A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my best friend’s experience with King County Animal Control. In short, my friend’s mother-in-law found herself caring for more than half a dozen cats and kittens that took up residency in a portion of her home. The cats needed to go as they were creating an unsanitary environment for my friend’s father-in-law who is dying of cancer.
They tried unsuccessfully to take the cats to the Kent shelter- they weren’t even there for 10 minutes because 
they were immediately turned away. The shelter insisted the cats were owned by the mother-in-law, and that she “couldn’t just abandon them”.
Behind the scenes, I got an email from someone concerned about the situation. He informed me that KCAC has told the King County Council that it “never” turns animals away- obviously we know that’s not true. The SV reader wanted permission to pass on my post to a few members of the council, and I agreed (once it’s published, I can’t very well stop it anyway).
Council members read the account and demanded a response from Animal Control, who in turn, requested to speak wit my friend in order to conduct a “thorough” investigation.
As you can imagine, “Sandy” was hesitant to do that, because eventually the focus would have been put on “what happened to the cats?” (no one killed the cats, calm down)
At one point, someone from KCAC admitted in an email to a council member that Animal Control has in fact turned animals away- but have only done so when providing “other options” for people bringing them in.
The person that emailed me decided the admission was a “win”, and so Sandy never filled out a form or spoke with anyone from KCAC.
But the heat has continued to rise. A few weeks ago the Seattle Times published a special report which accused KCAC of taking more than 24 hours to respond to calls of dangerous animals (which reminds me, when I called them about a dog that was being severely neglected, they asked me for the pet owner’s address in order to send a letter- a frikkin’ LETTER).
For more than 2 years it’s been one issue or another with KCAC. Today, Executive Triplett announced the shelter would close entirely, effective Nov. 1- no discussion, no debate.
Is this the answer?
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Sable Verity is a reporter and commentator based in Seattle who covers social and political issues for KBCS Radio and a number of online and print news outlets. All of this is her fault.