You know how the irresponsible public in Memphis is the suck, right? They refuse to neuter their pets, forcing the shelter to kill thousands upon thousands of pets every year. As punishment, the city is considering a pet killing bill called mandatory spay-neuter.
Furthermore, those ignorant residents don’t know enough to keep their pets from roaming and becoming nuisance strays. ACOs are working their asses off but just can’t keep up with all the complaints of roaming dogs. As punishment, the city may enact a bounty on stray dogs turned in to the shelter. Because God knows, it’s just too much for those work-weary ACOs to handle on their own.
Granted, they are 900 calls behind – up from 800 when Matthew Pepper took over the shelter early this year.
The stray backlog also means cruelty or neglect cases have gone uninvestigated.
One June 2 complaint was not investigated until July 3. When it finally was investigated, it resulted in 18 felony counts.
And when the Animal Services Board reviewed a week’s worth of ACO logs from July, they found some were only going out on 3 or 4 calls a day and heading back to the shelter with hours left on the clock.
As if that doesn’t paint a bad enough picture:
Assistant Dist. Atty. Dan Byer, who prosecutes animal cruelty and neglect cases, said he knows only four of the 13 animal-control officers. Of those four, only two are what he calls “regulars.”
“I don’t know what (the others) are doing, but they’re not writing citations that result in cases coming to (General Sessions Court) Division 14.”
It sounds like the other 11 ACOs may be tackling the backlog of 900 calls by doing 3 in the morning and then putting their feet up for an afternoon siesta on the taxpayers’ dime. But never fear, Matthew Pepper is on the job:
“I will tell you that we do need to have better oversight over those programs,” Pepper said.
He has hired a field supervisor who will meet with each shift before the workday starts and will conduct random log checks to review time management.
So instead of hiring some ACOs who actually want to work for their taxpayer funded paychecks, he’s spending more taxpayer dollars to hire a babysitter for the ones who have already demonstrated they don’t give a damn about the community’s pets. And in the meantime, the city trods along down the punish-the-public path, with nary a word from Mr. Pepper.