and i think that the thing that needs to happen is if the fsba for the rescue and the project non-profit to step up. and for many reasons, they are much cheaper, when acc was founed it saved money, but the reason for two adoption agencies on the same street was that it was thought that they did not get salaried and you would not be able to recruit good staff without doing adoptions. this is now slipped. with high pensions and high salaries, it is cheaper and more efficient to do the things through the non-profit and more competitive and they don't have the moral hazard of deciding what compassionate programs. and what should not. and they can see it as a regional problem, and they can take animals from out of county. and animal care and control

does this. against its mandate and so, please, reduce the budget, with the reduction in the sterile cat and dog populations. >> thank you next speaker. >> well, my name is kelley, and i am a long time volunteer at animal care and control and i greatly appreciate all of the work that it does to help the animals and the people of this city. i think that it is important that it remains a city-run organization, with the clear transparency and remains open to all animals and it does not take animals from out of county despite what was previously said. and it focuses on san francisco and i think that is very important. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi, my name is marcy saw and

i am a director of save a bunny rescue and i live with a two cats and a lab pit mix and i discovered acc in 199 when i wanted to adopt a rabbit and i was told that they doebt have any and i had to go to san franciscan mal care and control and i didn't want to go to a place where they killed animals and that is what i found out that no kill means and no kill often does not include the small animals. i also learned that san franciscan mal care and control was the only animal place in the entire city of san francisco that worked with small animals and did any sort of assistance for them. pets unlimited and spca both have wonderful resources and beautiful buildings, but they only work with cats and dogs, so the over 120, to 150 rabbits each year that come into san francisco either go through the animal care and control or go

through the non-profit and volunteer based organization and we get no spay help at any of those hospitals and we are not able to house anybody there and we were offered a room at spca which was kind but we were told that we would need to clean the room ourselves because the rabbits are not their mission and they don't have staff to dedicate to that. so i really from my heart, want to ask you to please, fund san franciscan mal care and control, they are one of the most dedicated, authentic, and genuine animal lovers that i know. >> thank you very much. >> we do have a rule at the board of supervisors about no applause or booing, if people approve you can do a thumbs up or down and wave our hands. and before we get to the next speaker, i have one additional card, to jennifer scarlott.

>> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is angela pedia and i have lived in district eight with my wife amy who is a fourth generation san franciscan and we are passionate about this city and passionate about helping this city's homeless animals. i am the founder of northern california family dog rescue and i am also a former commissioner of animal control and welfare. and family dog rescue is an all breed volunteer non-profit organization that saves over 500 dogs a year. this year we are on track to save over 700 dogs. our mission is to help the dogs of san francisco. to that end, and to ease the burden on the acc we take as many homeless dogs and owners dogs as are offered to us by san francisco residents. we have a capacity to help the shelter dogs and acc, however, i need to are very honest with

you as much as i respect and spraoesht the work that acc does they are not easy work it as a qualified rescue group. they do not have an efficient effective way of offering at risk dogs to qualified rescue groups for rescue and even the imp overished shelters in places like merced and lake county and around the state have a better informed system of offering dogs at risk to qualified rescue groups and getting those dogs out of the shelter. i want to request that the supervisors increase the budget of acc and that you demand the leveraging of the technology resources and other probono support to help them. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker? >> my name is kathleen mcgar and i did not intend to say

anything today so i have nothing prepared, so i am speaking as a private citizen. and although i will say that i am an acc volunteer. currently i transport wild life. and mostly birds, and baby raccoons once. and to the wild care rehabilitation center. and when i started with them i worked with the small animals and i moved to cats and so i am aware of how they function, and what they have to do, what their needs are, and i do think that it is important that they get more funding, and i also think that they can do more with their the way that they... i apologize i was not prepared to speak. i think that they can do more in-house determining how they can increase adoptions, i don't think that it is a good idea at all to have the sbca which imports animals from out of

county, which i know for a fact, has denied many animals there, based on behavior issues that went on to be rehab taited that went on to be adopted and retained in homes they just perhaps were older and black, dogs, that needed their teeth cleaned or whatever. and i think that animal care and control can actually increase revenue. by adopting out their own animals, but that requires in-house, sort of a rethinking of management structures, etc.. thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> next speaker? >> and supervisor, weiner before the next speaker, i just wanted to thank deputy chief john loftus from the san francisco department for being here as a resource as well. thank you. >> i am sorry, chief i did not realize that you were here, did you want to say something on behalf of the department.

