Humane Society Under Fire Over Power, Secrecy

Glenda Brunette, a 58-year-old widow, was out shopping one June day when Ventura County Humane Society officers, sheriff’s deputies and county code enforcement officers cut the chain on the gate of her Ojai avocado farm.

Armed with guns and a search warrant, the group seized three dozen cats, a dozen ducks and a Doberman pinscher from her Fairview Road home, court records show. Then they arrested Brunette on animal abuse charges.

Two years later, the courts have ruled that the humane officers had no authority to conduct the 1995 raid. But Brunette still faces five misdemeanor charges. And her cats remain at the society’s Ojai shelter.

For members of the county’s tightly knit animal welfare community, the raid on Brunette’s home symbolizes what they see as intimidating power wielded by a nonprofit group given police powers but little public scrutiny.

Officials with the group, formed in 1932 as the Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Animals, vigorously rebut such charges. They paint opponents as militant animal rights crusaders who want to stop all animal euthanasia and are planning a hostile takeover of the group.

“I think there are people out there trying to discredit the Humane Society,” shelter Director Jolene Hoffman said. “We’ve put a lot of years into making it what it is. . . . We do everything the law requires us to do.”

But some volunteers and society members argue that a small cadre of people have dominated the group for years, setting policies and controlling the purse strings of a multimillion-dollar organization. The result, they contend, is an organization that sits on a nearly $3-million bank account, yet spends so little on animal programs that other groups have formed to do the job.

“I believe the motivation is money and greed rather than animals,” said Ojai resident Elizabeth Wikle, a former shelter volunteer and later the subject of a Humane Society investigation. “I think they’ve had a strong hold on the community for such a long time.”

The conflict is an emotional issue in a county where an estimated 20,000 cats and dogs are put to death every year.

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A showdown is scheduled Thursday at a Humane Society meeting at the county’s animal regulation offices in Camarillo.

The meeting has been called to change the group’s bylaws for the first time in more than 25 years.

Society officials say it’s just a matter of overhauling archaic bylaws and bringing the group into compliance with state laws governing nonprofit organizations.

Opponents--who include community activists, nonprofit group leaders and an Ojai city councilwoman--note that the changes would also strip voting rights from the society’s more than 1,200 members, further reducing accountability and consolidating the power of those who dominate the group.

“If we lose this bylaw vote, we’re going to be losing our voice and the dogs are going to be losing their lives,” Wikle said.

A loose-knit group of about a dozen people has met on and off for about five years to swap “horror stories” about the Humane Society, she said.

Those include an Oxnard business owner who served time in jail for animal neglect only to find that her animals were seized under a law never enacted in Ventura County.

They include bookkeeping that the society’s attorney calls sloppy and a nationally recognized nonprofit watchdog group called bizarre, with financial reserves so deep that the group could survive without any public donations for the next three years.

And they include the proposed bylaws, which would allow board members to appoint their successors, rather than put the matter to a vote of the members--the hundreds of Ventura County residents who contribute to its coffers.

The critics, who include active and former volunteers, concede that the Humane Society’s inherent credibility with the public makes it an uphill battle to convince others of the legitimacy of their claims.

It is hard to find a group with a warmer and fuzzier image than the Humane Society, devoted as it is to caring for unwanted cats and dogs and preventing animal cruelty.

“This is the best humane society I’ve ever seen,” said Ojai resident Carol Reid, who visits the society’s Bryant Street shelter regularly with her 9-year-old daughter to cuddle cats. “They do treat them as individuals and they really seem to love them.”

So how did a group with such an honorable mission become embroiled in a bitter power struggle?

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Opponents maintain that the roots of the conflict evolved from a combination of mismanagement and the unique quasi-governmental powers accorded to what is, on its face, a charitable organization.

Anyone can form a humane society, said Kathy Jenks, director of the county’s animal regulation department. Indeed, since the 1800s, plenty of people nationwide have done just that.

Unaffiliated with any national organization, the Ojai-based Humane Society is subject to no accrediting procedures.

Although the society has no formal contract, the county government relies on its expertise to handle animal cruelty cases countywide to such an extent that Jenks said her department simply could not do its job without the organization.

A state law more than 80 years old allows animal welfare groups to appoint humane officers who have the power to wear law enforcement-style uniforms and badges, and conduct criminal investigations with minimal oversight.

That invites abuse, said Henry Rossbacher, a former U. S. attorney in Los Angeles who has filed a $5-million lawsuit against local Humane Society officers for their role in the Brunette case.

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In his client’s case, society officers received and executed a court-issued search warrant, rather than relying on the armed sheriff’s deputies who accompanied them to do so.

“That is the world turned upside down,” he said. “The fatal flaw is there is no political responsibility. There is no public official you can go to and say in the vernacular, your troops screwed up.”

Bill Redmond, who supervises prosecution of animal cruelty cases in the district attorney’s office, said he knows of no other charitable organization with comparable law enforcement powers.

Redmond concedes that he is unclear whether the Humane Society should be regarded primarily as a charity or law enforcement agency. Moreover, he said supervision of the Humane Society officers’ execution of search warrants simply isn’t within the prosecutor’s purview. But the district attorney’s office nevertheless takes seriously animal abuse cases the society reports, he said.

“The Humane Society is responsible for its operation,” he said. “We review their cases just as we review any other police agency case.”

Jenks goes further. “No one supervises them,” she said flatly.

On Sept. 10, a panel of local judges ruled that humane officers had no right to execute a search warrant and thus raid Brunette’s home.

But that ruling only applies to her case, said Roger Jon Diamond, the attorney who appealed the search warrant’s validity to the Ventura County Superior Court’s Appellate Department.

A check of court records shows that no search warrants have been granted in recent months.

Humane Society officials, while recognizing the legal questions, say they have the right to conduct such searches.

