Pound Director Likely To Stay

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 17, 2003 

By TY TAGAMI

The leading candidate for the job of transforming the troubled Fulton County pound should have no problem getting to know the place.

He's been running it for four years.

Only two organizations submitted applications to replace the Atlanta Humane Society, whose management of the pound has drawn criticism from animal advocates. The county staff is recommending Synergy Management Services, the company that will keep the current director, Ron Totten.

Totten started at the pound some two decades ago as an assistant driver. Atlanta Humane, which has operated the facility under contract since 1974, promoted him to director four years ago.

Dog and cat adoption groups credit the county with rewriting its contract to require more adoptions at the facility. But some of them doubt Totten is up to the job.

"He's had 20 years to implement even small changes, and he's done nothing," said Janet Weiss, president of Stopping Pet Over-population Together, an alliance of dog and cat advocates who have been haranguing Atlanta Humane and county commissioners about pet deaths for more than two years.

On Sunday afternoon, about 30 people protested outside the Fulton County Animal Control shelter on Marietta Boulevard downtown.

Beth Rook, a member of Georgia Legal Professionals For Animals, said she and others who oppose Totten will try to meet today or Tuesday with Fulton Commission Chairman Mike Kenn. They want to persuade him and the commission to veto the recommendation that Synergy Management Services get the contract.

"We are not a bunch of animal rights, PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] fanatics," she said. "But you can't tell me Ron Totten will change things when he's had the job for four years and during that time they've had an 82 percent kill rate."

But Totten said he and his staff of about three dozen are eager to tackle the challenge. "My critics are just afraid of me," he said. "They're afraid I'm going to do a good job."

Fulton County Animal Control has earned unwanted attention because it kills four of five animals that come through the door. Officials at Atlanta Humane, a nonprofit that has been paid about $2 million a year to run the pound on Marietta Boulevard, have blamed the kill rate on the sick, vicious and otherwise "unadoptable" condition of strays in Fulton.

Atlanta Humane will cease running the pound Thursday. The County Commission is expected to approve a contract with a new vendor at its semi-monthly meeting Wednesday.

The new contract offers much to please animal advocates, including a mandate for public adoptions at the pound; the use of computerized chip implant scanners to reunite lost animals with owners; and an extension to seven days of the period for which strays are held before they are killed. That period is three days under the current contract, which has been in effect since 1982.

Three-day limit

The three-day limit and a policy against allowing the public into the pound to adopt has resulted in the routine euthanizing of animals, including beloved pets.

Mimi Skandalakis, the mother of former County Commission Chairman Mitch Skandalakis, said that four years ago the pound killed two of her dogs, including a $2,000 Great Dane named Achilles.

The pets left her unfenced yard in Buckhead, and she canvassed the neighborhood for four days until a neighbor told her she had seen animal control taking them. Skandalakis said she called the pound that night but it had closed. She said she called early the next morning but got a busy signal for two hours until someone answered at 7 a.m.

"I said, 'You've got my dogs up there.' And they said, 'Oh, we just put them to sleep,' " Skandalakis said. "It was such a traumatic experience." She said the dogs were wearing collars and the requisite tags when they disappeared, yet no one from the pound called her. "I just think they should be doing a better job."

Totten said he hasn't changed much at the pound because "I, like everyone else, answer to someone." Asked whether he meant his boss, Bill Garrett, the executive director of Atlanta Humane, who has been the object of much of the criticism from animal activists, Totten fell silent.

Moments later, he said, "Some really positive things are going to be taking place in the future."

Group of volunteers

The organization that submitted the unsuccessful proposal to run the pound was a 10-year-old nonprofit group consisting of volunteers who take in strays and find them homes. The group, the Southern HOPE Humane Society, ran the adoption program at the Paulding County Animal Control shelter in the late 1990s.

The outfit that county staff wants to award the contract to is a for-profit company incorporated Feb. 25 and lists a home address at the Mail Boxes Etc. on 10th Street near downtown Atlanta.

A selection committee of county employees deemed Synergy as "presenting the best value," according to a March 10 staff memo released Friday by the office of Commission Chairman Kenn.

The new contract requires monthly reports from the vendor. "We're confident that the controls have been put in place so that this thing doesn't go haywire again," said Susan Laccetti Meyers, Kenn's spokeswoman.

Synergy Management will retain Totten as director of the pound, Laccetti Meyers said. Totten declined to say who the owner of the company was or how the person could be contacted. The information was unavailable from the county.

Stacey Hall of Cobb County, the president of Southern HOPE Humane, said the selection process was "bizarre" because county officials seemed to be trying to get her group to back out. She said she suspected all along that Totten would be associated with the winning bidder. Indeed, a board member of Hall's group contacted Totten last week to ask if he would be willing to work for it in midlevel management if it got the contract.

Hall said the county was clearly concerned about a smooth transition. Atlanta Humane gave Fulton County 90 days to find a new vendor, after the county announced it was re-writing its contract and allowing others to bid on it.

Hall said she's hopeful Totten will make the desired changes at the pound. The County Commission is likely to hear about it if he doesn't.

"We want change," Hall said. "I don't think the animal welfare community is going to go away on this."

-- Staff writer Jeffry Scott contributed to this article.

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