January 18, 2016:  Two and a half years ago when Bill de Blasio was campaigning to be NYC's mayor, he promised to create an independent NYC Animal Care & Control following the blueprint laid in a groundbreaking report: "Led Astray: Reforming NYC's Animal Care & Control."

As that report explained, the ACC's core problem is its lack of independence from the City's Department of Health ... a government agency that isn't interested in animal welfare or animal health. 

The solution?  Create a truly independent charity modeled on the Central Park Conservancy.  

Mr. de Blasio also promised to create long-missing animal shelters for the Bronx and Queens, something the Health Department has refused to do for over 20 years.

Despite those 2 promises, the ACC remains very much under the Health Department's thumb. And additional shelters are a distant dream.

ACC animals continue to be jammed into old buildings that were never meant to be shelters.  Almost 100% of the animals get sick, some "very, very sick," as the ACC Executive Director once admitted.  And the Health Department's promised improvements to the existing buildings are (at best) "years away."

Under Mayor de Blasio's watch, ACC diseases have become more deadly, wreaking havoc not only on the shelter animals, but also on the rescue groups that pull those sick animals.  As long as an animal's heart is still beating (even if barely so) when it's transferred to a rescuer, the ACC marks it off as a "life saved."  That's how the ACC falsely inflates its claimed "Live Release Rate."

Neglecting its animals and then looking to rescue groups to clean up the mess is no way to run a shelter system.

All Mayor de Blasio has to do is direct Health Commissioner Mary Travis Bassett (who serves at his pleasure) to unshackle the ACC ...  to remove  her Department's power over the ACC Board and Executives.  In turn all the apologists and puppets for the Health Department can be replaced by skilled individuals committed to animal welfare.

The only opposition Mayor de Blasio will face will come from those Health Department career bureaucrats who've been paid to ignore NYC's homeless animals. 

                                              Free the ACC

Animal advocates proved instrumental to Mr. de Blasio in the 2013 election.  They won't be so trusting come 2017 if campaign promises aren't kept.

New Yorkers, tell Mayor de Blasio to make good on his campaign promises to reform the ACC and to create shelters in the Bronx and Queens.  Sign and send the petition letter below.