Community expresses concerns at latest Coachella Valley Animal Campus Commission meeting

The fight to make riverside county a "No-kill county" at it's animal shelters continued yesterday. The Coachella Valley Animal Commission met to hear residents concerns and address some of the issues facing county animal services. There was also a few surprises at yesterdays meeting including a study that analyzed the mindset of pet owners throughout the valley. Mary Strong has been attending these meetings for more than 6 months now. They are packed with residents and animal advocates asking the county to fix the high kill rate at it's shelters. Most of the people who attended the meeting asked the county to cancel the $2.5 million contract with shelter consultant Kristin Hassen. Hassen was at the meeting and denies allegations that she practices leaving animals on the street as part of reducing the number of animals coming into the shelter and has agreed to speak with Mary next week. County CEO Jeff Van Waganen didn't show up to the meeting and neither did Indio's commissioner. Supervisor V. Manel Perez was there and agreed to a third party audit of shelter data, which has been proven inaccurate. Many say there needs to be a "forensic audit" to really understand why the data is off. We also learned about the budget for the Coachella Valley Animal Campus. We know the county wide budget is roughly $34 million, but our local shelter in Thousand Palms has never been broken out, we found out that budget is now $9.8 million. There was a study presented from HARC which stands for "Health assessment and research for communities." This was paid for by local rescue groups and the county to understand the mindset of pet owners in our community. What was alarming was that 12% of pet owners don't have their animals spayed and neutered and the majority of them felt it was because they thought their animal would be happier if they weren't altered. Many people in the HARC study also expressed concerns that there is not enough low-cost spay and neuter options in the valley which is something the commission says they are working on changing. The next animal commission meeting is scheduled for Feb. 6th when the CEO of Loving All Animals plans to make some new policy proposals that will hopefully help bring us closer to a no kill county.