We are calling for answers to questions that have been raised by the investigative news coverage (10 News and the San Diego Union-Tribune) of the San Diego Humane Society as well as in a letter signed by 11 former members of the Board of Trustees.
We acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the employees and volunteers of the SD Humane Society. We acknowledge the Society's important and long-standing place in the San Diego animal welfare community.
However the San Diego Humane Society is a private, non-profit organization, which has no affiliation with any other local or national humane society or SPCA. It is not connected in any way to the Humane Society of the United States or the ASPCA. It answers to no one but the San Diego public who maintains it with donations and the groups who fund it with grants. The San Diego Humane Society received approximately $10 million in donations in 2009 -- more than all the other private groups combined (see letter from Board posted on this site). If this money is not going to save our animals, then where is it?
We believe it is important that no one is above public disclosure and scrutiny, especially a non-profit that exists through the generosity of our citizens and that deals with the lives of our animal companions. When the Society responds that it is a private matter that a sexual harassment and discrimination suit was settled with Society funds -- when the Society says it is a private matter what the executives are being paid, we disagree.
On behalf of the animal community, we ask for answers to the troubling questions raised in these investigations.
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