The website for Aransas Pass, TX describes the city as a “paradise” and promises a number of ideals, all consistent with a no kill community:
We pledge, through a strong sense of teamwork and customer service, to be respectful of individual dignity and rights, to remain fiscally responsible, to ethically and responsively interact with our citizens, to innovate when addressing community needs, and, in doing all that, be an organization in which we are all proud to serve.
But Aransas Pass isn’t a no kill community. In fact, city manager Sylvia Carrillo appears to envision an all kill community, in direct contrast to every pledge made in the previous paragraph:
“We have, in the last five years…steered away from our mission. Our mission is animal control, and that is controlling the animal population,” she said. “Which means our primary goal should be euthanization. We have not planned accordingly or budgeted accordingly.”
It turns out that the city’s main ACO, Carol Crockett, had set up a Facebook page on her own initiative to network pets at the pound and was adopting them out. Both of these things are obviously problematic as neither is consistent with the mission: killing animals.
And Ms. Carrillo wants more than dead dogs and cats in her Mountain of Things to Roll Around In:
“We strayed from that (mission) to even the point of not putting down opossums and skunks, releasing them at the collection station,” she added.
Oh math. I suppose that despicable ACO also intentionally avoided stomping ant hills on her way into the office every day. Mission: Inconsistent.
It sounds like the ACO is some kind of weird person who responds with bizarre answers when asked at a public meeting about why she isn’t killing everything, all the time:
“In a public meeting, that [killing] was brought up, and (Crockett) said, ‘I can’t do that every day. I can’t go home and live with myself.’
She must have one of those Abby Normal brains.
Paradise has a 72 hour holding period and no adoption program so it’s 72 hours then kill because as Ms. Carrillo points out, the pound is “not meant to be doggy hotel or kitty hotel.” Ooh – burn on you, fancypants pet hotels – what with all your high-falutin’ not dead pets and such as. In the real world, we kill pets in need, and that’s best done on an arbitrary schedule:
“[W]e’ve strayed away from euthanization. We’ve strayed away from doing what we’re supposed to do on a daily basis,” she said. “It came to my attention recently that we were doing euthanizations probably once a week. If you think about that, 72 hours, and you plan accordingly, you should be euthanizing at least every other day to keep that population down, so that the facility, number one, is not overcrowded.
If you’re not going to kill every day, which really is ice cream and yay and mission-y, at least kill every other day because come on, not doggy hotel.
ACO Crockett has quit her job. The other ACO is currently getting certified to kill animals and the city is advertising for someone to replace Crockett (don’t everyone apply at once). In the meantime, the city will pay an area vet to kill shelter pets.
Note: If you choose to contact Sylvia Carrillo or anyone else in the city of Aransas Pass, please keep your comments respectful and obviously making threats of any kind is never cool. Shelter dogs and cats have the right to live and open admission no kill communities are a reality. We have that on our side. And that is enough.
I’ve included links in the first quote in the post to various pages and files illustrating how no kill sheltering is consistent with everything Aransas Pass claims its wants to be. Please feel welcome to share those links with city officials in case someone there feels like walking the walk.
(Thanks Mike for the link.)
the way i see it sylvia carillo is the next serial killer who will be walking the streets of aransas pass,texas.she must have a hate on for animals!!!!!!!!!!!!! people of aransas pass do not trust this lady!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becareful of her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
there is nothing… polite… that I can say. Or, right now… even THINK… where do they GET these people???
Wow.
Honesty is so bizarre in this context. I hope that people who actually care about animals in that area oust this woman and keep her away from all living things somehow, like in a padded room.
AMEN!!!
sylvia carillo is the next upcoming serial killer
Why does she equate animal control with killing? And why does she equate population control with killing?
It’s like…the shelter is the whole world to her and if she can just keep the numbers down there, then everything else is fine.
She’s living in some demented Cloud Cuckoo Land and it’s frankly terrifying.
There is no understanding this person – I can’t even figure out what her thinking might be. Maybe she just likes to kill? At least get her diagnosed by a competent psychiatrist – something very terrifying (yes, mikken, she is terrifying) about her. If I say what I would really like to say, I probably would be banned.
What everyone already said about the minds of serial killers. How does such a person get in any position to have power?
Have a dog friendly 4th from The Poodle (and dog) blog
This is one very VERY sick woman. She would even win a killing contest with Ingrid Newkirk. And for those who say she is the next serial killer, no, she already is a serial killer. I consider myself very good at polite letters, but I don’t think I could manage it in this case.
At first this looked like some sort of sick April Fool’s Day joke. Then I remembered… It’s July. :( Bless former ACO Crockett for having a heart and trying what she could while still employed. It’s wonderful she was able to network and save SOME of the animals from that psychotic killing machine!
