Board Creates Citizens Panel to Oversee Animal Control Dept.

Concerned by mounting complaints against Los Angeles County’s animal shelters, including reports of missing animals, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday created a new citizens advisory commission to help oversee animal care and control.

The supervisors, responding to pleas by animal activists, agreed to establish a 13-member panel to assist the county Department of Animal Care and Control, which has come under fire for alleged mismanagement.

“I’m not satisfied, frankly, with the management that I see,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, who joined fellow board members Mike Antonovich and Kenneth Hahn in voting for the special commission.

Although the details are still to be determined, the proposal outlined by Antonovich will include 10 citizen representatives appointed by supervisors and three ex-officio members: the chief administrative officer, district attorney and auditor-controller.

Board Chairman Deane Dana voted against the commission proposal but joined his colleagues in expressing concern about the management of the Animal Care and Control Department under its director, Brian H. Berger. The supervisors agreed to meet next week with Berger in a closed-door session to discuss the complaints against him.

Berger, who did not appear before the board Tuesday, said later that he had no objections to the newly created commission. He defended his department, which has been the subject of a series of audits and investigations criticizing the agency’s security, personnel policies and animal control procedure.

Last September, the auditor-controller reported that nearly 200 animals held at two Los Angeles County shelters were missing when the facilities were checked in March and said that animal control staff was uncertain whether they had been miscounted, destroyed or stolen.

The report said that auditors found during one study last March that 145 animals--primarily cats and dogs--could not be accounted for at the Baldwin Park shelter, as well as 39 animals at the Lancaster shelter. That same month, another 15 animals logged in at the two facilities and at a third shelter in Downey could not be accounted for .

Last year, a separate study by the Humane Society of the United States strongly suggested that animals were being stolen from some of the six county shelters, which handle about 95,000 animals a year.

Despite the complaints, Berger said Tuesday that his department has performed well, given limited operating funds, and contended that many of the problems identified in the audits have been corrected, including the reports of missing animals.

“To pretend that what was taken as a snapshot in March is what still happens today is unfair,” said Berger, who denied that his agency has been mismanaged.

Deputy Removed

However, Berger disclosed that he recently removed his top deputy, George Baca, from the job of overseeing animal shelters and transferred him to other duties so that Berger could take over the “day-to-day operations” of his department.

The director refused to blame Baca for his department’s problems and said the switch was more of a transfer than a demotion. But both Baca and Berger have been singled out for criticism, and Baca said the reorganization message was clear.

“I feel that I’ve been made the scapegoat,” said Baca, who has been with the county for nearly 30 years and who retains his post as chief deputy.

In pressing for a citizens commission, animal rights activists, including representatives from Actors and Others for Animals and other organizations, said Tuesday that they still lack confidence in the department and questioned whether any meaningful changes in animal care can be made without citizen involvement.

“The commission is not the solution to the department’s chronic management problems,” said Wendy Aragon, president of the Van Nuys-based Pet Assistance Foundation, “(but) a properly staffed commission is essential if the commission is to help implement quality animal control in our county.”