Director of Metro Animal Services Gilles Meloche has resigned. Effective December 31.
Assistant Director Wayne Zelinsky will serve as interim director.
F I N A L L Y.
UPDATE: Finally near a computer. Here’s the full press release:
Metro Animal Services Director Gilles Meloche, who helped modernize the animal protection agency over the past four years, will be leaving his post effective Dec. 31.
Assistant Director Wayne Zelinsky will lead Metro Animal Services as interim director. Meloche will work closely with Zelinsky over the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition.
“For more than four years, Dr. Meloche has been a strong change agent who has helped professionalize our animal services operation and significantly increase the percentage of adopted animals,” said Mayor Jerry Abramson. “I appreciate his dedication and service to our community, and I wish him much success.”
Meloche said his agency has achieved most of the goals he set, including modernizing the city’s animal ordinance, increasing staffing and equipment and building a new adoption facility. During his tenure, animal adoptions have dramatically increased and the percentage of euthanized animals has significantly decreased.
“It has been a privilege to work to improve the quality of life for citizens and animals,” Meloche said. “Now is a good time for me to pursue the next phase of my career.”
Tons of questions remain. Like… why not oust the guy effective immediately? Who has been protecting him all this time?
Fitting that Jerry Abramson – the guy ultimately responsible – praised Meloche.
Don’t worry, folks, this problem isn’t going to disappear.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Ice Cold Excata // Oct 27, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Sorry, hollow victory. He should leave NOW! Not at the end of the year.
When he is out, then we can throw the ticker tape parade.
2 john // Oct 27, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Why not refuse to accept his resignation and terminate him immediately? Is there any need in allowing his presence to fester any longer?
3 EdenSprings // Oct 27, 2009 at 4:20 pm
What was it that finally lit a fire under someone’s ass, d’ya think?
Three sexual harassment charges by employees?
Killing kittens by stabbing them in the heart?
Dispensing RX drugs without a prescription (again)?
Selling FIP-infected cats?
Sending parvo-infected dogs to AAA to be sold?
Firing workers and volunteers who questioned him?
Failing to develop a disaster plan?
Letting the shelter flood after ignoring warnings?
Seizing people’s pets without probable cause?
Killing animals that should never have been seized?
Allowing disease to run rampant at the shelter?
Having no heat at the facility as the gas line was condemned and animals are freezing?
Failing two audits?
Having hundreds of animals “disappear”?
Keeping secret books and hiding income?
Overcharging for fines and fees?
Neutering animals to “punish” their owners?
Deliberately overcrowding the facility?
Allowing days of feces to accumulate in the shelter?
Not being qualified to hold his job to begin with?
Lying on his job application?
Committing perjury before a judge?
Stating in a federal deposition that poor people shouldn’t be allowed to own pets?
Lying on his application for a vet license?
Or was it something else?
After four plus years of bringing all this and more to the attention of Mayor Happy Pants, action was finally taken. Wonder where Jerry hid the giant cash payoff to buy Meloche’s silence? My bet: in one of those quasi-public entitites.
4 marie // Oct 27, 2009 at 4:59 pm
‘Change agents’ excel at one thing in particular:
leaving in their wake evidence of the misery
they’ve wrought: animal and human.
5 Dino // Oct 27, 2009 at 6:24 pm
any citizen who has followed the Animal Control saga and reads the quote from Abramson praising Meloche should just be disgusted
6 montanamona // Oct 27, 2009 at 8:31 pm
and don’t think Cap’n Wayne wasn’t complicit in all of Meloche’s dirty tricks. Because he was. Smooth transition? From what to what? Stick ‘em both in Meloche’s Winnebago and escort them out of town..and you don’t have to wait til Christmas to do it.
7 Rico // Oct 27, 2009 at 10:35 pm
No one in private industry would allow a controversial figure like Melloche to resign with two months notice. They need to hand him a check for two months severance pay, escort him out the door and change the locks.
This man will be a terror to all his employees for the next two months and has plenty of opportunities to pilfer money because there are no consequences. This is another example of Jerry’s fight to the end mentality of covering for his department heads and the incompetence of his HR staff of Lynn Fleming.
Pay him off and show him the door.
8 JTT // Oct 28, 2009 at 7:07 am
And Lynn Fleming is a frigging lawyer, she should know better. But I’ll admit, she can only recommend, and obviously, GM has something on JA that JA wouldn’t be willing to can him promptly. Why is an appointed person (who is easy to get rid of) allowed to get away with so much that would get a regular employee canned in a heartbeat?
9 EdenSprings // Oct 28, 2009 at 10:17 am
“This man will be a terror to all his employees for the next two months and has plenty of opportunities to pilfer money..”
Oh, you mean ‘Business as Usual’ or, as Meloche prefers to call it, ‘SOP’? Why should the next 2 months be any different than the last 4 years?
10 EdenSprings // Oct 28, 2009 at 10:19 am
JTT: Need I point out that JERRY is a friggin lawyer and should also have known better?
This burg is gonna find out on Friday what Jerry’s stupidity will cost them…(yet again!)
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