Next Batter Up
Los Angeles, CA - It was recently reported that Ed Boks -- a leader in the "No-Kill" movement -- resigned as the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services (LAAS) effective June 30. His time at LAAS lasted 3.5 years. Last May, DogsBite.org published a post regarding an audit of LAAS. The audit showed that LAAS, under the reign of Bok, failed to make dog licenses a priority, which cost the agency millions of dollars in revenue.
"The failure to license and renew the licenses of hundreds of thousands of dogs in the city of Los Angeles has cost its Animal Services department millions of dollars in revenue, according to an audit released today. City Controller Laura Chick's audit found the department did not make dog licenses a priority, even though fees collected from those licenses made up more than 70 percent of its revenue in fiscal year 2007-08."
The 3.5 year tenure of Boks has been rife with controversy, as have the leaders that have come before him. According to the L.A. Times, when Boks was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2006, he was the fourth person in four years to hold the top position. While Boks is credited with an increase in pet adoptions at LAAS during his tenure, his period of leadership is also marked with significant failures and blunders including the following:
- Last month, Boks suspended a program that gave vouchers for free spay-neuter services to low income residents (In 2008, L.A. passed a mandatory spay/neuter law with the assurance that such vouchers would be available.) His "budget cutting" action caused such an uproar that Boks reinstated the program. But talk quickly followed the flipflop, including another "no-confidence" vote, which ultimately lead to his recent resignation.
- In 2008, about half of his staff signed a petition stating they had "no confidence" in him as a leader. Staffers voiced their complaints at a public hearing. They faulted Boks for failing to tell them how to carry out his goal of creating a "No-Kill" policy. They also complained that, in an effort to meet the goal, shelters were becoming overcrowded warehouses where animals fought with each other, endangering themselves and shelter workers.
- In 2007, Boks attempted to set up a "Pit Bull Training Academy" which would have employed ex-cons to train and make adoptable some of the city's homeless pit bulls. Boks failed to clear the reckless idea with City Council, and subsequently underwent harsh criticism. Obvious questions about the program focused on liability: "What happens if someone gets hurt?" and "Who's liable?" The program was shelved indefinitely.
- In 2006, another Boks idea came under fire as well. Apparently, Boks had planned a "Hooters for Neuters" event, which would have featured scantily clad female Hooters employees promoting pet sterilization. Fliers for the event were "graphic" and embarrassed city officials, causing Bok to backpedal on the event. At that time and other times, Boks was criticized for failing to inform city officials of his ideas until after the fact.
Attempt to Rename Pit Bulls
Boks' effort to save pit bulls began before his time in L.A. While serving as the director of New York City Animal Care and Control in 2004, Boks tried to rename pit bulls to "New Yorkies" to make the dogs more adoptable. The attempt failed, as did a similar one in 1996, when the San Francisco SPCA (an early No-Kill group) tried to renamed the breed "St. Francis Terriers." Boks' tenure in New York lasted from 2003-2005. The city declined to renew his 2006 contract.
DogsBite.org believes that today's "No-Kill" movement -- some argue it once had noble underpinnings -- has turned into a house of cards. Furthermore, it has ultimately shifted to a "No Kill Pit Bull" agenda. What is important to understand is that the safety of human beings is absent in today's movement, as demonstrated by Boks' dangerous ex-con program, as well as the attempts to rename the breed in hopes of hiding the pit bull's inexcusable safety record.
Related articles:
04/24/09: Drugs, Violence, Criminals and Pit Bulls -- Can They Be Separated?
04/22/09: Report: U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities January 2006 to December 2008
02/19/09: Shelter Adopts Out Biting Dogs to "Save More Dogs" and Dumps Behavioral Testing
05/28/08: LA Animal Services Can't Figure Out Priorities
Nathan Winograd (affiliated with Best Friends) recommended Boks for the job.
Best Friends promoted Boks endlessly until No Kill began to fail, AS IT ALWAYS DOES!
So many animals suffered under No Kill in LA.
Animals turned away that were abandoned, dogs killing each other in cages (yes, pit bulls), animals dying of disease
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN PHILADELPHIA ANIMAL CONTROL PACCA THANKS DIRECTLY TO NATHAN WINOGRAD and employees he picked like Douglas Rae
who is now poised to do the same in Indianapolis
No Kill is hell on earth for animals and people
Nathan Winograd, also now affiliated with pit bull breeder lobbies and other breeder lobbies looking out for their interests
I wonder if like failed PACCA Chief Operating Officer Dougie Rae, he will be able to land another No-Kill gig and ruin another city’s A/C department?
And yet another blow falls on the “no-kill” movement. When will these cities wise up and realize these people are bad news? At best they are severely misguided bleeding hearts who seem to believe that hoarding animals and allowing them to succumb to injuries and disease is somehow kinder than quick euthanasia. At worst, they’re outright criminals running a con game and even supplying animals to dog fighters on the sly. The “no-kill” movement as it is needs to go the way of the dodo. It can’t happen fast enough.
This was probably the real reason for his termination…not leaving the $millions in unrecovered license revenue on the table, nor the vast medical bills of pit bull victims.
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/04/37536.php
This reminds me of how Jere Alexander fired the 28 year A/C Technician in Fulton County, GA.
“No kill” shelters give regular shelters a bad name. “No kill” shelters are very selective and will cherry pick the animals coming to their shelter (at least in my experience where I live). They don’t take pits or pitmixes, they don’t want any aggressive animals or unsocialized animals. Most of the people bringing animals to the county-run shelter say they tried to get a “no-kill” to take the animal, but were refused for whatever reasons. And yet people say things like “You work there? That’s where they kill dogs.”