I would say “unbelievable” but how many times have we heard this KILL, KILL, KILL BS coming from someone who has authority over animal control? Or how often do we see it, while leadership claims to “be doing everything they can to save animals”. This killing mentality is an incredibly sickening consistency among people who have the power of life and death animal controls and other kill shelters.
I can only hope that this monster is up for re-election very soon, and Aransas Pass citizens speak out loudly in opposition and voter her butt out of office.
She wasn’t elected. She was hired and reports to the City Council. They have meetings on the first and third Mondays according the website – http://wp.aransaspasstx.gov/city-administration/city-council/
I applaud that she is taking the direct route and telling everyone that she wants to kill more animals so she can openly rile up the community into action instead of doing the “we are doing the best we can” or “we are already No-kill of adoptable, healthy animals” with a kill rate upwards of 50%. I hope the community steps up accordingly and lets city council know that she doesn’t not represent their interests and that more killing is not the answer. Where do they get these people? Clearly, she doesn’t have common sense. Hmm, if the goal is to kill animals and killing is bad, maybe we change our goal to reflect the mission set out in the website and by the city ordinance (it was addressed in a news segment that she may be violating city ordinance by not allowing adoptions – http://www.kztv10.com/news/aransas-pass-no-longer-adopting-out-animals/)
What kind of community wants the kind of publicity that involves a goal of killing more animals? I hope her bosses point out that her goal of killing all the animals is not aligned with their overarching pledge to the community or their tactical ordinances, and in fact, directly counters everything they aspire to be and do and walk her out the door before she causes any more damage.
This is not that shocking to me.
I live in Alberta, Canada, and I call this “The Separation of Church & State”.
Our city separated the “Animal Control” from the “Animal Shelter” several years ago, I suspect mostly over political and funding issues.
“Animal Control” is a service paid for by the city (and it’s taxpayers). It licences pets, picks up stray animals, tries to return lost pets, and provides emergency humane euthanasia. It does not shelter animals, merely houses them for one week to ten days until they are either claimed, transferred to the Animal Shelter, picked up by a rescue group or euthanized.
The “Animal Shelter” is a nonprofit who actually provides public adoption and tries to rehome these animals.
Animal Control would be the first to tell you that they are not trying to save lives or stop killing – their job is Animal Control. The Animal Shelter and rescue groups are the ones who are trying to save the animals. And if they don’t have room/resources? Not Animal Control’s fault. Or problem.
The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
This place had an animal control officer who was trying to do right by the animals. The crazy asshat who decided that killing was the only option is the city manager. The newspaper article I read stated that they hoped that rescues would pull animals before they were killed (well, they said euthanized, but we all know that they are killed, not euthanized). I think this woman needs to be locked away in a mental institution. She makes no sense whatsoever. It’s just tragic and so many animals are going to die . . .
This place may have had an AC who was trying to do right by the animals, but the city manager seems to feel like “Separation of Church & State” is the only answer and is taking steps to implement it; she feels that taxpayers don’t want to pay for animal saving services and that the city doesn’t want to budget for them either – “animal saving services” should be provided by nonprofit orgs, charities or private rescue groups.
The bottom line: “Our job is killing animals not saving them” might seem sociopathic, but then the city manager is not “on the front lines” so to speak, the animals represent mostly numbers and letters on paper to her.
Surprisingly, a lot of people feel that Animal Control is a Public Service, and Animal Shelter is Private Service.
SYLVIA CARILLO IS A SOCIOPATH IF YOU ASK ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE IS A DANGER TO ANIMALS AND TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC
Just FYI: There is a city in Texas called “Texas City”. It is right outside of Houston. When I got the email about your blog, it appeared that you were talking about the Texas City manager.
Note that the FB page for the city’s police department has a link to a survey asking, “Are you in favor of adding a $5 utility surcharge to pay for animal care services?” Based on the comment made by Ms. Carillo (“…our primary goal should be euthanization. We have not planned accordingly or budgeted accordingly”), it sounds to me as though they want to charge people a fee to pay for euthanasia drugs they didn’t budget for. Here’s the page: https://www.facebook.com/AransasPassPD
I posted a comment regarding how they could stop killing animals on the City’s FB page and it was deleted and now I am banned from commenting. Obviously, they do NOT want to know about any alternatives besides killing everything.
If you want to tell the City what you think, you can do so here: http://wp.aransaspasstx.gov/city-administration/make-a-comment/
Karma’s a bitch: Can’t wait until it catches up with this one…
Try the Chamber of Commerence web site. If enough people tell them they won’t be riding through to leave their money maybe the morons will put pressure on the City Council to get rid of Ms. Carrillo. Who BTW is nothing more than a glorified real estate manager according to the letters after her name. This sounds like another GOB – place full of nepotism.