Dear Supervisor Mandelman:

It is with much sadness that l feel compelled to write to you.

As someone who started my journey with animal welfare in 1993, the year a “trap-neuter-return” policy for feral cats was implemented in San Francisco, I have always considered this city to be in the forefront of animal care and compassion.

Over the years I have volunteered at both ACC and the SPCA and fostered kittens, especially undersocialized ones. I was a founding member of the Orange Card Group, which specialized in working with undersocialized kittens and shy cats at ACC. Over the years we saved countless kittens and helped them to get off the streets and adopted. I consider this to be the most humane way of saving cats in the city.

In the last few years I have noticed a change in ACC's policy towards the care of animals and towards the public who bring them to the shelter for whatever reasons. It is supposed to be an open-door policy, but as Bill Hamilton has pointed out, this is no longer the case. I believe it was implemented with no input from anyone except the current heads of ACC’s departments.

The new shelter was built at an incredibly high price and now sits with many empty rooms, and the animals are pushed through the system with no concern for their ultimate outcome. Many small kittens are now put back outside. We used to find homes for them. Bill has given you a great deal of pertinent information, and I strongly back him up.

Yours sincerely,

Maggie McCain