PAWS Received Nearly $50,000 from BFAS

Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden was less than forthcoming last August at City Council when asked about her relationship with Best Friends Animal Society.  

Council person Karen Hesse-Smith:  Good morning. I’m curious whether or not the animal shelter has contracts with Best Friends, American pets Alive! or the HASS model - which is Human Animal Support Services, and I’m curious because a number of these organizations are being pointed to as culprits in other communities that have been sued for their policies. I can name them if it matters – El Paso is one, there’s been an issue in Abilene, at New York, but these are nationwide organizations. 

Morgan:   The city doesn’t have contracts with any of those organizations. As we set policy to offer life first and then the math is the math, right? It’s not that were trying to hit this magic number of 90%. We are looking at a number of peer cities, other organizations, what they’re pursuing, but there is no contracts with any animal welfare groups – the ones you’ve listed or others. 

Morgan attended Best Friends Executive Leadership Certification tuition free.  Morgan read the BFAS Manifesto during the graduation ceremony, an honor as she was chosen by her fellow participants.  

Best Friends guided Morgan through multiple shelter crises, the roach infestation/horrific hoarding conditions, the shelter cat colony panleukopenia outbreak, and even the City Council meeting mentioned in this post. Continuing with that meeting:

Karen:  What about PAWS, your contracted partner, do they have contracts with any of these contracted organizations? 

Morgan:  Not that I’m aware of but I really couldn’t speak to their legal status. 

Karen: I think we would like to know the answer to that because there have been social media posts that indicate that they’ve received grant monies or donations from some of these organizations and it’s worth our scrutiny. We don’t have enough information at this point to address it further but I think it’s worth knowing. 

Mayor Brenda Gunter:  Meaning that PAWS received grant monies and you’re asking how those grant monies were utilized 

Karen:  Yes. For example, here is a post made by Concho Valley PAWS and it says “A big Thank You to our friends at Best Friends Animal Society for a generous financial gift” of so many thousand, a certain number of thousands of dollars, so PAWS is not really under discussion here but we do have a contractual agreement with them so hence my question. 

Councilmember:  Isn’t PAWS a non-profit? 

Karen:  It is, and they are entitled to collect money. The concern is that some of these organizations are very much under fire across the nation and they are under fire because they promote programs and policies that have basically failed, multi-million-dollar lawsuits in some of these communities.

Concho Valley PAWS is the dba for the Humane Society of Tom Green County which received over $48,000 from Best Friends Animal Society for the fiscal year ended 2022.  

 

It's worth knowing.  Time will reveal if it's worth addressing.