Diamond maintains that it would be inadvisable for them to try.

“The fact they’ve been doing it all these years does not mean it was legal at the time,” he said. “It’s just that no one ever questioned their authority.”

Lack of oversight and apparent ignorance of the law can lead to wrongful prosecution, Oak View attorney David Moore said.

In a 1994 case involving Barbara Gibson, who once ran an Oxnard feed and pet store, authorities acted incorrectly at almost every legal juncture, he said.

The Humane Society, alleging neglect, unlawfully seized horses, rabbits, rats and pigeons in a “SWAT team-like” raid, Moore charged in court papers. But the state code used to seize Gibson’s animals had never been approved for use in Ventura County, he added.

Found guilty of more than a dozen counts of animal neglect, Gibson elected to serve 40 days in jail rather than lose her pets. In the process, she lost the strip mall she owned, owes thousands of dollars to the Humane Society for the care of her animals and is unemployed.

Even the district attorney’s office was unaware of the improper use of the law until Moore pointed it out, he said.

Gibson was railroaded and never should have been convicted, he said. But most people can’t afford to fight such charges and allow their animals to be taken, Moore said.

Kathy LaSalle, the deputy district attorney who prosecutes criminal cases involving animals, said the Humane Society is no longer citing the code section used in the Gibson case. She said she was unaware of any other cases in which the section had been used.

Many former volunteers and workers contend that overly harsh humane officers have created an uneasy climate in the animal welfare community.

Hoffman, the shelter director, rejects charges that the organization acts recklessly in its abuse investigations.

“Some people think we’re being overzealous,” she said. “Isn’t it odd that the ones who think we’re being overzealous are the ones who are being busted for animal abuse?”

But the complaints go beyond the law enforcement tactics. Some Humane Society members believe that the group has mismanaged its finances, stockpiling contributions while animal needs go untended.

Tax records obtained from the IRS show that the society had about $2.7 million in reserves at the end of 1995. That year, the group spent $88,000 on animal programs, down from $670,000 in 1994.

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Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a watchdog group that publishes a charity rating guide, examined the Humane Society’s tax filings for the years 1993 through 1995 at The Times’ request.

He characterized what he found as a pattern of inept and inconsistent record keeping that revealed a group awash in cash, but with questionable accountability.

“It’s riddled with errors, these statements,” Borochoff said. “The donors in Ventura County should think about whether they want to give to an organization that has so much money. Most charities have only a year’s worth in reserve.”

In comparison, the Humane Society has at least three years’ worth of operating expenses. The National Charities Information Bureau considers assets twice that of operating expenses a reasonable figure, he said.

Drawing conclusions about the society’s financial condition is difficult considering the forms simply appear to be filled out incorrectly year after year, Borochoff said.

The Humane Society’s 1996 income tax returns show a similar story, said attorney Bill Wewer, hired recently to bring the group into compliance with laws governing nonprofit groups.

For instance, the group lists zero financial assistance to individuals last year, even though officials boast of helping people with emergency money for animal care.

“We’re going to get them straightened out,” Wewer said of the society’s fiscal record keeping. “At least give them credit that they are getting their show together as opposed to letting the sloppiness continue.”

A related problem is the secrecy critics say is endemic to the nonprofit group’s culture.

Until complaints in the past few weeks, the society would not show its members tax forms, board minutes or names of board members, several critics said.

“They seem to be incredibly secretive about everything,” said Leonard Klaif, an Ojai attorney and president of the nonprofit Ojai Valley Center for the Arts.

Klaif believes that the revamped bylaws up for a vote next week would allow those in charge to consolidate their power, particularly with the move to allow the present board to pick its successors.

“They staged their own coup and now they’re trying to ratify it,” he said. “To vote them to stay in power forever without any kinds of checks and balances invites abuse.”

Ojai City Councilwoman Suza Francina said she was shocked at the suspicion with which board members regard outsiders when she attended a Sept. 17 board meeting.

Francina, who had intended to address some of her constituents’ concerns, arrived at the meeting only to discover that society President Joyce George would not attend due to emergency surgery. Things deteriorated from there, she said.

“They would not give their names,” she said of the people running the meeting. “I know how meetings are conducted. . . . This was a joke.”

George claims that she has had no contact with Francina or other members seeking reform, while at the same time conceding that some board members were “playing games” during the meeting.

George puts the attempt at anonymity down to the “fairly hostile” climate between society officials and those calling for change.

“We had some problems with stalking and some letters written to us,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of communication. I don’t know what their agendas are.”

The suspicion, however, is that opponents of the present regime are aligned with the movement that advocates no-kill shelters, which has split the animal welfare community nationally.

The critics say those concerns are unjustified.

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Volunteer Elisabeth Arvin and others say the society should improve its spay and neuter program, expand its pet adoption program and provide better conditions for animals at the shelter.

“I have defended the Humane Society against the people who say they like to kill animals,” said Arvin, who ran a Kentucky humane society for nearly 20 years. “I know myself how necessary it is to kill animals and I know how misrepresented that can become.”

Wewer cautions that the strategy employed by those who say they want reform is not inconsistent with that employed by radical animal rights groups that have assumed control of established humane societies in the past.

Yet he also recognizes that the ingrained secrecy can be unhealthy.

“I have been working very hard with my clients to be open to people,” he said. “Why not take as many steps as we can to move away from the perception of secrecy and strong-arm tactics?”

Meanwhile, the Humane Society and those who want reform are contacting members, urging them to come out and vote.

“We’re not a group trying to take over the Humane Society,” former volunteer Dale Thatcher insisted. “This is breaking my heart.”

Hoffman also has her regrets.

“It’s been really sad that people have put so much energy into trying to destroy us,” she said. “We are just doing our job. And we are doing a good job.”