We started OC Shelter Partners because helping people makes us feel good.  Helping animals makes us feel good.   We felt that working with and advocating for positive change at OC Animal Care was a way we could do both.   We built great relationships with the staff at OCAC, and we consider them our friends. 

In that capacity, we feel that it is crucial to fight for not only the animals that are suffering and being killed at OC Animal Care but for the kennel staff and the customer service staff who are being mistreated.  

In this post, you are going to see pictures of some is what is happening behind closed doors at OCAC.  It is not the staff's fault.  This now falls squarely on the Admin at OCAC, OCCR, and your City Managers who continue to ignore their constituents.  

This post is one in a series of posts that will show what is happening at OCAC behind closed doors, and then we will show you how much money OCAC and the cities are saving by staying closed.   

These are pictures of 2 dog kennels and 2 cat kennels.  These are not isolated incidences.   The administration at OCAC likes to save money, so they have 1-2 kennel attendants on duty at a time, for an entire day.  Could you clean 200 dog kennels in a day, and feed and "enrich"  daily?   No, you couldn't.  So the dogs step in their own poop on a regular basis, and then they jump. And jump. And smear poop all over their cage walls.   The dogs look for a face to come play with them.  They look for a voice to come soothe their fears.  They look for someone to clean their cage and wipe their feet...but no one is coming.   The shelter is closed. 

There are two pictures from the kitty building.  One is of a cage that has diarrhea smeared all over the bars and the lock.  Do you think that kitten is receiving medical care?   No, I don't.  The other is of a crate that they were keeping kittens in.  Those litter boxes are full.  That does not happen in an hour.  Or 4 hours.   Those boxes have not been cleaned in many, many hours.  Are they being fed?   Do they have water?   We don't know, and we can't go in to see.   Do we trust shelter Administration to tell us the truth?   No we don't. 
These pictures are indicative of what is happening at the shelter.  The lack of care.  Does this make you mad?  

Now let me tell you why this is even more disgusting than the conditions these babies are being made to live in.  
                                            MONEY
The shelter is being celebrated by some of YOUR city managers because they are saving millions of dollars by not opening.  I have the Fiscal 2021 budget.  
I know that OC and the cities saved millions of dollars being closed.  Over a million dollars was saved on salaries, even though the current Director makes 281,000.00 a year.   That is 20,000.00 a week they could spend on kennel attendants that they saved by not caring for the pets. 

They will say they are short-staffed, but there is NO job posting for any kennel attendants.   There has not been a job posting or any recruiting at all for kennel attendants.  They are not trying to hire staff to improve conditions.  They are happy with the way things are.  

  On a  budget of some 14,183,406 for City Shelter Services 3.5 million dollars was saved, UNSPENT, on the animals. 

This means that when the Cities were planning their budgets, the powers that be agreed that the Cities would spend 14,183,406.00 dollars to house, care for and feed our homeless OC pets for the year of 2021.  But County and shelter administration figured out that they could lock up their doors, kick out all the programs, and provide very little care to save tons of money.  There was nobody watching who wasn't terrified of losing their job.   While they save money, animals are being euthanized because they are not being cared for and they can't be seen. 

Just think what those cages would look with an additional 3 million spent.  That is 250,000.00 a month to ENRICH those pets' lives while they are locked up.

We are going to be sharing more on the budget all week, because we know now this is why these folks below don't care.   They are all being celebrated for a job well done.   We have emails and we have proof.  

It is crucial that they open their doors and let people back in.   Things are not ok at OCAC.   

What do we want?   We want the shelter to open.   We want ALL the progressive programs restored at OCAC.  TNR.  True enrichment programs for the pets. Intervention. Rescue Partnerships.  A healthy volunteer program that brings in new volunteers.    We want a progressive management team who cares about their staff and the animals all the way down from OCCR to OCAC.  

Please email these City Managers and the Manager of OC, Mr. Frank Kim.   Please be respectful, and if you don't know what to write, copy this post.   Please share far and wide.  We are getting traction now.  

adm@cypressca.org (Watch for his emails this week praising OCAC and completely disregarding our pleas for help)  
greg.garcia@anaheim.net
Christa.Johnson@cityoffullerton.com
sandie.frakes@surfcity-hb.org
drose@lakeforestca.gov
darrula@placentia.org
bsiegel@sanjuancapistrano.org
billga@ci.brea.ca.us
fvproud@fountainvalley.org
cminfo@cityoforange.org
kridge@santa-ana.org
Mwest@tustinca.org
maalders@yorbalindaca.gov
sfranks@villapark.org
cityattorneysoffice@anaheim.net

Frank.Kim@ocgov.com- Manager of Orange County.c by coo