Cleveland was issued a written reprimand then placed on a 90-day probation during a rambunctious April meeting of the board. Due to the atmosphere of the previous meeting, the board originally declared Thursday’s meeting would be closed to the public, only to change their minds.
Chilcote, speaking in reference to the outcome of the last meeting, said in her speech, “The director was told there would be mediation between the board and herself to attempt to resolve some issues and help create a better working environment for all. Instead, the mediator met with board members but not the shelter director. Now we’re being told much of the shelter’s operations are being restructured but it’s curious that the input from the person who runs said shelter day in and day out, and has had much success in turning things around, wasn’t needed. This is just one example of how the communication is broken and the respect is missing.”
Chelsea Timmons, the newest member of the board who was appointed last month, addressed numerous topics at the beginning of the meeting including a letter circulating on social media. Among them were Cleveland, to which Timmons replied her, “employment nor performance will be discussed tonight.” Also mentioned were the future of CTSAC, its finances, and the board itself.
Of the board, Timmons said, “The letter also questions the board’s performance. Again, we are listening and that is what we are working on here tonight. We’re here tonight to determine whether or not to hire an independent consultant to help us look at both the operations of the board and the shelter. You guys have concerns about how the board is running. The board has concerns about how the shelter is running. Both of those areas of concern need to be looked at and worked on. That is exactly what we are here tonight to do.”
The lone action item to come to a vote was the hiring of TJM Consulting, which was approved by all board members in attendance. Board Treasurer Minessa Mesic missed the meeting due to an illness in the family, which also led to the financial report not being presented. Board President John Morris stated the financial report would be emailed to anyone who wished to see a copy, as the document consists of 46 pages.
Chilcote, in her comments regarding the future of the animal center, shared her thoughts on the board.
“What you see are supporters of the true mission of Corinne T. Smith Animal Center, a group comprised of fosters, donors, animal lovers, business owners, and even former board members such as myself,” Chilcote said. “Our common goal is setting things right for our shelter, its staff, and the innocent animals. After witnessing first hand the lack of professionalism, accountability and productivity of this board of directors at the last meeting, many felt it was time to get involved. So many of us thought CTSAC had been in good shape. Adoptions had been up, euthanizations had been down, even in this time of COVID. What we didn’t realize is the group of people that our shelter relies on, its board of directors, was failing us all.
“Since its inception in 1974 Corinne T. Smith and a group of intrepid friends went to work with one mission – save the animals. There is no chance that can happen under current construct. This community needs to get involved. This board needs to answer for its mistakes. The shelter needs to survive. There has been so much attention given recently to this situation, and we hope after this meeting the conclusion is reached that the only way CTASC can weather this storm is with the resignation of the current board of directors. Their resistance to abide by the mission statement and their inability to support and benefit our shelter demands it. The only way CTSAC survives is if we, the Brown County community, get involved, take a stand, and work together to successfully carry on the legacy of Corinne T. Smith.”
Earlier, while stating Cleveland’s performance would not be discussed during the meeting, Timmons said, “We had a large turnout that already pointed out things we already knew and love hearing. She’s assisted in cleaning up the shelter, improving quality of life for the animals, shelter numbers are comparatively low, kill rates are low and her employees really respect her. Those are all things to be applauded. Our concerns fell on her performance in her other job duties, but we listened to the public and we put her on a probationary period. Her job performance will be reviewed in the future but not tonight.”
Chilcote further addressed the situation with the executive director, stating, “Leona Cleveland came on as interim director in April 2020 and immediately went to work making things better. Her staff supports her which was very evident at the last meeting. Leona is respected by her staff by clearly not the board who is meant to support her. A special meeting was called earlier this month to discuss two things – the future of CTSAC and the possible termination of director Leona Cleveland. Despite a litany of reasons and excuses, the board’s argument returned to money time and time again. She spends too much money, she’s over budget, etc. Let me just say my friends, and I have done a little research, Leona and CTSAC boast a 97 percent live rate. Euthanizing animals is cheap, but caring for them is not.
“Despite only taking the helm in April and taking over bookkeeping duties in July of 2020, the board of directors has laid this entire financial mess on her shoulders. Please be aware there was past due invoices, some totaling nearly $20,000, in addition to facilities in desperate need of attention. Taking a look at the financials, and we did the digging as the treasurer didn’t produce a financial report at the last meeting, but taking a look at the most recent financials some discrepancies were noticed. The shelter might be over budget in some areas but under in others. Animal care expenses have dropped with improved policy. Instead of praising the hard work going into the kill rate and reallocating money from euthanasia to vaccination, Leona is reprimanded for exorbitant spending. Instead of praising a generous donation for a transport van, she’s bad mouthed for spending too much. Instead of praising grants Leona wrote and received, and adoption income being way up, complaints availed. Instead of following their supposed duty and raising much needed funds for CTSAC, it’s seemingly been easier for this board to make excuses and point fingers.”