>> on behalf of the police department, obviously, we are very supportive of the animal care and control and we work closely with them and generally, along, the lines of vicious and dangerous dogs. and they have been a tremendous resource for us and we hope to continue to relationship in the future. >> okay. thank you very much and again my apologies to you. >> next speaker? >> hi, my name is andria brooks and i am speaking in support of acc work and in the supported of an increased budget for the agency. i am a castro residents and i was the director of the advocacy for eight years and i served two terms, and on the commission of animal control and welfare and i currently direct the seniors for seniors program for the senior dog rescue. and i think that in some of my past, interactions with acc, i

saw, the side of the agency that not many people get to witness along the lines of the work that they do and the health and human services and a lot of the clients that i used to case manage were very at risk, they were struggling to keep the animal and some of them would end up at animal care and control and i never worked with acc before this job, but what i found from the staff there is that they would take the time and work with myself and some of the other social workers of these individuals and really help to put together a comprehensive action plan to help the people keep their animals as long as it could be done in a safe manner. >> and time and again, with a little bit of effort, people were able to keep their animal and keep their animals in their homes with them, it was really eye opening to me of how the staff would go above and beyond and help in ways that i really had no idea that they were helping with, and so i just wanted to mention that, and

hopefully their budget gets increased thanks. >> thank you. next speaker? >> >> hello, my name is elizabeth young and i started as a volunteer at san francisco acc. and in 2007. and i was inspired by the challenges of the work that they face and all that they do to create the pigeon and the dog rescue and as a result we have saved the lives and we have impacted many more, and i want to call out the importance of sfacc's role in this city there, and they are the only shelter that helps all the birds and rabbits and rodents and reptiles. they are the only ones and it is interesting to see that number on the chart that says

wild. which includes the wild life and the others and it is higher than the number of dogs and cats and yet throughout the animal welfare community, the needs of the others are barely addressed and it is something that only in this city, sfacc and the rescues that they have inspired and partnered with, address. and so i want to call that out, and say, thank you, for doing this now, and i think that this is fantastic and i am thrilled to be here and to hear, the support, that the sfacc has. and they deserve it, and they need it. and please, keep in mind, all of the animals, that they have to serve, and in the open door, shelter, thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> next speaker? >> hello, my name is richard pastor and i am here to speak for the shelter cats particularly, and to be very specific here. and my trade is cat behavior at

the san francisco spca between 1994 and 96 and 99. and i have continued in the field in cat behavior and cat welfare at oakland animal services and in the east bay and currently with the animal shelter and i want to speak about what is killing the shelter cats and what i call the cage reactivity and when you get a animal in a gage, where it cannot express, the fight or flight, and actually expresses fight and becomes an aggressive animal and many of these cats in these public shelters, are mislabeled as ferrills and they are hising and they are spitting and my experience is that is not so. and there is a percentage of cats that just behave badly, when you get them out of the cage it changes and they become pets, ways to remedy that, the big thing is get them out of the cages, that will mean, building a new shelter, which i say, if you got the funds to do

it. but, the adoption pack between the spca it works, when i was there in the late 90s. and i used to go over there in and pick the animals and we would confront the cats that were hising and striking at us, and we gave them a chance and i want to disagree with the spokesperson from the sbca, and it actually is less stressful, because are getting them out of the cage into a walk in ken eland it is lessening it. how you could budgetary and how you could fix this, with the budget, and that you can work with, is beef up the behavior department at acc, and fix the adoption pack with the spca, and fostering and getting them out and getting them out of the cages. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> good morning, my name is

