ACAB Meeting Once Again Adjourned

Forty five people attended Wednesday's animal control advisory board meeting and candlelight vigil at the courthouse. Citizens came to express their concerns about the present management of animal control in Douglas county to the ACAB board, but once again the board wasn't listening. Nothing changed in the division between the county board of commissioners and the citizens of Douglas county Wednesday afternoon as a result of the continued unresponsiveness of the ACAB board.

There was one glimmer of change presented during the meeting, even in the face of the meeting being abruptly adjourned once again by Chairwoman Pat Fulghum when a citizen attempted to speak. At some point in time the board of commissioners are going to be forced to acknowledge the dichotomy of their actions and the actions of the animal control advisory board concerning their current responses to the citizens of Douglas county.

The board of commissioners and the animal services director cannot continue to tell people to take their concerns about animal control to a non responsive ACAB board where the people of Douglas county are now limited in their ability to address their concerns to that board and their ability to speak at meetings is purposely encumbered each month.

For the past three months Tom Worthan has told numerous citizens both in response to emails and at his January and February chat with the chairman meetings, that citizens should utilize the animal control advisory board as a means to address their concerns about animal control and the animal shelter. Yet at both of the past two monthly meetings of the ACAB, the chairwoman Mrs. Pat Fulghum immediately adjourned the meeting once citizens attempted to speak up at the meeting. 

During that same period, the provisions and rules for the public being allowed to speak have been changed twice by Mrs. Fulghum. First at the February meeting, the public was told that public comments would only be allowed at the end of the ACAB meeting. Then before public comments could be tendered that afternoon, Mrs. Fulghum adjourned the meeting when a citizen attempted to speak up and complain about the noise created by the background at the transportation building. Mrs. Fulghum subsequently allowed two concerned citizens to speak at the February meeting, but offered no response to their concerns and immediately re-adjourned the meeting afterward.

At Wednesday afternoon’s March ACAB meeting, the agenda read that public comments would be allowed at the beginning of the ACAB meeting. While ultimately no one was allowed to speak Wednesday afternoon at the ACAB meeting, as Mrs. Fulghum called the meeting to order and then stated that no citizens had signed up to speak therefore, there would be no public comments allowed. A little more than an hour into the meeting when a citizen approached the board and asked to be heard, Mrs. Fulghum once again became frustrated and adjourned the meeting abruptly. Thus once again ending the ACAB meeting and any citizen availability to be heard by the board.

The represented justification for her action was that the woman who wanted to be heard had not signed up to speak. Requiring citizens to sign up to speak was an additional rule provision added at the February ACAB meeting by Mrs. Fulghum for those wishing to speak at all future meetings. Now it seems that citizens wanting to speak to the board must come and sign up to speak in the thirty minute period prior to the official beginning time of the ACAB meetings. This places an additional strain on those leaving work and trying to attend ACAB meetings that are inconvenient to the working public as it is. However, at Wednesday’s ACAB meeting, citizens were not allowed in citizens hall until fifteen minutes before the meeting and then they had to be subjected to a security screening by Douglas county deputies to enter the room.

No one bothered to inform the public of the new twists on the rules Wednesday before the meeting, or that there would be a security screening process, or that citizens would have to sign in on a sign in sheet that would be deliberately pulled while citizens were still clearing the newly established security procedures.

Mrs. Fulghum didn’t bother to acknowledge to the public when she denied the woman her opportunity to speak, that Mrs. Fulghum’s husband had gone to the table at the door five minutes before the meeting was called to order and retrieved the sign in sheet and then took it to his wife at the podium. Thus removing any ability of those still entering the room to either see or sign the sign in sheet. Citizens were still attempting to enter citizens hall and still being forced to go through the security screening process of being hand searched by DC deputies when the sign in list was removed and taken away from their ability to utilize it.

The only positive action to come out of the ACAB meeting on Wednesday afternoon, was the recommendation by Herb Emory that the board of commissioners hire a volunteer coordinator at the shelter. Obviously in response to the continued citizens complaints of the shelter director’s wife being allowed to manage the only approved volunteer program in existence at the animal shelter. Perhaps in the future, Mr. Emory’s presence on the board can lend some professional decorum, common courtesy and respect for the public to the animal control advisory board. I for one certainly hope so.

In the mean time concerned citizens and animal advocates in Douglas county will continue to pursue justice for animals who have no voice and no ability to speak for themselves. Concerned citizens and residents will continue to call for ethical, responsive and accountable government from those we have elected to our Douglas county board of commissioners.