Cleveland then presented the shelter director’s report which included an intake of 27 dogs and 31 cats in the month of May. Some of the 31 cats had been trapped, neutered and released and should not have been taken to the shelter. Cleveland added 13 cat and 9 dog strays have come in as well this month. Adoption numbers were 21 dogs and 15 cats.
There were 4 euthanizations to which Cleveland said, “You can only do so much with the amount of kittens that are coming into us at this time. I think right now we probably have close to 50 kittens. And yes I do turn away people and I’m sorry, but we can only do so much. I only have so much room and I’m never going back to what I saw a year and a half ago.”
Cleveland also addressed some current financial concerns, including charities who are not distributing as much money as in years past due to COVID issues over the past year.
Also, Cleveland said, “a budget proposal to City is due June 15 and Chelsea has said she would like to work with me on this but we still haven’t had a chance to get together. Some little things, we’re having problems with are the lawn mower and my husband spent five hours mowing. He’s disabled, and he’s having to do the shelter mowing. My husband has nothing to do with the shelter, he’s not on the board, he’s not a volunteer and he was out there five hours Sunday because the grass was so high. I was made aware we have a donation and a matching donation at ASAP Creative Arts for wrapping the van, but nobody has gotten back to me about that. I haven’t seen an agenda so I don’t know if it’s an agenda item or not. The van travels, it goes to the bank, it goes to Austin, it goes to Stephenville, it’s a walking billboard. I don’t know who made that donation, it was anonymous, and the fact that ASAP would match it is amazing.
“I’m also asking for direction, again, regarding spay and neuter. Because of the budget, I will need it probably in the next two to three weeks. We did write a grant to DHHS which is a Texas grant, however, that is for community animals it’s not for my shelter animals. I do need direction on what to do with our shelter animals. Do I continue adoptions, do we shut down adoptions? It’s a very gray area as far as if it’s legal for a shelter to release an animal that’s unaltered, but in my heart it’s not gray. I have booked two trips to Weatherford in June and even though I love the veterinarians we work with here, I do that because I can get the cats up to Weatherford and get them spayed or neutered for no more than $35, which is about half price what I pay here. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make more of those trips, unfortunately they book out. They contacted me today for trips in August and again I need direction. Whatever we’re going to do we need to find an answer, and we need to find an answer soon. I’m running out of money.”
The board later OKed Cleveland to secure an August reservation in Weatherford to spay and neuter.
Earlier in the meeting, Timmons addressed the speculation in the circulated letter that the board wanted to turn the shelter back over to the City of Brownwood.
“It says that the board is seemingly in favor of turning the shelter over to the city,” Timmons said. “Well it might seem that way when you’re reading these things on social media, but we want to assure you that the board, the executive director and staff are all united in our strong desire to keep the shelter open and not turn it back over to the City. There may be differing opinions on how we want that to happen, but we are dedicated to working through it together. No board member has ever said that the intent or want is to turn over the shelter to the city. The only statement that was made, and the absolute truth, is that the money is running out and if we do not do something to fix it, we will be forced to turn it over.”
Regarding the board’s original decision to hold a close meeting, Timmons said, “We want you to know that we are happy so many of you are concerned about the shelter and we value the opinions of all of you. Contrary to what you might be hearing we listen to you. That is one reason why the board has always held open meetings in the past. The only reason we even considered closing the meetings to the public was because of the environment at our recent meetings. That makes the meetings long, disorganized and makes it near impossible to get any actual business done. You have to understand this is our time to get work done and there’s a lot of work to do. When we announced we were going to have the meeting closed we heard the public outcry and outraged and we listened. We opened the meeting back up, but in order to get our work done today and keep order in this meeting we have to put some rules in place. We will not be hearing comments from anybody who is not on the agenda, we will not be taking any questions, and please no disruption of our meeting. If you cannot abide by these rules you will be asked to leave and if you refuse, you will be escorted out. I pray that we don’t have to do that because our decision about holding open or closed meetings in the future depends on the audience tonight.”
There were no disruptions nor issues between those in attendance and the board during Thursday’s meeting.
The next meeting of the CTSAC board is slated for June 24.