evan and i am a volunteer with a bunch of different animal agencies in the city. i am not actually an acc volunteer, i am a supporter, and i just wanted to speak with about what a few others have mentioned which is their creativity was little, and you may or may not know that they have started an adoption agency, and the little adoption site at pet food express the pet food store and out of that little shelter they had there they have adopted out over 400 cats and over 30 bunnies and i think that was a great idea and it is very successful and the people love going there and i love going there. and so, i think that they are good at doing the out reach and they are great with what they have got and so, i really encourage you to give them more funding but i think that they can do some really wonderful things and creative things and smart things and animal good

things. there was mentioned here on this note that the animal adoption pack between sfaca and sfpca is supposed to be working and it is not working well any more and in that is imports a majority of cats and dogs from outside of san francisco and declines the number that are adoptable from acc and this is well known in the animal community. they are offering to take on acc's adoption roles because they are not in nigh opinion not doing a very good job with that right now. just like i said, please consider to keep acc a city agency and please fund it. thank you. >> thanks, next speaker? >> hi, my name is jamie ray and

i am the founder and the director, of san francisco wild life rehabilitation program. and i would like to just talk a little bit about our program and also about the animal care and control. and the care of wild life does require a department of fish and game license, there is no facility at, animal care and control to provide the care for injured and orphaned wild life, and that means, that we have nothing in the city where the marin county has wild care and the human society and this is one of the few counties in the entire bay area that does not have a facility for the care of these animals, i founded this program in 2001 because the mammals were being euthanized when the wild care had the contract for the birds they did not accept the mammals it now has the contract to take care of the birds but nothing has been provided by the mammals i

founded a foster care program and we do this care and it requires high degree of skill, knowledge and professioncy to do this care, it is not like snapping on a leash, it is to handle all of the different species of animals of wild animals of different ages and medical conditions. and it requires a lot of training to get volunteers involved with this and we would like the animal care and control budget to be increased. we know how dire it is and where they occasionally have to buy medications. and they are staff we work closely with their staff and animal and control officers are phenomenal, and they go beyond and do incredible rescues. and the people say that there is a tremendous amount of wild life and the co-existence issues that people call animal care and control, they want help on the phone how do i co-exist with these animals this is undertaking.

>> thank you. >> very much. >> hi my name is jennifer scarlet iment the president of the sfpa and i am here to reiterate that we are in support of it doing the core function of law enforcement and safety of abuse and neglect and that was the intent behind the split 25 years ago in which we undertook the no kill community and we invested in the high volume and, which is the corner stone of lowering the intake, several years ago we started to look at the number of pits bulls and we increased over 40 percent and over all of which are behavior cases we have invested in pit bull programs to prevent surrender and our vaccine clinic and programs for

those areas that is not have access to fraoet services or any services. we have also started the pit bull initiative. we are responsive to the needs of the city and we are committed and it is our priority that the animals in san francisco. and also, our offer is simple and we can do more to help. i heard it that we need more help with smalls. and so we remodeling the facility in order to take on smalls and give that community more support. and or offer to you is simple. if acc needs additional help, we can help, if you would like us to shelter, we will shelter. >> thank you. next speaker. >> officer? >> thank you so much for this hearing today on this matter. it is i am officer john denny with the san francisco police and i am the hearing officer in

the vicious and dog court in san francisco and we have about 120 hearings for vicious dogs, and handle close to 800 and reports of dog bites a year. and i do that all from a work space out at the generousness of director cats of animal care and control. and one thing that i just, they are slammed i have gone out in the vans with, and i would ask an animal care and control officer i need to go and check on this dog could i hitch a ride with you, we may have to inpound it and by the time that i get back, i have a puppy and kittens and chasing the pit bulls to give them a hand and one thing that they don't take about what they do is one person chasing a pit bull or i should not pick on them, i am a fan, but they do seem to get into a lot of trouble. the chasing a dog, one person is they can't get it, so they will have to request another

animal care and control officer, to help, on the freeway or something like that. so then you are down to just one officer covering the rest of the city. one thing that i wanted to bring up is my decisions of the hearing officer deeply effect animal care and control. we had a dog attack a police horse and i made a decision and the decision angered a lot of people and the animal care and control suffered the sequences for it. i know that it has affected the fund-raising and the issue was that my decision, by keeping the dog impounded at animal care and control and ordering the destruction of that dog, tied the animal care and control up for in knots for weeks if not months, and the amazing work, thinking outside of the box come to a solution to this and which eventually,

