What a beautiful balmy morning in the woods! Last night's lovely light mist pretty much put paid to any lingering bits of last weeks weather ... so we were able to climb back up our favourite trail to the ridge.
The birds eye view is always well worth the extra extra effort! Where else could we look down on eagles hunting over the meadow ... and watch a wall of rain coming in across the valley floor?
We really do have wonderful weather in this province. Even if we cannot have tulips and forsythia in March , where else could we be shovelling snow one week and only wearing a jacket the next because hunting season is still on?
Two weeks ago, when the first news came out that the shelter manager had been dismissed and the former branch board of directors had been disbanded, who would ever have imagined that they would be "Occupying the Renegade Shelter"?
Who would have dreamed that an escalating succession of legal steps would be ignored?
Even worse, who could possibly have believed that the CBRM Mayor and Council would find it necessary to fritter away CBRM taxpayer dollars on an "independent audit" ? Or that they would make fast and loose with the public purse by awarding a half million dollar contract for Animal Control Services without due process of public tender?
Of course that is not even the worst bit! Two weeks ago, the provincial board of the society was ready and able to temporarily assume stewardship of the shelter so that shortcomings could be addressed and a new local board and manager could be put in place.
Instead the renegade shelter is in a holding pattern .. where the dismissed shelter manager and the disbanded board have proudly proclaimed there is new leadership instead of admitting they have simply played musical chairs. By their own admission, there are insufficient funds to address the action items in either audit.
Staunch supporters of the renegade shelter are insisting that if problems genuinely existed that surely they would have been addressed sometime in the last thirty years.
They are either unwilling or unable to believe that change has come to the society. That the old board who allowed the former shelter manager to regurgitate the same annual report each year is gone. That the days of complaints about the former Cape Breton branch falling on deaf ears are done. That lies and excuses would only go so far with the new board and that there might someday be a day of reckoning.(The subject of how that same old board's failure to address complaints about those running Celtic Pets also left the general public feeling that all was tickety boo there is a testy topic that can still make tempers run high)
So it is likely beyond their imagining maybe ... just maybe ... if an unannounced inspection visit from provincial yielded such disastrous result that something might actually be wrong at the shelter.
Last night on CTV news, I was watching Mr. Mombourquette complaining to the camera that it was a shame to have to spend donor dollars on legal fees. Which leads us to the very interesting heart of the matter.
Why have the dismissed shelter manager and the disbanded board refused to leave? By now they realize their profit margin is going to be significantly reduced if they are to provide proper care for the animals. By now they understand that expecting the same society they are defying to continue easing the stress by taking the overflow of animals is a bit of a pipe dream.
In light of that, why the defiance? When the state of the shelter is already a matter of public record?
If dodgy record keeping has understated the already horrific high numbers of animals killed, what else might be waiting in the wings? After all, if that half million a year wasn't being spent on proper vet care, adequate food, training, cleaning supplies or building upkeep... what was it being spent on?
What time is it? It is past the latest noon deadline ... so one can only wonder what is so very damaging about the books that the dismissed shelter manager and the disbanded board do not dare surrender the renegade shelter.
And this is how I see it, on Wednesday, November 30th ... the FOURTEENTH day since the dismissed shelter manager and the disbanded branch board created the renegade shelter.
A half truth is a whole lie. Yiddish Proverb
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