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Changes at Humane Society dismay some, please others
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/071206_pco-01.jpg) |
| File photo by CHARY SOUTHMAYD |
| Rick Chaboudy, longtime director of the Humane Society of Pinellas, abruptly left in early May. Directors are searching for a replacement. |
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CLEARWATER – The winds of change have been blowing through the Humane Society of Pinellas since its longtime director Rick Chaboudy abruptly left on May 5. But opinions differ as to whether that’s good or bad.
“It has become a chaotic mess,” said Jane Somers, who was recently fired as the shelter’s volunteer coordinator. “The working environment has become so stressful and hostile that people are getting fired and getting sick from stress.”
The official reasons for her termination, Somers said, were violating “specific company policies” and excessive absenteeism, which she attributes to job-related stress. But she believes the real reason was for criticizing the shelter in an interview with a St. Petersburg Times reporter.
Approximately one-third of the shelter’s 36 paid employees have quit, been fired or given their two-week notice since Chaboudy left, as have several volunteers, according to Somers. Kim Trimmer, the shelter director, was demoted, and later canned, after eight years on the payroll. Kennel supervisor Nancy Turcotte was axed after allegedly arguing with 12-year volunteer Karen Mazurek, wife of the shelter’s interim director, Bill Mazurek, over a dog adoption.
While declining to comment on specific cases because of a policy against discussing personnel matters, Jack Geller, chairman of the Humane Society board of directors, said that in any organization the grumblings of a few disgruntled former employees should be taken with a grain of salt.
“Everybody is making a big deal about nothing,” Geller said. “We have a new work ethic and some people don’t want to work. Some people don’t like change. Some people put themselves ahead of the animals … The animals have to be primary in all moves. I feel very comfortable that what we’re doing is right for them.”
Among other changes, Geller said, the society will be run more like a business because, unless sound business practices are instituted, it won’t survive to serve the animals. According to IRS records, the society had income of $1.36 million and expenses of $1.2 million in 2004.
There have been some informal merger talks between the SPCA Tampa Bay and Humane Society of Pinellas, said Beth Lockwood, executive director of the SPCA in Largo. But both Lockwood and Geller said no merger is imminent.
The Humane Society has launched a nationwide search for Chaboudy’s replacement, Geller said, and in the meantime, the society’s board has complete confidence in Mazurek, who volunteered at the shelter for 10 years and served on its board for seven years before taking over as interim director.
“Bill (Mazurek) is doing a fantastic job,” Geller said. “He has a full-time job (as a senior project manager for a medical device company) and works at least 40 hours a week at the Humane Society, yet he and his wife have taken a lot of abuse and had their integrity questioned.”
Why Chaboudy suddenly left after more than 20 years at the society is a mystery. His friends said he is “dying to tell” his side of the story, but can’t because his severance package contains a four-month moratorium on talking to the press. Geller would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a moratorium.
Speculation is that Chaboudy left in connection with two dogs from New Orleans, a St. Bernard named Master Tank and a shepherd-mix named Nila, which were owned by Steven and Dorreen Couture and were among the 288 animals Chaboudy brought to the Humane Society of Pinellas after Hurricane Katrina. Master Tank was fostered, and later adopted, by Pam Bondi of Tampa, and Rhonda Rineker of Dunedin did the same with Nila.
When Bondi and Rineker refused to return their dogs, the Coutures sued and named the Humane Society as a co-defendant. Ceily Trog, the animal control manager for St. Bernard Parish, La., said Chaboudy and the Humane Society wanted the dogs as a fundraising gimmick and had no interest in reuniting them with their rightful owners.
“Everyone knows the reason for the HS (Humane Society) of Pinellas County’s grandstanding,” Trog wrote in an e-mail distributed to reporters at a June 27 press conference the Coutures held at Pinellas County Animal Services in Largo. “It is the donation dollars that rolled in off the backs of our residents’ suffering. The St. Bernard ‘rescued’ from St. Bernard Parish was the hottest property around. The whole of St. Bernard Parish had been wiped out; our residents lost everything and here there were several rescue groups fighting over Master Tank because they all knew how valuable he was to their bottom line. It was like the HS of Pinellas County won the lottery when they were the lucky ones to get Master Tank.”
Trog added that, if the society really cared about the 4-year-old dogs which had been together since they were puppies, it would have kept them together “as rescue groups are required to do,” instead of separating them.
Saying that he “can’t talk about Katrina dogs” or personnel matters, Geller would not say if there was any connection between the Coutures’ dogs and Chaboudy’s departure.
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Article published on Wednesday, July 12, 2006
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