The consultant who came to do the report was biased, and had an agenda before he even arrived here. His “unbiased report” is anything but. When I spoke with him for his report, he had asked if I had bought his book within the first five minutes. During our conversation, he constantly mentioned his book.

He did not come here to write a fair report. On his Web site, he lists five steps to “reforming animal control;” in step 3, he says prepare for battle. He says people should get together and establish a group without legal structure that does not need to file with the government or be governed by rules of order. It also says to have an expanded white paper, including specific examples and testimonials of people who have had bad experiences. He changed his report significantly from what he originally gave the county to what is now on the King County web site.

He relied on stories from the past to make it look as if nothing has changed. He often repeated stories with very slight changes or additions of detail to make it appear as if they were separate stories. He also relied on a few people to supply these stories and ignored any positive information.

We fostered one of the cats pictured in his report, and if you have ever had a sick cat you would know that unless you are constantly watching it, its face will be covered in bloody discharge. We regularly take the sickest cats out of the shelter environment and foster them at our house, as do many other volunteers. I’m not saying there are no problems, but closing the King County shelters is not the answer. Effective leadership and new or better facilities are needed. The officers need more advanced training, which they want. We also need to make sure our pets are spayed and neutered.

The problems won’t go away overnight, but they can be fixed.

-Doug Parker

Issaquah