The Kansas City Star reported today that the city of Kansas City has reached a "tentative agreement" with a new organization called the Kansas City Pet Project to run the city's animal shelter.
The Kansas City Pet project is a brand new organization made up of several animal welfare advocates in the city. I am the President of the board of directors for the Kansas City Pet Project and we have a great board that features Michelle Davis, who is the President and Founder of Kansas City Dog Advocates, and Heather Clenin -- who has spent the past several years volunteering at the animal shelter. We also have hired an executive director with 25 years of animal sheltering experience.
The city staff will be recommending moving forward with the Kansas City Pet Project and the proposal will be voted on by the city council in the coming weeks.
The news comes after a six month long RFP process after the city terminated its agreement with an independent veterinarian who had managed the shelter for 2 years after allegations of poor treatment of animals. For the past 6 months, he city has been running the shelter while a new vendor was sought.
Because of my involvement in this, I'm not really at liberty to say anything more than is in this news article at this time, but if everything goes smoothly with the city council votes this is a great opportunity to move things forward for the animals in Kansas City. The shelter is not without its challenges, but there is a huge network of animal welfare advocates, volunteers and rescues who are eager to support positive changes that will be taking place.
Keeping my fingers crossed! Sounds like your organization has exactly the right leadership.
Posted by: Average Jane | September 30, 2011 at 11:43 AM
That's great news! Although I'd think you might want an executive director with much less experience in the field. Wasn't Bonney Brown new to the field when she started? Anyway, good luck with it.
Posted by: Dianne R. | September 30, 2011 at 12:46 PM
Dianne -- while it's often true that people with a lot of experience running shelters are ingrained in old school ways of thinking, I think we have found a great person with a long background in shelter management (including strong knowledge in disease control which is important for our shelter) but also embraces more current thinking in how to increase adoptions and the types of programs we'll need to implement in order to be successful.
Posted by: Brent | September 30, 2011 at 01:02 PM
This is the best news Kansas City has had in a LONG time.
Posted by: Woody | September 30, 2011 at 04:13 PM
Bonney Brown was the Chief Operations Officer at Best Friends Animal Society in Utah before being recruited to the Nevada Humane Society. Before that, she was the National Director of Best Friends’ No More Homeless Pets campaign and the leader of a major component of the animal rescue effort that followed Hurricane Katrina.
There are shelter directors around the country who come to the job with no prior experience in the field and who succeed marvelously. They are the exceptions, and Ms. Brown isn't one of them.
Posted by: Ted Moore | September 30, 2011 at 04:46 PM
Wow, congratulations....I guess, LOL.
It is good news indeed!
Posted by: kmk | September 30, 2011 at 11:06 PM