To Mayor Karen Bass, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, Controller Kenneth Mejia, and the Los Angeles City Council:  

PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE VOLUNTEER PROGRAM OF THE LOS ANGELES ANIMAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT 

Volunteers at the Los Angeles Animal Services Department (LAAS) are an essential part of the shelter services provided by the City.  Volunteers provide tens of thousands of hours of free work to the Department in its six animal shelters, greatly improving the quality of life of the animals in the shelters.  For dogs, volunteers take them for walks, provide training, bring dogs into play groups, assist with adoptions, clean kennels, do laundry, and wash dishes. Volunteers provide similar essential services for cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and other animals in the shelters.  Because of the chronic shortage of regular employees, the animals would receive very little of this care, and many would have to be killed, if it weren’t for the volunteers.  Without the volunteers, it would cost the City millions of dollars more to run the animal shelters.

Unfortunately, LAAS often treats volunteers as adversaries when it should treat them as partners.  LAAS fails to recruit sufficient volunteers and often fails to train the volunteers it does recruit. It provides no effective mechanism to report problems in the shelters.  In fact, volunteers often suffer retaliation when they try to report problems.  Worse, volunteers who speak out and exercise their Constitutional right to free speech to comment on the actions or inaction of LAAS (a governmental agency) are sometimes suspended or terminated.  Some of the most experienced and dedicated volunteers have been suspended, terminated, or pressured into quitting.  These volunteers have, over the years, raised concerns about shelter conditions, treatment of the animals, and/or the killing of animals. 

This problem has been going on for years.  In 2019, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils Budget Advocates (a popularly elected City entity) voted to call for an investigation of the volunteer program, volunteer retention, and termination of shelter volunteers, to be undertaken by an entity outside of LAAS, such as the City Controller’s Office and/or the City Attorney’s Office.  See Budget Advocates Call for Investigation of Animal Services Department Volunteer Program, https://citywatchla.com/index.php/369-budget-advocates/19044-budget-advocates-call-for-investigation-of-animal-services-department-volunteer-program.  

However, because of the pandemic and inattention by the previous City Attorney, Controller, and Mayor, the audit of the volunteer program was not done.  Now that Los Angeles has a new Mayor, a new City Attorney, and a new City Controller, this petition calls again for such an audit to be conducted by one or more of these officials.

Volunteers come to love the dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, and other animals in the shelters.  The volunteers want the animals to be well cared for and adopted by loving families.  The current LAAS administration, instead of respecting the volunteers, often tries to control them by fear and intimidation, especially when volunteers try to point out the shortcomings of the shelters.  This is not the way to run a volunteer program. 

There is also a fiscal reason that volunteers should be well-treated – the City cannot afford to pay enough staff to care for the animals in the shelters – care the volunteers provide for free. 

We request that an investigation/audit be conducted by the Mayor, City Attorney, and/or Controller into the management practices of the Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) volunteer program, including treatment of the volunteers, volunteer recruitment, training and retention, as well as termination or suspension of shelter volunteers. 

Specifically, we request that the investigation/audit include answers to the following questions: 1) What practices are in place to ensure staff and volunteers receive timely and sufficient training in the proper care and treatment of the animals they care for? 2) What avenues of communication exist between staff and volunteers to report problems or air disputes? And if there is a disagreement between staff and volunteer, what procedures are in place to resolve the disagreement? 3) What, if anything, is done to promote a positive “partnership” relationship between staff and volunteers? 4) What protections are in place to protect volunteers from retaliation or wrongful suspension, termination, or other punishments? 5)  Are adequate efforts made to recruit new volunteers and train them to handle the majority of dogs in the shelters?

(All LAAS Volunteers and Employees signing this petition are doing so in their individual capacity and not on behalf of the Animal Services Department.)