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2. She could not give me a concrete reason why she chose HSUS over AHA. <br /> Conclusions/Outcome <br /> 1. Ms. Bohan stated that the evaluation was "very thorough and professional."Very"on the <br /> point". <br /> 2. She also stated, "It made us take a hard look at our program" and they are still <br /> implementing the recommendations. HSUS raised issues that the local department had <br /> never considered. <br /> 3. HSUS asked for a huge amount of information to study prior to their arrival in the city. <br /> Ms. Bohan said she was on the phone with HSUS two or three times a week for the two <br /> months between contract and on site visit. She made an exhaustive agenda of meetings <br /> with people HSUS desired to interview ("everyone you can imagine") during their three <br /> day visit. <br /> 4. HSUS gave an"outbriefing" at the end of the visit which Ms,Bohan found very valuable. <br /> 5. Contract was made in July, on-site visit was in September, executive summary came in <br /> December and full report a month later. The summary was 40 pages, the report 260 pages <br /> with a 600 page appendix. (HSUS no longer does an executive summary.) <br /> 6. The department staff presented the report to the city council. <br /> 7. "Everyone took away the piece that was of interest to them." <br /> Reference Check#3 <br /> Stillwater, Oklahoma, Animal Control. Mary Dickey,Director <br /> (Interviewed by John Sauls, Tuesday, October 22, 2002) <br /> Background <br /> 1. Stillwater is a university town of 60,000, including students. <br /> 2. The city shelter was built in 1985. <br /> 3. Later, the city invited the humane society to house their animals at the city's shelter. <br /> 4. The city shelters animals until "their time is up". Adoptable animals are then moved to <br /> the society's shelter, which is a separate building at the same site. <br /> 5. Society gets all its shelter animals from the city shelter. Ms. Dickey characterized the <br /> society's shelter as "no-kill". <br /> 6. The problem arose when the city determined that the "no-kill" policies had a detrimental <br /> effect on the health and well being of the animals, due to overcrowding. Society would <br /> not change their"no kill"policies. <br /> 7. City invited HSUS to come in so as to resolve the issue. <br /> Outcomes/Conclusions <br /> 1. Ms. Dickey felt that it would have been better had the evaluation taken place in the <br /> absence of such controversy. <br /> 2. There were positive aspects: the society did make changes to reduce overcrowding. <br /> 3. The report was extremely thorough. <br /> 4. Ms. Dickey felt that there was misinformation in the report because conclusions were <br /> based on interviews with people who did not always tell the truth. <br /> 5. Ms. Dickey felt that the local media and others exploited the issue and the report, <br /> focusing on blame-placing rather than improvements. <br /> 6. She felt that shelter staff were demoralized because staff felt the report was used to make <br /> them look bad. <br />