Westport MA Board of Selectmen,
Board of Selectmen“Thank you for contacting us regarding the ongoing animal rescue operations
here in the Town of Westport. As of Saturday, August 6, all of the animals in question had been moved to a temporary rescue farm constructed by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
This location is being rented by the Town, with the assistance of ASPCA, and the animals are all receiving excellent care and shelter as potential criminal and civil charges are sorted out by the Attorney General's office
in conjunction with the Westport Police Department.
Now that the urgency of the immediate situation has been addressed, we will be conducting an in-depth investigation into the root cause(s) of this tragedy in order to determine what actions we need to take to prevent
re-occurrence.
More detailed statements issued by the Board of Selectmen are below for your reference.
Again, thank you for expressing your concerns and please feel free to contact this office if your questions have not been fully addressed.
Westport Board of Selectmen
8-8-16 BOS Press Statement
Thank you for your patience, we just finished an executive session on topics related to the animal rescue operation on American Legion Highway. We would like to report on several items associated with this operation.
This past week the Board executed a license agreement in order to rent several acres of pasture from a local land owner. This agreement is similar to a short term lease for land upon which the ASPCA has, in very short order, created a rescue farm with living conditions far superior to those found at the American Legions site. At this time, all of the remaining animals have been moved to the rescue farm where they will remain until the State Attorney General’s office in conjunction with our Police Department can sort out the criminal and civil actions that will be taken against owners of the neglected animals.
Now that the urgency of the immediate situation has been addressed, the Board will turn its attention to investigating the full scope of this problem including what actions or inactions on our part have, in any way, contributed to the situation and why our response to a similar occurrence six years ago was not sufficient to prevent a repeat performance.
The Board attended a meeting convened by Senator Michael Roderigues and Representative Paul Schmid at the State House last week with Mass Department Agricultural Resources and Department of Environmental Protection officials to begin this review. We will be working closely with these and other State authorities, our own Police Department, Animal Control Officer, Agricultural Commission, Assessors Office, and Board of Health as well as officials from communities with similar agricultural activity in order to determine what changes we need to make in order to successfully and comprehensively address this problem.
At tonight’s executive session we have taken a number of additional actions.
First, we have charged our Town Administrator with confirming that there are no other like sites in the Town of Westport that might need immediate attention. As such he will be consulting with the Police Department, Agricultural Commission, Animal Control Officer, Department of Agricultural Resources, the Assessor’s and the BOH.
Second, our Board has ordered the BOH to produce any all documents and information related to the subject property and any other property with like tenant animal keeping practices.
Third, we have authorized the Town Administrator to conduct an investigation into possible involvement of Town Employees that may have contributed to the situation at 465 AL Highway and to place any said Employee(s) on administrative leave with pay pending the completion of this investigation.
We would like to note that all of these actions have been initiated with unanimous votes of this Board.
In summary, this board has every intention of thoughtfully, comprehensively and deliberately addressing all aspects of this completely unacceptable situation.
7/25/16 BOS Statement: Incident at 465 American Legion Highway in Westport (assists updated 8-6-16)
The Board of Selectman just conducted an executive session that was entirely devoted to the ongoing animal rescue effort being conducted here in Westport. We received a briefing on the status of this operation and have undertaken a number of actions, some of which we are prepared to discuss at this time. We will begin tonight with a statement on this subject ahead of our regularly scheduled meeting.
Let me start by again thanking all those individuals and agencies that have pitched in to help us sort out this situation;
First we would like to express our appreciation to Westport Police Department and in Particular, Lt Holden, Sergeants Majewski and Cestodio as well as ACO Donna Lambert for their hard work in initiating, conducting and coordinating our investigation into this tragedy.
Thanks to the Westport Highway Department who has been trucking water daily to two sites
The Board would also like to express our appreciation for assistance from the following entities;
the Cities of Fall River and New Bedford
the town of Dartmouth
The State of Rhode Island
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
Dr. Lorraine O’Connor, the State’s Chief Veterinarian and her team
the Massachusetts Environmental Police
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The Animal Rescue League of Boston
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
the US Department of Agriculture
we would also like to mention that many individuals have come from all New England as well as places as far away as Florida, Indiana and Wisconsin to volunteer their time and help us out with the animals.
we would like to single out a small group of folks from Attleboro lead by a lady named Jodi Greenleaf who have single handedly rounded up almost 5000 lbs of animal food and supplies bringing it down to Westport one car load at a time and also volunteering on site.
These organizations have helped us provide medical care, food, shelter and transportation for the animals, and in general, the expertise and manpower that we do not have to mobilize an operation of this scale in such short order.
As is the case with all residents of Westport, we at the BOS are shocked and dismayed at the revelation of neglected and mistreated animals on rented properties located on American Legion Highway. Unfortunately this is not the first time this has occurred. In fact it is the second time neglect has been documented on this same site within 6 years. All of the members of our Board have visited and toured the site and have a good working knowledge of the past and present conditions. We are not going to try to catalogue the particular abuses here as others have already done so.
You all know that we are a “Right to Farm” community and as such we are very friendly to Farmers in particular and agricultural activities in general. However, let me read one important passage from our Farming By-Law;
“The provisions of this By-Law shall not apply whenever an impact results from willful negligence or reckless misconduct in the operation of any such agricultural or farming operations….”
So let’s be clear that that Right to Farm is not a right to neglect or mistreat animals, and there is nothing wrong with our Right to Farm bylaw.
Let me also be clear, that these revelations are not a reflection on the overwhelming majority of excellent farmers here in Westport who are using industry best practices and producing top shelf products. This situation appears, at this point, to be related to rented properties only.
So, if you are a land owner who rents property to others for agricultural purposes, you are responsible for what happens on your property. Be certain that any animals present are properly permitted and known to the Board of Health and properly cared for.
If you are a tenant using someone else’s land, make sure you have the necessary permits and animal tags and take care of your animals. The Town of Westport will do everything in its power to insure the proper treatment of all animals and that includes pressing criminal charges against those who do not comply with the law. And as demonstrated by state intervention last week, you can lose control of your animals and possibly lose possession as well.
We and the organizations previously mentioned are presently focused on rectifying the conditions for what remains of the more than 1000 animals that were present on the property last week. It should be noted that some of these tenants were not abusing their animals and we are in the process of sorting this out and allowing those individuals the opportunity to reclaim and remove them. This may take another week or more.
The Board of Selectmen obviously needs to look into why this happened in the first place and more specifically why we have a repeat occurrence. We will be working closely with the Board of Health, the Agricultural Commission and appropriate State agencies to address these issues to insure that proper standards of care are observed in the future.
We will have more to report on this as the situation develops and we would just like to remind everyone that this is an active and open criminal investigation and as such we are limited in what we can rightfully address in the interim.
Thank you,
Westport Board of Selectmen”
