 2022: Erin Grahek, a former case manager after failing to advance at the Department of Aging and Disabilities, was appointed acting MCAS director and assumed the directorship permanently in July 2022 during the height of an animal care crisis at MCAS. The external search for a director was cursory and short.
While acknowledging her lack of experience (never having served in any capacity in animal services or welfare), Erin Grahek assured the public she would lead by deferring her power and authority to the agency managers.
“Grahek didn’t come to Animal Services with any animal welfare experience. ‘ I will bring on strong professionals who have the animal welfare background that I don’t, and marry that with my experience as a manager and a leader in Multnomah County,’ Grahek said.”
Under their direction, given the creation of a power vacuum, managers replaced the goals of pet redemption and retention with pre-select adoptions marked by significant returns. They dismantled and removed the entire support system for pet retention and redemption: Emergency Board and Pets in Crisis, advising citizens it was not their job. ‘They were not a hotel.’ No official permission was sought for their unilateral change in the agency’s mission from pet retention and redemption to cheap animal sales.
At the same time animal care was undermined, animals with medical care, behavior or other concerns were assigned waivers disowning all responsibility. Fear waivers most often reflect agency conditions for which MCAS is responsible. Now it’s the animal’s “fault,” not the agency’s responsibility.
Dolly’s Fund, a public fund restricted to the special medical care needs of shelter is seldom accessed for animals anymore. If a rescue will not take them, they are killed or adopted with waivers. All compassion for vulnerable animals has vanished. The managers ended medical and hospice fosters. If they cannot be transferred they are killed.
MCAS euthanasia policies were unilaterally changed by the managers. When they failed to succeed at their assignment, they lowered the bar to allow themselves to count failure as success.
Multnomah county animal shelter drops language stating animals won’t be euthanized for space.
Readers respond: don’t believe euthanasia assurances.
No input from others invested in an animal’s life is permitted. The process is not open. The term ‘Shelter Review’ has been renamed ‘Rounds Review’ for a process that has nothing in common with hospital rounds review among professionals. Euthanasia decisions continue to be decided by managers without any background in animal behavior, science or training. The statements made justifying euthanasia for any given animal in nearly every record defy the facts, professional decision making and risk assessment processes. Animals are killed as “unhealthy and untreatable” when they are not. It is a deliberate and a self serving deception intended to mislead the public and conceal their failures. Only the animals are victims and pay the price.
MCAS continues to fail. The leadership is authoritarian. Management is largely selected through a process of nepotism not qualifications.
That is the challenge County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, the Board of Multnomah County Commissioners and Department of Community Services Director Margi Bradway face: Either honor public service and the lives of shelter animals in their care or to capitulate to management welfare and failure.
Gail O’Connell-Babcock
