Four volunteers at the Charlottesville area’s top animal shelter have resigned after the organization retained a lawyer to fire a volunteer dog walker amid an ongoing investigation into animal and worker treatment at the shelter.
The Charlottesville Albemarle Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals hired the Richmond-based law firm Thompson McMullan to dismiss Sarah Lloyd, a dog walker who previously served as the shelter’s volunteer manager. Lloyd’s firing came within a month of another volunteer dog walker’s dismissal.
Now four other volunteers have voluntarily resigned.
“We are experienced dog walking volunteers who have given greatly of ourselves for the benefit of the shelter and the animals in its care,” the group’s resignation letter reads.
The letter was signed by Keith Sohr, Emily Sohr, Melinda Clark and Laura Efford, who said they have a little over 45 years of experience combined.
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“However, it has become abundantly clear that right now the organization values blind loyalty towards leadership far more than its stated mission,” the letter continues.
The local SPCA’s board of directors said it had retained a law firm to fire a volunteer “given the current climate and level of scrutiny at CASPCA.”
It’s not the only legal counsel the shelter has retained. The SPCA has also hired international law firm McGuireWoods to investigate the claims of animal and employee mistreatment.
In their letter, the former volunteers cited the firing of Lloyd and volunteer dog walker Louise Finger, a lack of consideration when making policy changes, an inability to retain staff and a general disregard for volunteers as the reasons behind their departures.
“Volunteers are central to CASPCA’s mission and the organization values their contributions,” the board responded in an email to The Daily Progress.
Buckley Warden, the Thompson McMullan attorney who notified Lloyd she was being dismissed, said the SPCA “received multiple complaints from staff members that [Lloyd was] recording them while working without their consent.”
Lloyd denied the allegation.
“I don’t know who made up all this stuff. None of it is true,” Lloyd said.
Warden also alleged that Lloyd had violated the shelter’s policy by “disclosing donor information and other proprietary internal data.”
Lloyd said it wouldn’t have been possible for her to have access to that information.
“I never took anything. I never knew of anything on the inside because I was a volunteer manager,” Lloyd said. Donors’ names and the range of money they contributed is publicly available on the local SPCA’s website in the organization’s annual reports.
The board did not say specifically what donor information is confidential.
“CASPCA staff and volunteers are required to execute a Confidentiality Agreement covering information they may receive as a result of their work on behalf of the organization. The agreement covers donor information, as well as operational information, financial and other data proprietary to the organization. We do not disclose information regarding donors outside the organization without express authorization from the donor,” according ot the board.
Lloyd said her firing came as a surprise.
“I followed the rules as a volunteer, spent 2-4 hours almost every day walking dogs at the shelter, and I never had any type of infraction discussed with me prior to being dismissed,” she said via email.
She posited that she had been fired as a form of retaliation. At a February protest, Lloyd said she had been afraid to speak out of fear of reprisal.
“I supported CASPCA Concerns with 102 others in a push for positive change at the shelter and am now forbidden from volunteering my time to help walk the stressed shelter dogs,” Lloyd said, referring to the group of current and former employees and volunteers that have alleged animal and human mistreatment at the shelter.
The board told The Daily Progress it would be inappropriate to discuss volunteers and their actions in response to Lloyd’s concern about retaliation.
The resigning volunteers said it wasn’t easy for them to leave the shelter.
“It is deeply distressing to know that leaving might negatively impact the dogs we care so much about, the staff we know and respect, and our fellow dedicated volunteers,” they said in a written statement.
The Charlottesville-area SPCA has been under fire since the start of the year, when the CASPCA Concerns group launched a campaign calling for the organization’s leadership to step down amid allegations of animal mistreatment and general mismanagement.
The group has said that misconduct and mismanagement at the shelter has translated into animal neglect bordering on abuse. The shelter, the group says, is overcapacity and understaffed, with animals often kept in unsafe living conditions and their carers overworked in order to keep adoption rates high and contributions rolling in.
A letter addressed to the SPCA board earlier this year, which has since garnered more than 100 signatures, includes photos of dogs in pens full of urine and feces, animals living in crates the group says are stored in the shelter’s basement and facilities that appear to be unclean, unkempt and dangerous to the animals living there.
The group has specifically targeted the shelter’s CEO Angie Gunter and called for her resignation or dismissal.
The shelter’s board of directors said in a Feb. 8 statement that the McGuireWoods investigation into the allegations would take 90 days to complete.
In the meantime, the Virginia Department of Agriculture has completed an inspection of the facility and found several documents at the shelter were missing information required by state law.
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