Reassignment called retribution; Gage tries to restore hours
Gilroy – Phillip Jewitt, a vocal critic of cutbacks at the San Martin Animal Shelter, has been relieved of his duties at the shelter and says he was pressured by his boss to resign as president of the shelter’s volunteer organization.
Jewitt will stay on as Santa Clara County’s top animal control officer, but will no longer manage the shelter. He will instead concentrate on the field service aspects of his job and assist county prosecutors in cases against pet owners who don’t properly handle their animals. His supervisor, Agriculture Commissioner Greg Van Wassenhove, who cut $90,000 from the shelter budget and decided to close it an extra day a week beginning next month, will assume control of its day-to-day operations .
Meanwhile, Supervisor Don Gage has been hit with enough angry phone calls and e-mails that he has asked number crunchers in the county executive’s office to take one last look at the budget to find some way to keep the shelter open six days and 34 hours a week.
“I’ve been whining to the rest of the board. I’m trying to save the shelter,” Gage said. “I want to give it one last shot to see if we can or cannot cover this.”
Jewitt’s reassignment is the latest twist in the melodrama playing out in South County’s only animal shelter, which takes in 3,500 cats and dogs annually. Jewitt has been with the county since 2000, and helped found Friends of the San Martin Animal Shelter, or FOSMAS, in 2001. He said that his relationship with Van Wassenhove has never been strong, but it worsened dramatically after the two disagreed about the best course for the shelter, which faces an uncertain future.
“I feel like I’m being made a scapegoat,” Jewitt said from his Salinas home Tuesday evening. “But if it means helping FOSMAS go forward then I’ll do what I have to do. If Greg feels like I was responsible then I hope my resignation will mend fences, but Greg needs to mend fences, too.”
Jewitt and other members of FOSMAS criticized Van Wassenhove in June, when he recommended the cuts during the county’s budget hearings for the fiscal year that began July 1. Van Wassenhove proposed to save $90,000 by eliminating 1.5 vacant positions at the shelter, and closing the building on Mondays as well as Tuesdays. County supervisors agreed.
FOSMAS members contend that closing Mondays will cost the county money because fewer animals will be adopted and more animals will be euthanized. Volunteers have painted Van Wassenhove as a bureaucrat who doesn’t care about the animals at the shelter or the network of volunteers that is widely recognized as key to the facility’s high adoption rates. About 74 percent of the cats that go into the shelter eventually find a home.
As a county employee and president of FOSMAS, Jewitt said he was caught in the middle. He criticized Van Wassenhove at a June public hearing in front of county supervisors and has continued to do so in the media. FOSMAS members believe he was reassigned in an effort to quiet him and intimidate other shelter supporters.
“It would appear that individuals who are vocal about the situation will get intimidated into silence,” volunteer Evon Dumesnil said Wednesday. “The timing is odd.”
Van Wassenhove said he reassigned Jewitt because the county has not offered enough support to the county’s animal control unit, and has not devoted enough energy to fighting dangerous and aggressive dogs. In particular, he wants Jewitt to prepare the county’s case against a pet owner whose dogs are accused of attacking goats in unincorporated Los Gatos.
“Phil is very instrumental to the field service side of this and that’s a full-time job,” Van Wassenhove said. “We have four animal control officers and someone is on call 24 hours a day.”
Jewitt said that he has struggled at times making the transition to civilian worklife after 21 years in the U.S. Air Force, and could have devoted more time to his animal control duties, but he agreed that his reassignment comes at a curious time.
“I’ll be the first to admit I liked working at the shelter, but I don’t think I ignored animal control,” Jewitt said. “Even in the military you can speak your mind if it concerns the welfare of the mission. I never felt this constrained in the military.”
And to Jewitt and many volunteers, Van Wassenhove’s decisions are endangering the shelter’s mission of rescuing and adopting animals. They’re concerned that the rift between the county and FOSMAS may spell the end of the organization, which Van Wassenhove himself recently praised for doing an “amazing job” supporting shelter services.
“We would love to have a good relationship with the board of supervisors and with Greg Van Wassenhove,” volunteer Elaine Jelsema said. “Our intent is to help the animals and the best way to do that is to work together instead of having an adversarial relationship.”
Jewitt’s departure from FOSMAS may help smooth over dissension within the organization over the best way to respond to the budget cuts. FOSMAS leaders have disagreed over whether to adopt a diplomatic or confrontational stance with the county.
“I think everybody realizes what was done was wrong, but I guess there is disagreement and different views about how to proceed,” Jewitt said. “A lot of people are afraid to fight city hall, but there are those who feel it is worth the effort. I think we should fight on, but it’s not me anymore and that’s sad.”
