The war between two factions on the City Council over the controversial prospects of hiring an animal control officer and new animal shelter arrangements is likely to reach new, uncomfortable depths of ugliness at Monday night’s 7 o’clock meeting.
Here is why:
An unusual rupture has broken out into the open between staffers at City Hall and the tactics of an ideologically sympathetic subcommittee of the City Council — and that is only the tip of the swelling nastiness.
At culvercity.org/agendas, staffers have issued a rare twin-barreled criticism of the two-member Council subcommittee on animal control, Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and Councilman Christopher Armenta. In rarely employed pointed language, staffers faulted Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta for, in their opinion, needlessly rushing heavily unvetted separate updates on two vague aspects of the program back to the full Council for approval. Both concern animal shelters, and if the subcommittee gets its way, by next year Culver City will have formal arrangements with three shelters in widely spaced locations, miles apart.
How Many Shelters Are Sufficient?
One item calls for the Council to approve a new agreement with a privately operated shelter in Hawthorne that offers fewer services and would cost the city four times as much in annual fees as the present contract with the County shelter in Carson.
The subcommittee indicated that both shelters, with competing services, should be retained by the city.
The second item may be raising even more hackles. It urges the city to develop a temporary animal shelter in Culver City Park, a site presumably where collected animals would be kept until an undesignated party, at an undetermined time would remove some or all of the animals — which may or may not have been under supervision — to Carson or Hawthorne or both destinations.
This afternoon, the dispute over reviewing and embracing the recommendations at this early stage widened to include City Manager Jerry Fulwood. This is a fascinating development because now the fight pits the Vice Mayor directly against his nemesis, the soon-to-retire chief executive.
Mr. Fulwood announced today that he will ask the City Council to delay action on the latter item because either no research or too little has been conducted. With plenty of time to still think over his position before the starting bell sounds on Monday, Mr. Fulwood may yet urge the Council to put the first item on hold, too, for the same reason, that it is shapeless, vague and expensive.
A possibly record-breaking crowd is expected in Council Chambers to not only witness but vigorously participate in a cinch foodfight. This volatile subject always stimulates extraordinary community interest. And if that isn’t enough of a magnet, pro-hometown animal control activists have organized a flyer campaign, urging partisans to descend on City Hall, guaranteeing a noisy and rambunctious evening.
The never-ending debate over whether Culver City “needs” to localize animal control and its dozens of dangling accoutrements has periodically riled this community for the last five years without ever coming close to reaching a successful denouement.
Nearly five months ago, a strongly divided Council — with mostly new members — controversially approved of hiring an animal control officer as the centerpiece of a two-year pilot program suggested by first-year Councilman Mehaul O’Leary.
Sharp Disapproval Is Voiced
Regarding today’s criticism of the animal control subcommittee, City Hall staffers reflexively accept that they are doomed to daily lives of anonymity. “Staffers” normally refers to a band of hard-working career persons who are faceless to the public. Professionally, at least, they are the ultimate centrists, never attracting attention to themselves for leaning too far right or left but rather serving as a calming voice of moderation on the most disputed subjects.
And so the criticism suggests that they believe Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta have inadvisedly assumed extreme positions.
In the staff report on whether to tack on the private shelter in Hawthorne to the existing agreement with the County facility in Carson, a central part of the reason for the staff’s criticism was because staffers were shut out of at least some meetings that apparently included activist Deborah Weinrauch along with Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta.
Here is how the City Hall staff reacted, in part:
“The subcommittee has taken an active role in working directly with the (Hawthorne shelter), local veterinarians and other stakeholders, and has not involved staff in a number of these interactions. Therefore, the information provided herein by staff may not reflect information shared during the meetings between parties and the subcommittee.
“Staff would have preferred to have participated in all meetings so that the subcommittee and the full City Council would have the benefit of staff’s input. Unfortunately, the lack of participation and the desire of the subcommittee to bring the item to the City Council at this time has negatively impacted staff’s ability to provide the City Council with a more complete picture. Also, the piece-by-piece approach applied to this important and complex new program has also negatively impacted staff’s ability to provide a complete and thorough analysis of the complete program.”
And then came the most stinging criticism that may form the heart of the multi-layered resistance that Mayor Scott Malsin and Councilman Andy Weissman will mount:
“This lack of information will, most likely, result in unanticipated costs, which, in turn, will impact the overall financial standing of the city at the conclusion of the fiscal year 2008/2009.”