Austin No Kill Coalition

2012 Austin City Council Animal Welfare Voter Information Guide

admin — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:31:38 +0000

Thank you to FixAustin for once again compiling the City Council Candidates’ answers to questionnaires and at the candidate forum and producing this guide.

Each year, volunteers for FixAustin.org comb through City Council candidate questionnaires, ask candidates tough questions, and debate the candidates’ responses and records in order to create an Animal Welfare Voter Information Guide for Austin citizens interested in animal-welfare issues. This year, Council Member Mike Martinez stood out with our highest ever Five+ Paws rating for his continued excellence and leadership in making Austin, Texas, America’s safest large city to be a homeless animal. Newcomer Dominic Chavez also impressed us. Here’s our take on this year’s slate of candidates.

Please check out their ratings before heading to the polls! Early voting has already begun and the election is Saturday, May 12th.

City Council Candidate Forum 2012

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:47:46 +0000

Once again, the Austin No-Kill Coalition, along with Love-a-Bull, Austin Pets Alive! , and FixAustin will be hosting a forum with the city council 2012 candidates.

The forum will be held on April 22 at 4pm at Abel’s on the Lake. Please join us and help us show Austin’s City Council how much Austinites care about saving our homeless animals!

Here is the list of confirmed candidates so far:

Mike Martinez
Lee Leffingwell
Laura Pressley
Brigid Shea
Tina Cannon
Bill Spelman
Dominic Chavez
Sheryl Cole

Summary of No Kill Candidate Forum

admin — Mon, 02 May 2011 01:21:31 +0000

Thank you so much to everyone who came out today for the No Kill City Council Candidate Forum. We had a great turnout and appreciate you all giving up your time on a Sunday to help our City’s homeless pets.

The following is a brief summary of today’s event:

Mayor Pro-Tem Mike Martinez started off the event by thanking everyone for coming and for getting Austin to where we are now (on Thursday, TLAC was at a 90% save rate for the month of April) and vowing his continued support to keep Austin no-kill.

Then we proceeded to ask candidates questions about no kill. We were pleased that all candidates who appeared vowed to commit to keeping Austin as no kill, defined as getting at least 90% of animals out alive (with the other 10% being too sick/injured or too dangerous to be safely released into the community that they must be humanely euthanized).

The biggest issue of the day was that animal advocates are concerned about of the move of the City’s Animal Services from their central location at Town Lake Animal Center to a remote, difficult-to-find location in East Austin and how that is going to affect adoptions. This is scheduled to occur in just 6 months.

All candidates agreed that the existing space at Town Lake Animal Center must be kept open long enough as an adoption center to ensure that the City is able to maintain its no kill status and that partnering with a nonprofit is the ideal solution. They also agreed that the nonprofit should:
1. Offer high-volume adoptions from the space.
2. Offer only pets transferred from the City of Austin for adoption (as opposed to pets from outlying communities) at that space.
3. Move into the existing TLAC space immediately when the City moves, allowing no break in adoption services at that location.

And finally, all candidates were willing to work on housing solutions for Austinites so that restrictions on dogs are based on temperament, not breed. However, none were comfortable committing today to creating an anti-breed discrimination law.

Candidates were sent a questionnaire last week. Their answers, in addition to a synopsis of today’s event, are published on FixAustin’s website.

Thank you so much to the candidates who participated:
Laura Morrison, Place 4
Chris Riley, Place 1
Randi Shade, Place 3
Kathie Tovo, Place 3
Max Nofziger, Place 3

City Council Candidate Forum

admin — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:16:23 +0000

Please join us at the Austin No Kill Coalition City Council Candidate Forum on Sunday, May 1 at Ventana del Soul. This forum is being sponsored by Austin Pets Alive!, FixAustin.org, Austin No Kill Coalition, and Love-A-Bull.

All questions presented to city council candidates will focus on Austin’s efforts to make and sustain our city animal shelter as a No Kill shelter. No Kill status means the Austin animal shelter is consistently achieving at least 90% live outcomes each month.

We need all Austinites who care about making Austin a no-kill city to show up to this event and show the Council candidates how important of an issue this is to Austinites.

The forum will begin promptly at 3:15 p.m. Ventana del Soul is located at 1834 E. Oltorf Street (approximately three blocks east of I-35).

Austin No Kill Workshop

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:34:40 +0000

We hope you will join us on September 28, 2010, 8:30am to 5:30pm at the Westin Austin at the Domain for a No Kill Workshop featuring inspirational and informational talks by the nation’s preeminent no kill experts:

Bonney Brown, Executive Director of the Nevada Humane Society
Adoptions/Marketing

Susanne Kogut, Executive Director of the Charlottesville SPCA
Expanding your foster program

Mike Fry, Executive Director of Animal Ark of Minnesota
TNR and community cats

Nathan Winograd, Executive Director of the No Kill Advocacy Center
Inspirational no-kill stories

Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Executive Director of Austin Pets Alive!
Nuts & Bolts of Adoptions: Off-site, on-line & more

Michael Mountain, Co-Founder and Past President of Best Friends Animal Society
Fundraising for animal welfare

Dr. Linda Wolf, Veterinarian and Expert Behaviorist
Temperament testing for dogs

Mitch Schneider, Director of the Washoe County Animal Services
Increasing returns to owners

Discounted room rental rate at the Westin Austin at the Domain is $129 per night.

