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Flores, Dora From:Michael Mavrovouniotis <michaelmavrovouniotis@gmail.com> Sent:Tuesday, February 11, 2025 To:eComment Subject:CITY COUNCIL, GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT (OC Animal Care) Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. See today’s article at the bottom of this comment. - You, city taxpayers, paid for the animal shelter’s 2018 Strategic Plan. - This plan you paid for was not implemented. Instead, the county delivered worse services at higher costs. - The county passes over 90% of the costs to cities. It’s effectively a cost-plus contract. No matter how wasteful their policies are, they bill you, and you pay. - Now they say they want a “new” plan… which you will also pay for. - They will then ask you to renew your 10-year contract based on this “new” plan, never mind that they didn’t implement the last one. The “new” plan is just a facade to get you to sign the renewal. - And once you sign the new contract, they can bury the new plan just like they buried the last one. Any city that is not exploring other options will end up being at the county’s mercy and will be forced to sign another bad contract. A well-managed city won’t with until the last minute, when no options are available. Tell your city to consider other options NOW: - Ask the county to let non-profits bid to run the existing shelter (at a lower cost and better services). - Look at establishing your own shelter, with nearby cities - Look at local non-profits in or near your city that can bid for this service We’re about to find out which cities are well-managed, and which are not. Voice of OC, February 11, 2025 Will Orange County’s Animal Shelter Overhaul its Operations? https://voiceofoc.org/2025/02/will-orange-countys-animal-shelter-overhaul-its-operations/ Excerpts: The county-run shelter’s current Strategic Plan, which lays out the facility’s priorities, was created in 2018. Last year, county leaders launched a process to take input and figure out how they can improve their procedures. The county issued a call for bids to find a consultant to review the Strategic Plan, identify trends in the animal care industry and facilitate community engagement. Only one consultant responded — Citygate Associates, a company that provides services across various local government functions including police, fire and EMS, community development and administrative services. The group lists animal care as one of its 15 services offered to local governments. County spokesperson Molly Nichelson stated in a Friday afternoon email that the contract is currently being finalized and will not require approval from the Board of Supervisors as long as the total amount is less than $200,000. Critics spent years calling for a more open shelter, arguing that the shelter’s appointment-based system was decreasing the number of adoptions while also increasing kill rates. Michael Mavrovouniotis, an Irvine resident and former shelter volunteer, has been calling for the shelter to follow its 2018 Strategic Plan for years. “The county bureaucracy wants to spend taxpayer dollars to bring some random consultant to create a ‘new’ plan,” Mavrovouniotis stated. “They say it’s because of COVID. Do other county agencies have permission to fail at their job — and use COVID as the excuse?” He said the shelter doesn’t need a new plan since the previous one was created by leading experts in the field of animal sheltering. 1