Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is Not Keeping His Campaign Promise to Our Animal Loving City

When Antonio Villaraigosa was running for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2005 he promised the citizens of Los Angeles that if elected, he'd "hold the new General Manager (of LA Animal Services) accountable for creating a legitimate plan to reduce euthanasia." He said he would "demand better performance and real accountability from the Department." Well, the truth is in the statistics and the statistics show that his new General Manager Ed Boks failed. In 2006 751 fewer animals made it out of the shelter alive than in 2005. The euthanasia rate did not go down from the previous year. This is the first time since they had public records available that there was no improvement. What went wrong? And what is the Mayor going to do about it?

In January of 2005 then Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa told a packed room of animal activists, rescuers and welfarists that if he became the Mayor, he would hire a new General Manager with experience, compassion and the knowledge to make LA a NoKill City. NoKill basically means that no adoptable animal will be euthanized for lack of space. Only animals that are dying or dangerously vicious would be euthanized. At the time LA City shelters were euthanizing 41% of all animals that came into the shelter, over 22,000 animals a year.

A few months after Antonio became the Mayor of LA he fired then General Manager, Guerdon Stuckey and immediately appointed Ed Boks as the new GM. Ed Boks has over 20 years of animal shelter experience whereas his predecessor had none. Boks believes in NoKill sheltering and was even a NoKill consultant. We've been told that Boks reduced the euthanasia rate and increased animal adoptions in Phoenix, Arizona and New York City. More importantly, animal people seemed to like him whereas they hated his predecessor. He seemed like the man for the job and by coincidence, he was in need of a job as his animal control contract would not be renewed in New York. Should this have been a red flag?