At last Thursday's City Council meeting, Ignacio De La Fuente asked Chief Batts if the City of Oakland should turn over the Oakland Animal Shelter to the SPCA or to Alameda County. The Chief indicated that OPD has discussed options for outsourcing as De La Fuente suggested.
Council Member De La Fuente asked Chief Batts, "Have we explored, really, transferring that animal shelter to the SPCA, the County, some other agency that can deal with the animal shelter?" The Chief responds, "We have, we are currently exploring different things to do with the animal shelter. I do have to applaud my staff who works out there who does an outstanding job but we are looking at ways to maximize that org to utilize it or even to adress that situation like you were saying."
Here's how it went down:
Ignacio...
The Chief responds....
I'm not exactly sure what this means? If we don't have any money in the budget for OAS now, how could we possible provide enough resources to the SPCA to operate a legitimate shelter? And who would handle animal control and enforcement? The City is considering allowing backyard livestock but wouldn't have anyone around to enforce whatever restrictions were in place? Sounds like a tea party slaughterhouse operators dream scenario.
I'm curious if anyone has a good idea of what this outsourcing proposal would look like in reality? On the surface it seems a bit sketchy and would, once again, leave Oakland animals to suffer.