has been resolved with the dog not having to be destroyed, but, they have risen to the occasion and all of the support that i would like to give is what i would like to offer. >> next speaker? >> >> cats suffer at these shelter and they are just quiet about it and we do not have the lowest kill rate in the united states. we just do not. we do not want the bully to take over any of the programs. and at one point, they paid for the salary of the dog, or the behavior person and that is great. we can use the financial

support but we do not want them taking over the programs. they killed the cat without contacting the care taker and they will not talk to us about it i spent an hour and a half with rebecca about this and issues in san francisco and you will never get that from the san francisco sbca and they talk a good talk and they do not walk a good walk.

>> everybody loves the concert in the park i hate them because they really are detrimental to the wild life in the park, no one thinks about that. and we had to fight a few years ago just to get in the field. and with these big, huge, enclosures that come out and we can't get to feeding the cats and the wild life suffer like crazy. >> next speaker. ♪ >> ♪

>> next speaker. >> thank you. >> quite don't know how to follow that. >> my name is kelley, and i am the wild life solutions manager and advocacy programs at wild care. and i just wanted to say that we are wildly in support of funding this municipal open admission shelter and some of the things that we would like to see the funding for are the human investigations and the training for the staff on how

to deal with the conflicts with the urban wild life. and that is it. thank you. >> we support it. >> thank you very much. >> is there any additional public comment? mr. chairman, could we close the public comment? >> yes, public comment is closed. >> great, i want to thank everyone who came out today with the administrator, and animal care and control, and the commission, and the members of the public, and i know that there are a lot of people who are very passionate about this agency and about, animal welfare in the city in general and i look forward to continuing conversations about how to make share that animal care and control is adequately budgeted and staffed. so, mr. chairman if there are no comments from other supervisors, what i would like to do is to move to continue this to the call of the chair and then to the clerk, and to request that this item be transferred to the budget committee so that we can reschedule it during the budget schedule at the appropriate time. >> so that as a vice chair of the budget committee i

appreciate that and i think that a lot of good budget issues have been raised and i was mentioning so supervisor tang that i want to work with you and supervisor wean tore make sure that there is adequate support for the acc office, and a lot of the issues that were brought up that we continue the dialogue and i was going to ask if supervisor tang or you want to make the comments? >> thank you, supervisor mar and supervisor weiner. and i think that it was very, eye opening to hear, the presentation from our city department about just really how severely under funded we are for the department and while i do appreciate the comments from the folks from the sbca who offered their support, i think that today the focus of the hearing is not about how do we strip out some of the functions of our department it is really about how do we adequately fund it so that we can provide the services that they do which is licensing, and you know, dealing with lost pets and helping, you know, animals that need protection and responding

to road kill, and dealing with animal behavioral issues and all of those things, i think that they really do belong in the municipal realm and i look forward to the conversations and the capitol needs and funding for more adequate facilities and so thank you, supervisor weiner again for this hearing. >> and i just wanted to add, also, that i appreciate so many issues brought up from officer john denny and the issues of vicious dogs and how the hearing process works. and to the sbca, folks, i guess that i will say that i really appreciate the partnership with the city, but when i look at the acc offices compared to the sbca beautiful, often renovated offices i see a really stark difference and i know that we have to support the capitol needs and the human resource needs of our animal care and control offices but i really

appreciate the sbca's offers to help and support, but when i see the tvs in the rooms where we are adopting cats, and tvs in their compared to the stark conditions in the animal welfare and control office it makes me understand how much we need to support our departments so much. and i did want to also say that as the budget committee deals with issues from some of our two leged animals, i called them children and homeless families and others that often that when there is choices to be made, it is very difficult, but i know that we need to support our acc office and other efforts and the coordinated community efforts as well and to nadine may and others that are really have been active in so many years, and potentially decades on rescue animals, and cats, and i will just say that there needs to be much better