After posting poor save rates from May through October - hitting bottom in August with an awful 24 percent - ACCT worked its way back to a 55 percent save rate, dogs and cats combined, in November. (The save rate is higher for dogs than for cats, which sank to a horrifying 17 percent in August.)
Some animal lovers are enraged, saying that PACCA's save rates were better, and climbing, when the city Health Department transferred the contract from PACCA to ACCT, in the name of improvement.
"I'm sad, disturbed, heartbroken, angry and baffled," says Melissa Levy, executive director of the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, which rescued 1,833 cats and 275 dogs from PSPCA and ACCT last year. "Much of the progress has been wiped away."
One of the PSPCA's historic missions is the prevention of cruelty. Board President Harrise Yaron resigned last month, according to her resignation letter, partly because too many on the board did not value it. PSPCA Secretary Amy Norr vigorously disputes that.
Another board member, Yaron's sister Jodi Goldberg, who runs an animal-rescue group, quit this week with a broadside saying that "protocols and procedures had deteriorated" under CEO Sue Cosby, and that the board has become "its own worst enemy."
Yaron was president when PSPCA hired Howard Nelson as CEO in March 2007. He resigned under pressure in February and was replaced by interim CEO Beth Anne White, until Cosby took over in June. The save rate fell like a guillotine during the two transitions.
At some point, Yaron lost confidence in Cosby and wanted her removed. Cosby reportedly told the board that she couldn't remain if Yaron did. Fearing that bad PR would result from axing another CEO, the board sided with Cosby, according to Yaron's account, and she quit.
