Over the past few weeks anonymous volunteers at Multnomah Animal Services (MCAS) have launched a number of postings on Craigslist attacking MCAS critics. Supported by a gang who immediately “flag” any responses, the gist of these postings is that critics must be silenced because, no matter how well documented, criticisms about the agency’s policies and practices make the agency’s fundraising and propaganda tasks more difficult to perform, decrease adoptions, and waste taxpayers’ money in challenges to MCAS’ enforcement practices. MCAS has done nothing to stop these attacks, almost certainly because they are inspired by its director, Jackie Rose, and its accommodating legal counsel, Assistant County Counsel David Blankfeld. At the heart of the most recent attacks is the Rose/Blankfeld claim that appeals from cases ordering “surrender” of animals to MCAS’s jurisdiction are “frivolous,” impose unnecessary costs on MCAS, and result in prolonged confinement of the dogs under the shelter’s harsh conditions. Rose and Blankfeld clearly forget that they are always free – even while appeals proceed – to allow the dogs’ releases under conditions that even they must acknowledge fully protect the public or, at the very least, establish humane conditions during forced incarceration. There is no doubt about the shelter’s conditions. They are very harsh. Dogs held pending appeal are caged alone and never allowed exercise, enrichment, or company despite agency claims. Tiger, among earlier cases (attached below) was held at MCAS from December 02, 2013 until he was killed on October 16, 2015 for a terminal illness. He never lived with his family again. To MCAS, even minimal comforts would be wasted on dogs that MCAS intends to kill. And, of course, the costs of appeal are far too substantial to be mounted for “frivolous” cases. Each appeal from a hearing officer’s decision costs at least $750 even if the lawyer charges nothing. Each appeal is certified by an attorney to be a “good faith argument” for challenge to the law Blankfeld has persuaded his clients and the agency’s hand-picked hearing officers to apply. Two of these cases are now awaiting decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals. Each appeal challenges the MCAS/Blankfeld position that owners may be fined and their dogs seized even when the person charged with “unlawful” conduct has done nothing that allowed the dog’s misbehavior. In neither appeal has Blankfeld explained how the MCAS position can be squared with the express language of the county code making “unlawful” only “human conduct” that somehow “permitted” the incident to occur. The Court’s decisions could be issued any day. No one can predict how the Court will rule. But, however the Court rules, no one can claim that the challenges to MCAS’s interpretation of the law is “frivolous.” Nor, we believe, may owners’ efforts to obtain a fair process and save their dogs’ lives be labeled a waste of county resources. The MCAS process is not fair. The hearings officer list has been narrowed to only three volunteer attorneys, each of whom has proven her/himself wholly biased in the agency’s favor. MCAS adamantly refuses to consider any mediated solution that save lives and protects the public. It refuses to consider implementing a “diversion program” similar to that used in traffic citations, a program which in at least one other state has resulted in an 80-90% reduction in repeat offences. Blankfeld and MCAS are dedicated to a “scorched earth” approach in which the winner takes all, with the animals’ lives and welfare serving as mere chits. MCAS has proven itself to be fully capable of lying in its efforts to win convictions. In one case in which the agency attempted to deny the basic right to a hearing, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Silver rejected MCAS’s witness’s efforts to rewrite reports during her testimony, stating that the reports were either the most poorly written he had seen in his years on the bench or were simply dishonest. MCAS’s aggressive and inhumane enforcement practices are engrained in the county’s government culture and, without any semblance of fairness, cost county taxpayers thousands of dollars while achieving nothing that good fencing and education can achieve at far lower cost and without cruelty. The recent attacks on those who seek only to make the public aware and inject transparency into those cruel practices are but one part of the effort to keep the public ignorant. https://www.scribd.com/document/364441518/2015-MCAS-Behind-Closed-Doors-the-Shocking-Mistreatment-of-Dogs-on-Security?secret_password=3KLzX4eH6i92sTsbBZ0L