I know the Santa Barbara County Animal Services shelter primarily deals with our four-legged and a few feathered friends, but something smells fishy in that department.
The good folks of the general public were sharing heartfelt testimony in favor of recently terminated Animal Services Director Tara Diller. She was fired Feb. 6, less than a year after she started, but in that time she apparently made some positive changes, according to nine people who spoke during the Board of Supervisors’ Feb. 11 meeting.
Volunteer Barbara Upson said Diller’s changes included allowing the public to access the kennels where animals are kept, so people could hopefully adopt more animals.
Diller also reportedly helped raise morale in the deptartment. “The culture began to change,” said Natalie Stevens, who represented the Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation. “The instability that had been felt over one and a half years was subsiding.”
After Diller’s firing, Stevens said they felt “shocked,” “concerned,” and “confused.”
Sudden terminations totally shake the foundation of trust among personnel and the institutions they work for—and the public. What gives? What did Diller do, or not do, to get fired? Will history repeat itself if transparency and accountability aren’t instilled?
This is where that fishy smell gets strong. Diller held the same position with Ventura County for nearly five years, up until October 2018. When she was fired. No reasons cited by the county. Read about it in the Ventura County Star (Oct. 8, and Oct. 16, 2018, and March 15, 2019). It’s like scrolling through history on repeat.
Last March, when Santa Barbara County hired Diller, the VC Star said that it asked whether “hiring officials had weighed Diller’s dismissal in making their decision.” In response, Jackie Ruiz, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (which oversees Animal Services), said the department was “really diligent” with its background and reference checks on Diller. “Our department was more than comfortable with this decision [and] excited,” Ruiz said at the time.
Less than a year later, a lot of people are pretty uncomfortable with the animal control issues in the county—and not just concerning Animal Services. Seriously people, what’s going on with the human institutions that oversee our county’s critters? The county’s Humane Societies have been rather dodgy when it comes to getting asked for straight answers. The Santa Maria Valley Humane Society’s director, Sean Hawkins, left amid “financial challenges.” A Santa Maria city staff report citing such issues factored into the City Council approving the Santa Barbara Humane Society’s offer to take over the Santa Maria Valley Humane Society’s lease of city-owned property (read more in this week’s Spotlight, “Combining resources,” page 8).
The two are becoming one, which the South County Humane Society’s leader, Kerri Burns, said will make for a stronger entity, though she “isn’t sure what led to these funding issues” in North County.
Dear new, as yet un-named, county Humane Society, I know you’re not looking for a new executive director, but a word to the wise: If at all possible, don’t hire someone who’s been fired from the same job elsewhere.
The canary is fired up but never fired. Send tips to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 20-27, 2020.