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Update: The City Council voted 6-1, with Greg Tanaka dissenting, on March 18 to approve the new Pets In Need contract.
After more than two years of negotiations, Palo Alto is preparing to ink a new five-year contract Monday night with Pets In Need, a nonprofit whose relationship with the city has been frayed by employee conflicts, policy disagreements and public concerns about animal safety.
The proposal, which the Palo Alto City Council is set to approve on March 18, hews closely to the term sheet that council members had tentatively endorsed last August. It roughly doubles the amount that Pets In Need would receive in city funding to $1.4 million per year, with an annual escalator, for a total of $7.37 million. It also preserves the existing prohibition on releasing feral cats after they’re spayed, a policy that Pets In Need was hoping to change.
In approving the new deal, both the city and Pets In Need are hoping for a fresh start after a tumultuous few years. The initial contract that the city had signed with Pets In Need in 2018 committed $3.4 million to what was then envisioned as a five-year deal between the city and the nonprofit, which operates animal shelters in Redwood City and Palo Alto and which touts itself a no-kill shelter.
Relations between the city and Pets In Need ruptured in August 2021, when seven puppies died inside a hot van while they were being transferred by Pets In Need employees from the Central Valley to the Peninsula. The incident triggered a police investigation that resulted in charges against the employees; the resignation of the nonprofit’s Executive Director Al Mollica; a growing rift among staff from the Redwood City and Palo Alto shelters; and a wholesale shake-up in leadership at the nonprofit.
Pets In Need, for its part, had accused the city for failing to live up to its commitment to make capital improvements to the shelter at 3281 East Bayshore Road. The new agreement would require the city to commit $2.5 million in fiscal year 2025, which begins on July 1, to build a new area for cats and small animals, improve the dog kennels and retrofit the medical suite to accommodate large animals, according to a report from the Community Services Department.
Pets In Need would be required to maintain public access hours to the shelter seven days per week, for at least 40 hours per week. It would also have to provide low-cost spay and neuter services to dogs and cats in the service area, which includes Palo Alto, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. The deal stipulates that the waiting period for animal owners from these jurisdictions would not exceed one month, barring “unexpected or exceptional circumstances.” Pets In Need would also be required to provide low-cost vaccination clinics in Palo Alto at least once per week.
Much like in the current contract, which has been repeatedly extended on a short-term basis to allow for negotiations, the city’s police department will remain in charge of animal control.
While the council is expected to approve the contract, not everyone thinks it’s a perfect deal. Animal Control Officer Jeannette Washington lamented during the August discussion the city’s decision not to further explore an in-house model for animal services and argued that the deal with Pets In Need asks for “more money for less services.”
Council members Pat Burt and Vicki Veenker both suggested at that time that the city explore other options for adoption services, including state-of-the-art regional facilities like Humane Society Silicon Valley in Milpitas. Burt argued that even with a $2.5-million investment, the city’s shelter would still be substandard in comparison.
“Should we be doing adoptive services? Are we best at that?” Burt asked.
Pets In Need CEO Laura Toller Gardner pushed back and said that removing adoption services from the Palo Alto shelter would create a barrier for local residents looking to adopt.
“There’s very few if any shelters in the country that I’m aware of that separate out this kind of services — that completely divorce adoption from everything else they do,” Toller Gardner told the council.
Council members had also flirted with the idea of signing a contract for a shorter duration, perhaps three years. But city staff and Pets In Need requested the five-year timeline so that the organization would have enough time to improve the shelter.
“We want to make sure Pets In Need has ample time to benefit from those capital projects that they will be involved in developing,” Community Services Director Kristen O’Kane said during the August discussion.
Veenker also said she wants to make sure that the new contract, like the existing one, has a termination clause for material breach, with a one-year written notice. The proposed deal includes such a clause.
The council is slated to approve the contract on its consent calendar as part of a list of non-controversial items.
We would be wise to listen to the experienced voice of animal control officer Washington and do a thorough review of the quantity and quality of services we get from Pets In Need. Given the problematic history of Pets In Need, we should have a citizen oversight commission perform a study before we commit these funds for 5 years. And there should be an explicit cost comparison with direct services from Palo Alto staff as we had in prior years.
In addition, it is more than frustrating that we contemplate spending $7+ million on animal services and yet cannot meet the promise of our 2017 Parks Master Plan to have more off-leash dog parks in more neighborhoods in Palo Alto. In comparison, dog parks are small dollar investments in the health and socialization of local dogs that are treasured family members for many of us.