No, we do the job the “no kill” won’t do. They don’t want the mean pit bulls. Well, no one else wants them either. But you can’t keep them forever when there are 100s of new animals arriving daily. Where do you put them all? It’s never-ending.
Geez Louise! Disgusting! Colleen, you should write a book about all the Pit Bull conspiracy across the country. This is really horrendous.
There will be a delay in publishing comments today. Keep posting them, they will be published this evening!
The San Francisco SPCA? Isn’t that also where Winograd came from? What a place! And the gal that created the distorted “Balloons” book?
https://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Bite-Balloons-Slippers-Dangerous/dp/1888047186
Don’t forget SF/SPCA volunteer dog training instructor Anna Klafter — it was her off-leash pit bull that attacked the mounted police rider and bucked off…
The evidence was there BEFORE Boks was appointed of his failures. But because of the pressure from the ADL-LA and other ignorant groups, The Mayor appointed a “no kill” guru. Although Winograd was promised the gig by the ADL-LA and there are emails to back this up, and he packed up suddenly and left for LA, it didn’t happen. Now there will be a push on to put the Whino in the job. Boks did state on his blog that he was recommended by Winograd.
Another case where a director was caught bedding his employees, a cruelty charge and missing donations, yet he was given a good recommendation WHILE ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE FOR NAILING HIS EMPLOYEES, so he moved on to a cushy job in San Jose. Same thing here, he will be given a good recommendation and will go destroy another agency. “No Kill” has to be stopped first in order to do anything about the pits.
But No Kill at animal control is a whole new kind of evil
At least with No Kill private shelters there were REAL animal control shelters to do what No Kill refused or failed to do
But when AC is No Kill, it’s a total disaster
Either animals (including pit bulls) are getting hoarded and dying in the shelter of disease or fighting, or they are handing them out to hoarders and dog fighters, or as in San Antonio (and Winograd’s Tompkins County mess and many more!) they just STOP ACCEPTING ANIMALS and have “wait lists” or some other foolishness so the animals get abandoned on the streets to die or attack people
Prior to the horrid Hayden Act in CA, open door shelters could make rational decisions about pits. They could put pits down at their discretion based on temperament, etc. Then with the Hayden, they had to put Fluffy down instead of the vicious pit that just came in. Before they could keep Fluffy and put the pit down, then with the holding times of the Hayden, it reversed. The CA shelters have a high population of pit/mixes. Then along comes “No Kill” and all the shelters became afraid of euthanizing even when they knew it was right. Animal control can no longer make decisions based on their experience. And this has meant more pits on the streets. I don’t blame animal control for the mess as much as I blame the crazed “No Kill”ers and public pressure.
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/27855/
One alliance member snipes, “Boks’s programs had catchy names, but they had no substance and weren’t sustainable.”
Sounds just like the nutter choir, “they will only lick you to death” or “Punish the deed not the breed”. No wonder the pit nutters and ninnygrad love him.
I am sure Boks is responsible for a number of classic pit platitudes. Mindless gibberish.
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/04/37536.php
Since Boks has come to LA he’s managed to garner the wrath of personnel, volunteers, animal rescuers, the public and even City Council, a first for any Director. It’s been one mistake after another from the “Hooters for Neuters” bikini contest to the Pitbull Academy run by ex-cons to incurring countless lawsuits. Through all of this Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has stood by his side, even after Boks was reported for driving the City vehicle drunk and sexually harassing female rescuers. This is on top of Boks’ poor performance with increased euthanasia and three times as many animals dying on their own in the shelter from illness and injury.
Public pressure is a big problem, as are the animal activist nuts in LA. They don’t have a clue about the realities of a shelter environment or the population pressure of the homeless, unwanted, and aggressive animals. They get their panties in a knot about people “killing puppies” and don’t have to see the reality of what their idealism creates. Shove the lot of them face first into an overcrowded, disease laden shelter and tell them to clean up the mess. Tell them to start with the pits that have been confined for a year or more. They’ll be singing a different tune in no time, assuming they don’t get ripped to shreds first.
Ed Boks departed LA's Animal Services today. Where will he go now?
"Boks' inability to fulfill his mandate to make L.A. a no-kill-shelter city, along with his unilateral suspension of a popular spay-neuter voucher program, a messy sexual-harassment suit and his ill-advised plan for a Hooters for Neuters event, combined to force his resignation last April."
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/ed-boks-exits-and-a-dog-named/
But no one can fulfill the "No Kill" promise. It's an undoable, unrealistic goal. "No Kill" is merely a political term that hooks animal activists. The so-called magic formula of Winograd's "No Kill," can be found on the underside of any bottle cap.
Ed Boks can't get a job in Toledo due to lack of education! Gotta wonder why NY and LA fell for his BS:
FEB 22, 2010 – Seven Lucas County dog warden applicants are deemed eligible for the job because of their education level. The Lucas County commissioners agreed last month that the new warden does not have to have a bachelor's degree in a field related to animal care or public administration. Instead, the new warden must have at least an associate's degree in a related field and six years of supervisory experience in animal care or control or three years managing or directing an animal care or control environment. The 41 other applicants – who included Ed Boks, former head of the Los Angeles Animal Services Department and dog warden in New York before that – were rejected because they did not complete enough higher education or did not have the required number of years of supervisory or management experience."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100222/NEWS16/2220315