END ABUSE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF LOS ANGELES ANIMAL SERVICES

For all the troubles in this City of Los Angeles that require immediate attention to make this city inhabitable, there is one that has been continuously ignored, shelved, shoved aside, or tabled that has been presented for years by those concerned and now has been soullessly forgotten by those elected to serve.  It has now become a cancer spreading freely and attacking every living thing within its toxic boundries.  It is the Department of Los Angeles Animal Services under the leadership of Mr. Ed Boks.

That the cries of shelter volunteers meet dead air when protesting with stories of mismanagement and animal abuse and are met with disrespect and civil rights violations; that homeless animals find themselves incarcerated in our city shelters aka killing fields with little more hope than being eradicated or left to despair in overcrowded, uninhabitable cages; that the cries of this city's taxpayers watching their monies being thrown to the building of inadequate new buildings being represented as state of the art shelters are being ignored; that Ed Boks is not being reviewed on a timely basis to make sure he is doing this job, or is able to do this job is all unacceptable and irresponsible.  All this creates a powerful impression that this ill named City of Angels aka Los Angeles is uncaring and unrepentant in its care of its homeless animal population which is being piteously abused and thrown away. 

The time has passed where the people of the City of Los Angeles will tolerate public relations created news opportunities for blatant untruths, self-promoting political egos and pasty smiles.  The truths from elected officials about the City of Los Angeles shelter system is long overdue.
 
It is time for the caring people of Los Angeles to demand that their voices  be heard not only in defense of the animals incarerated in the prisons known as shelters, but in defense of the volunteers who give of their love, time and often personal incomes to make the lives of these animals better.  It is time to demand that Mayor Villaraigosa hold his appointee, Ed Boks, General Manager of the Department of Los Angeles Animal Services, responsible for the abuses that not only the animals and the volunteers have suffered, but for those tax paying citizens who have been thwarted by the system's adoption procedures or whose lost animals has been prematurely euthanized as a result of not heeding shelter procedures.  And, of course, let's not forget the squandering of the tax payers monies in building shelters shilled as "state of the art."

Please, sign this petition in protest of the above.  It won't take much time, but considering the impact of your signature and the change it will make for the City of Los Angeles's animals and its shelter system, it will be time well spent.  It is also time well spent to highlight an issue that should be an embarrassment to all who govern a city such as this which claims to be among other things, The Cultural Capital of the 21st Century.  To many, however, this city should be known as The City That Box Blemished.

And when you have added your name to this petition, please, get your friends to add their names too.  Be the cause for positive change.  The animals have waited long enough.