Politics & Government

Video: North Fork Animal Welfare League Contract is Up For Grabs

Southold Town officials are in the midst of a controversial contract renewal with the North Fork Animal Welfare League, the non-profit group that has run the Southold Town Animal Shelter for 40 years.

Supporters of the showed up in force at on Tuesday night to address the Town of Southold’s re-negotiation on the contract with the non-profit league regarding the operation of the .

The contract between the Town and the league is up for renewal as it has always been every three years, but this proposed contract has changed drastically for the first time since it was originally drafted 30 years ago. Instead of having to provide the Town with a $5,000 assurance deposit, for example, the Town is now requiring the league to provide a $200,000 performance bond, which could be financed by a surety company or paid in full by check or cash.

“In 30 years, the town has never had to take a dime out of that money,” said Gillian Wood Pultz, executive director of the North Fork Animal Welfare League, in a phone interview after the meeting. “Why would the town now, after 30 years, take any money? It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s hostile and insulting.”

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Another change in the proposed contract is a line that states that Southold Town will dictate adoption and euthanasia policies.

“These are the two most important policies in our operation — adoption and euthanasia,” Wood Pultz said. “How could we possibly negotiate that?”

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Town officials argued that the new contract addresses maintenance issues with the elaborate, year-old facility, and that a request for proposal went out to find a competitive entity with which to negotiate the new contract. At Tuesday's meeting, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell described the move as due diligence to tax payers.

"This is just business," Russell said. "It's not about the welfare league or the animals — it's about the new state-of-art-building — the old contract just wont do."

Supervisor Russell opened the meeting by saying that the Town has no intention of running a kill shelter.

“We don’t want to make this a municipal kill shelter, a private kill shelter or a kill shelter of any kind,” he said. “We have no intent to end the relationship with the North Fork Animal Welfare League. It’s standard business practice to RFP all contracts with the town, and there is no intent on the part of this board to control or run the North Fork Animal Welfare League.”

Laurel resident Rich Radoccia asked what the motivation could be by the Town to implement the requests for proposals process after years of excellent service from the animal welfare league.

“What could this town possibly gain by bringing in an out-of-Southold organization to come in and take over a shelter that is probably the envy of the rest of Long Island?” he said.

“This is only one component of the business of the town,” said Councilman Al Krupski, adding that the town is also negotiating new contracts with the Mattituck Park District regarding renewing the lease of the Pike Street Parking Lot and with the police department. “All these decisions that come up with the town have to be reviewed. The town spent close to $3.5 million on a new animal shelter, and it’s our responsibility to the taxpayer who has to pay to make sure that facility is running correctly. This is a huge investment.”

“If nothing else this tells the taxpayers that there is no better option to run the facility,” Russell said of the animal welfare league. “The specifics of this contract can be negotiated like any contract.”

Russell added that the work from the welfare league is high-quality but that the non-profit group has not counter-offered on a successor agreement that Russell said he'd like to have in place by March 31.

“We sent the league a contract Jan. 7,” he said. “They responded on Feb. 1 with no real counter proposal. Like any contract, there are items that need to be negotiated and there are items that are non-negotiable.”

Wood Pultz insists that her board and attorney have counter-offered.

“It’s absolutely untrue that we are not negotiating,” she said. “We answered the contract negotiation in good faith as always, but they lawyered up this time, and I have no idea why.”

At the Town Board meeting, audience members also questioned the impartiality of town board members after Councilman Vincent Orlando asked Southold Town resident Carol Geiss, who had sued the North Fork Animal Welfare League in 2002, for a list of people to send out RFPs to.

“Why was Carol Geiss recruited to solicit bids for a town contract?” asked Greenport resident Michael Edelson.

“We ask people all the time to help us,” Orlando responded. “We never officially recruited her to work for the town.”

Southold Town attorney Martin Finnegan said that the RFP was not going out to any specific person or group.

“What everyone has to understand here is that there has to be a document that goes out to an unknown entity who we don’t know what their philosophy is,” he said. “The town board reserves the right to set that policy in accordance with what the town standards have been.”

Southold Town officials and representatives of the North Fork Animal Welfare League are still in the process of negotiating the new contract.


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