Director Manipulated Survey Data for Animal Shelter Advisory Committee

Animal Shelter Chief James Flores presented a community cat survey to the City's Advisory Committee in their May meeting.  He represented:

I asked the city for a copy of the survey results.  It is two legal pad hand written pages and can be seen below.  To the right of Flores written words I added research comments that confirm or call into question his findings/representations.:

Of the seven cities Flores said had mandatory city registration three definitely do not, Garland, Arlington. and San Antonio.  Garland and Arlington have voluntary registration through local animal services organizations, just like San Angelo's current ordinance.

In the case of Garland's sponsorship model the city pays for all spay/neuter services.  Flores knew this from a May 12, 2017 e-mail from Garland's Shelter Director.

San Angelo contributes no money to Critter Shack, the only local sponsoring organization helping citizens wishing to practice trap, neuter, return and maintain for community cats. 

San Antonio funds the program for certain zip codes:

If you live in any of the zip codes listed below under San Antonio's ACS Community Cat Program, you are eligible to receive a FREE cat trap and spay/neuter services.

Even San Marcos, the preferred site mentioned by Flores, has a sponsor model in their current city ordinance.

Unfortunately their nonprofit is no longer manned to run the voluntary community/feral cat program.  San Marcos is the only city surveyed to have had their nonprofit partner pull back.  Their shelter plans to move to mandatory registration.

Galveston also utilizes a community partner to address the island's feral cat issue.

The Galveston Island Community Cats Program is operated through the Galveston Island Humane Society and has provided sterilization for healthy stray or feral cats for years.

The only two of the seven cited that fit Mr. Flores description of current mandatory registration with the city are Kileen and Wichita Falls.  Both of their ordinances require a city permit for a cat colony manager.  Neither had information on their city websites about the requirement or how to register/get a permit.

Wichita Falls has an active nonprofit fixing community cats.  The City of Kileen does not appear to have any community partners helping with free roaming cats.. 

Flores said seven Texas cities had no TNR program.   Waco clearly has one.  It's on the City of Waco's website.  It too utilizes a local nonprofit sponsor, one that has been on the job since 2007.

While the City of San Angelo danced in and out of pet neutering Critter Shack remained in the low cost spay/neuter space.   One San Angelo colony manager endured the city's heavy hand in 2013.  She watched city staff trap cats she fixed with her personal resources and haul them away for extermination.  That prompted people practicing TNRM to ask the city for safe legal authority which it granted in 2015.

James Flores' misrepresentations to the ASAC are a continuation of Animal Control obstruction and intransigence in the community cat arena.  Since the ordinance passed one appointed member of the Animal Board has obsessed about the location of managed cat colonies.  The Board never told her to chill out, back off or shut up and viewed Critter Shack's honoring their commitment to keep colony location confidential as noncompliance.  I find it odd that following the current ordinance is viewed as problematic by a body charged with public oversight.  That's been the case for over two years.

Mandatory community cat colony registration is a solution to a nonexistent problem.  Everything the city wants to do, it can already do.  The way to tell if a citizen is practicing TNR is to talk to them.  Flores said he knows where people are feeding large groups of cats.  For some reason he and his staff won't talk to them to find out if they are fixing.  If not, Flores can educate them and steer "feeders but not fixers" to Critter Shack, the only local resource willing to help.

Normally the parties in a public-private partnership, the City and Critter Shack, would have regular meetings to see how the partnership is going, work through operational issues and plan changes and improvements.  That has not been the case since Council passed the ordinance.  There has been only one consistent request. 

Most Texas community cat partnerships are clearly promoted by city animal services via websites, news and videos.   Other cities provide a range of education and resources as part of their end of the partnership.

The City of San Angelo has taken a minimalist at best approach in this regard.  Searching the city's website I found the following information:

Research showed other Texas cities with vibrant public-private partnerships for community cats.  Those require trust and collaboration, something the City of San Angelo has abused in the recent past.  The Community Cat ordinance was adopted on Neighborhood and Family Services Director Bob Salas' and James Flores' watch.  Critter Shack volunteers have done the work and have many compelling stories to tell, much more than who is the colony manager and where are they located.  Four community cat representatives spoke to Council in February and will likely do so again.

The question is why Flores would manipulate a survey toward mandatory registration for people practicing TNR with their personal time, energy and resources?   Evidence shows he did just that.

Update 6-24-17:  Flores resigned his position with the city.  It came two days after this post.

The Standard Times ran a story as well.  City PIO Anthony Wilson replied in the comments. I imagine citizens want to know a few basic facts about Animal Shelter leadership going forward.  We'll see if the city releases any information via news release, video, City Council agenda, etc.