City Goes Out of Its Way to Not Hear Animal Concerns

Close to the one year anniversary of the Animal Shelter's roach infestation and horrific hoarding conditions City Council met in a strategic planning session.

August 29, 2023

City Council discussed a disturbing dog attack situation on Jackson Street during their planning session.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden failed to inform Council under direct questioning of the shelter's significant reliance on Pets Alive and Best Friends Animal Society programs which divert shelter work to "the community" or BFAS funding of her tuition at their Executive Learning Certification.

October 19, 2023

Animal Shelter Advisory Committee failed to achieve a quorum with numerous citizens in attendance wishing to provide public input on the "loose dog" problem created by Pets Alive/BFAS programs.

Despite having three of the five current committee members in attendance staff claimed a quorum did not exist.  Missing members included the committee chair and vice chair.  Concerned citizens were excused with the promise that "the team" would work to quickly reschedule.

Citizens submit letter

Sixty concerned citizens submitted a letter to the Mayor and Council asking for an urgent meeting on 11-3-23.  This was not granted.

November 15, 2023

City staff met with a concerned citizen and asked the public not to attend.

We would like to clear up some misinformation regarding a meeting in regard to Animal Services and Code Compliance that has been circulating on social media. A meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 15, was intended as a small meeting with a concerned citizen and members of City staff. This meeting was not intended to be a public Q&A session. 

The Animal Shelter Advisory Committee will schedule a meeting in the near future for the public to offer comments to the City related to Animal Services. We will post an update on our social media, website and send to media outlets when and where the meeting will take place. 

Brian Groves, Communications Director for the City of San Angelo.

City staff did not reschedule the October 18th ASAC meeting prior to end of the year.   This failure caused the city to violate its ordinance requiring three ASAC meetings per calendar year.

January 16, 2024

City Council discussed national trends and local statistics regarding Animal Services.  Nationally shelters are doing more, while locally San Angelo's Animal Shelter did far less.  

At the end of the meeting Councilman Tom Thompson indicated his wife had been bitten by an unrestrained, uncontained dog.

Council asked for a Town Hall meeting on loose dogs in the community and for staff to bring back prioritized strategies for addressing the problem.

January 18, 2024

The first regular meeting of the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee was held.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden offered a weekly Open House at the Animal Shelter for people who want to better understand Animal Services programming.

I stated this was inadequate given the dire nature of our local situation where area veterinarians are concerned about increased dog on dog attacks and city statistics show animal to people bites rose 56%.  A well planned, publicized Town Hall could bring many community voices together to share information that would not be gotten via a weekly Open House with Morgan.

Morgan's Open House substitution is yet the latest effort to scuttle public input.  

Update 2-3-24:  Oddly Chegwidden claims to want that input (an e-mail to the people at Best Friends):

We’re still wanting to collect data from San Angeloans to determine a widespread support of lifesaving efforts.  10-12-23

If this is true a Town Hall meeting should quickly be arranged.  City Council wants it and Morgan wants data from citizens on the shelter's "let them roam unaltered" policies. 

Update 2-8-24:  Someone who went to the first Open House noted:

They had Animal Control Officers (ACO) in one section, to go ask questions, Shelter Chief Morgan was there and people could ask her questions and I saw her talk to three people, two at length, Morgan's boss Bob Salas was there.

"News" people taking pics and Carlos (ACO) gave an interview and that's about all that happened! And you could go look at the "ROWS" of dogs! Most of the people that were there were PAWS people and Fosters, and shelter workers.

Open Houses will occur weekly through August.  

Update 9-27-24:  Five months of public meetings produced data from an average of three citizens per meeting.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden's report to City Council included

To give citizens an avenue to communicate their concerns, animal services held weekly open house hours for five months from February 2024 through June 2024. Visitors were invited to tour, ask the experts, share concerns and ideas for this come-and-go casual gathering of people motivated to solve San Angelo’s animal concerns. 

About two dozen people attended on 2/7/24 but no more than two individuals reported on any subsequent date.

The meetings were to run through August but stopped the end of June due to poor attendance.  Citizens now have to access Animal Services through their City Council representative to get any response.  I hope they keep doing that.  Maybe elected officials will figure out that something is wrong.

I would suggest veterinarians are included in the list of people motivated to solve the city's animal concerns.  They might be worthy of a special focus group meeting.  That is if someone really wants feedback/public input.  

Data says the weekly series of open houses was for show.  Three months in it was obviously not fulfilling its stated aim, yet there was no course correction.  

Council's lack of response continues.