Michael Karlis
Departing San Antonio Animal Care Companies Director Shannon Sims speaks throughout a division advisory board assembly on Wednesday.
Shannon Sims, the outgoing director of San Antonio’s embattled Animal Care Companies division, railed towards his critics and claimed he’d been unfairly focused throughout his ultimate advisory board assembly on Wednesday night.
Sims’ acerbic 10-minute tackle prefaces his retirement, which is scheduled for this summer time. He introduced his exit plans amid public anger and shock over a string of lethal assaults by unfastened canines and revelations that the underfunded division was solely responding to a fraction of calls.
“When interviewed by a recruiter for my place, he requested me, ‘What does ACS want in a brand new director?'” Sims stated throughout his speech. “One of many main issues I attempted to convey to him was that they wanted to have thick pores and skin. Very thick pores and skin.”
Sims’ two-and-a-half-year tenure within the place was marred by a string of canine assaults that despatched shockwaves all through the Alamo Metropolis. Amongst these had been the February 2023 mauling loss of life of 81-year-old Air Power Veteran Ramon Najera and final August’s assault on Max De Los Santos, then 76, whose legs had been amputated because of his accidents.
Throughout Wednesday’s tackle, Sims did not acknowledge these tragedies that occurred on his watch. As an alternative, he blasted on-line critics of his division’s efficiency and touted his success in getting ACS a 33% finances improve — a funding increase largely prompted by Metropolis Council’s concern over the canine assaults.
“Everybody on social media has an opinion,” Sims stated. “However, I’ve but to see any of essentially the most vocal detractors on social media or residents we have heard apply for a place at ACS, as a result of they lack the dedication to place them ready the place they will impression that change.”
Sims additionally took concern with animal rights advocates and novice animal rescue teams, who say they’re making an attempt to fill a void left left by ACS’s failures, and people who filed Freedom of Data Act requests to study extra about his division’s interior workings.
“We even have the self-proclaimed social [justice] warriors who put all their time into 1000’s of open file requests with a objective of scaring the group and the staff and in the end losing very important assets and workers time in hopes of discovering one thing to discredit the group,” Sims proclaimed. “These people are not more than social media terrorists stealing 1000’s of hours that could possibly be used saving animals.”
Regardless of ACS’s bigger, $28.5 million finances for the present fiscal 12 months, the division has up to now failed to fulfill its 64% “essential name” response price objective and its 80% harmful canine compliance goal, as famous by council members throughout a Public Security Committee assembly final month.
In his speech, Sims additionally warned his successor that they “will probably be criticized no matter your actions, similar to my predecessors.”
The feedback come as ACS is gearing up its hunt for Sims’ alternative.
San Antonio Assistant Metropolis Supervisor David McCary, throughout a presentation on the advisory board assembly, stated that 74 candidates have utilized for the place, of which 9 are present metropolis workers.
Roughly 20 animal advocates protested outdoors Metropolis Corridor final week, demanding that ACS’s subsequent director be from outdoors the division. In the course of the rally, Lea Laport, founding father of the group NOKILLSA, stated she and her colleagues would have bother trusting one other inner rent after Sims’ lackluster efficiency.
“Everybody at ACS has been there too lengthy, are too desensitized, have given up on progressive concepts and refuse to look outdoors the field,” Laport stated.
In-person interviews for the ACS director place are nonetheless being finalized, and the town continues to be figuring out the small print of when a brand new rent could also be introduced, McCary stated.
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