Lunch will be provided and you have the choice of a vegetarian or vegan lunch.

Tickets are sold out

Email conference@nokillaustin.org for questions about the event.

This workshop is hosted by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the James J. Wolf Family Foundation for Animals, the Animal Ark of Minnesota, Animal Wise Radio, FixAustin.org, and the No Kill Advocacy Center.

Supporters include the Alamo Area Partners for Animal Welfare, Austin Pets Alive!, the Animal Defense League, the Austin No Kill Coalition, the Central Texas Animal Alliance, Love-a-Bull, No Kill Houston, the San Antonio Area Foundation, Town Lake Animal Center, and the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter.

Public stakeholder meeting for hiring new shelter director

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:35:15 +0000

The City of Austin has hired an executive recruiter to help them hire the new director at TLAC. The recruiter is going to meet with the public (information below) this Thursday afternoon to hear what the public wants in a new director before coming up with a “profile” (job description).

This is an important step in the hiring of a new shelter director as the recruiter will likely not be familiar with the no kill movement or the other directors who have made no kill communities.

Once they have a “profile” written, the City will recruit nationally for a director. After they’ve narrowed the list of potential candidates down to just a few, they will bring all of the candidates to Austin for public meetings, where the public will get a chance to ask questions and provide feedback. They expect to have someone in that position in early Fall.

Here are the details from the City:

On behalf of Assistant City Manager, Bert Lumbreras, we invite you to a special public Stakeholder meeting hosted by the City of Austin Human Resources Department, to meet with Heidi Voorhees, the Voorhees Associate, LLC, Consultant contracted by the City of Austin. We are in the process of recruiting for the Chief Animal Services Officer position and Ms. Voorhees will lead this recruitment.

As part of the recruitment process, we will develop a recruitment profile to be used in a national search to attract candidates to apply for the position. Your input is important to us.

When: Thursday, July 15, 2010
3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where: Town Lake Animal Shelter
Austin/Travis County HHSD
1156 W. Cesar Chavez
Austin, TX 78703

You may RSVP by calling (512) 974-3310, or you may email yolanda.valdez@ci.austin.tx.us. If you will be unable to attend this Stakeholder Meeting, you may contact Heidi Voorhees to give her your input at 847-580-4246, or email her at: HVoorhees@voorheesassociates.com no later than July19, 2010.

No Kill Conference coming to Austin, September 28th

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:28:17 +0000

We’re so excited to announce that a no kill conference will be held in Austin on September 28th (registration info to come in about a week):

Please join us for an inspiring daylong course on how to achieve a no-kill community. Leading experts in shelter management and shelter medicine will describe how to shift from a traditional shelter to an adoption guarantee shelter, keep the dogs and cats in the shelter medically and behaviorally healthy and happy, and get them adopted quickly through marketing and promotion.

2010 City budget planning

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:00:26 +0000

Yesterday, the City hosted an Austin’s Citizen Input Meeting at the City Convention Center regarding the upcoming city budget. We are pleased to report that no animal services budget cuts are on the table at this time. Additionally, they stated that the cost of the Implementation Plan has been included in next year’s budget. If you remember back to last year, initial budget cuts included a $200,000 decrease in spay and neuter funding.

The City has not announced any additional Citizen Input Meetings regarding the budget. However, you can complete an online survey for the city. This exercise includes voting on proposed budget cuts and other unmet initiatives. Click on Prioritize Unmet Service Demands and Service Reductions within the “Give Us Your Feedback” section.

Here is the link to the City website: http://www.cityofaustin.org/citymgr/budget_input.htm

Additionally, there is a place on the right side of the Prioritize Unmet Service Demands and Service Reduction web page to “contact the City”. Please click on this link and send an email to the city and tell them to fully fund all animal services budgets and to fully fund the Implementation Plan To Improve Live Outcomes and Reduce Intake at Townlake Animal Center.

While no cuts are planned at this time, we know that the budget building process is fluid. We should not take anything for granted.

Please contact others in the animal welfare community and ask them to complete the online survey including sending an email to the city via this feedback process.

Process for hiring new shelter director

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:51:29 +0000

At the Animal Advisory Committee meeting last night, two representatives from the City’s HR department were there to explain the process for hiring a new shelter director.

Right now, they are hiring an executive recruiter. Once the recruiter is hired, they will have a public forum to get community input on the kind of shelter director we want. They will then write a “profile” for the position and will start recruiting nationally.

The recruiter and the City will conduct interviews, check references, etc. and narrow the candidate list down to a few candidates.

They will then host another public forum with the candidates and give the public a chance to ask questions and give input.

After that, they will make an offer to one of the candidates. They hope to have the director position filled in early fall.

We will let you know when we get more information.

Task Forces

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:25:23 +0000

The city is creating the following task forces, as part of the no kill plan. They have set up planning kick-off meetings for Austinites to come out and help develop more detailed plans:

Public Awareness Task Force Meeting April 15, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
Pit-Bull Task Force Meeting April 28, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
Rescue Group Task Force Meeting April 29, 2010 @ 6:00 pm

All meetings will be held at the Learning Research Center, 2800 Spirit of Texas, Auditorium

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