Animal Refuge Flap Prompts State Audit

The Wildlife Waystation, a secluded refuge in Angeles National Forest for homeless tigers, bears, wolves and other wild or exotic animal orphans, is the center of a controversy over whether its founder and president is taking too big a cut of the donations that flow in from animal-lovers.

Six of the Waystation’s 14 directors have resigned, contending that Martine Colette’s $11,000-a-month take is too much for a nonprofit agency, it was revealed Thursday.

In response to such complaints from former board members, the California attorney general’s office is launching an audit of the group, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Jim Schwartz, who declined to comment further on the audit.

The former board members complained that Colette collects a $6,500-a-month salary plus $4,500 in monthly rent for the land--which she owns--that houses the 160-acre refuge. But she is unwilling to hire a veterinarian for the animals, ignoring the “true mission of the Wildlife Waystation,” according to the former board members’ joint resignation letter, submitted in November.

“For anybody to be taking that money for themselves and then sending out letters of appeal for more, there’s something wrong,” June Matthews, one of the former board members, said in an interview.

Matthews was one of several former board members who questioned Colette on Thursday evening during a meeting in North Hollywood, when three new members were appointed to replace the dissidents on the 14-member panel.

In an interview before the meeting, Colette defended her management of the Waystation, saying the resignations reflected “sour grapes” over personal conflicts between herself and some board members and differences of opinion over how the refuge should be run.

“We have outgrown certain people, and they have resigned from the board because we have gone one way and they decided to go another way,” she said.

She rejected allegations of misusing funds, saying the IRS completed an audit a year ago and found nothing amiss. The animals are cared for by an outside veterinarian who visits the facility each week, she said.

“Everything is fine,” Colettee said. “The people who are (making the accusations) didn’t get their way and decided to resign in a grand way.”

But the former board members blasted Colette at Thursday’s meeting, challenging her to explain how she is spending donations for the Waystation.

Diana Higashi, an eight-year board member who resigned in November, said she was most concerned that Colette has spent over $91,000 on a plan to open a new Waystation facility in Arizona.

“Donors had no idea that their money was going to Arizona,” she said.

Higashi also complained that the Waystation does not have a full-time licensed veterinarian.

Colette defended her salary and rental fees, saying they were approved by the board of directors. She also said that for 16 years she operated the Waystation without a salary.

In a joint resignation letter dated Nov. 29, the six resigning board members cited a section of the Waystation’s articles of incorporation that states that “no part of the net income or assets of this corporation shall ever inure to the benefit of any director, officer or member thereof.”

The letter goes on to say that the six directors are resigning because they “are in substantial and continuing disagreement with many of the Wildlife Waystation’s past, present and proposed expenditures of donors’ contributions.”

The facility, hidden in a rocky, wooded canyon east of Lake View Terrace, houses domestic and exotic animals as large as elephants abandoned by zoos and private owners. Colette has headed the refuge since it opened in 1972.

Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this story.