How do you say “Welcome, Big Brother” in budgetese?
Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez put out a press release Wednesday doing his best impression of a grateful hotel concierge, all but fluffing pillows for the DeSantis-appointed DOGE squad as they announce plans to parachute into County Hall with flashlights and subpoenas.
In a glowing statement titled something like “Yay, Oversight!”, Rodriguez offered “full support” to State CFO Blaise Ingoglia and his team as they poke around County books and programs — including, of course, the usual Republican punching bags: green initiatives and DEI efforts.
“We share the same goals — ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, improving operational transparency, and streamlining government functions,” said Rodriguez, sounding like a guy who’s already picked out a desk for the state auditors.
He’s calling it ‘collaboration. But Ladra — and just about every county staffer who rolled their eyes reading this — knows what this really is: a not-so-subtle political stunt dressed up as budgetary due diligence.
Read related: Gov. Ron DeSantis sends Florida DOGE squad to sniff out Miami-Dade budget
Rodriguez used the press release to pat himself on the back for a bunch of made-up committees like the STRIP Task Force (yes, seriously) and the Government Efficiency and Transparency Ad Hoc Committee. GETAC? Really? And what’s the difference between the two? He also took credit for scheduling a special “Committee of the Whole” meeting for Aug. 20 to go digging for “immediate budget cuts,” just in time to show Tallahassee how serious he is about jumping on the DOGE train.
He did not tell them to look into the allocation of millions of taxpayer dollars to a shady non-profit headed by a politically-connected Republican who is working as the chief of staff to the Miami city manager. But that’s probably something they should also look into.
In a brown-nosing letter to the CFO Tuesday, which the commissioner posted on social media, Rodriguez invited him and his team to “this meeting, as I believe the discussions will provide valuable insight relevant to your work.”

How much you wanna bet they get more than two minutes?
Also, by the way, this additional extra meeting was Commissioner Raquel Regalado‘s idea.
Is that why the chairman basically handed the assignment over, urging Ingoglia to meet with Regalado, Commissioner J.C. Bermudez and pretty much anyone wearing a red tie in the 111 building.
Because what better way to show fiscal responsibility than inviting the Governor’s guys to sit in on your county budget process? Maybe they’ll bring snacks. Maybe they’ll bring subpoenas.
Read related: Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava defends new budget, service cuts
Look, nobody’s arguing that Miami-Dade doesn’t have some bloated contracts, inefficient processes, and legacy issues worth fixing. That $402 million budget gap is real — even if Rodriguez and his Republican pals have been quietly enjoying the federal trough for years and are only complaining about it now.
But this sudden love letter to Tallahassee oversight — when the county has spent years yelling about local control and Home Rule — smells a lot more like partisan posturing than responsible governance. It’s like lighting your own kitchen on fire and then thanking the arson investigator for showing up.
So yeah, let’s tell it like it is: Chairman Rodriguez isn’t just welcoming DOGE. He’s rolling out the red carpet, handing them a list of talking points, and asking for extra copies to use in next year’s campaign mailers.
And he’s calling it transparency.

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Here come the political pooper scoopers.
Just as Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is trying to close a massive $402 million budget hole without jacking up property taxes, Gov. Ron DeSantis has sent in his Florida DOGE squad — yes, that’s really what they’re calling it — to root around the county books like it’s a litter box full of progressive waste.
In a sharply worded letter Monday, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, warned that a state spending review is headed to South Florida. State officials want receipts — literally — and they’re not being subtle about their priorities.
Read related: Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava defends new budget, service cuts
The three-page letter, signed by two DeSantis aides and new Florida. Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, who was just handed that watchdog gig by the governor last month, questions everything. The state not only wants to see county leases and real estate transactions — like the purchase of an old FP&L building for more than it’s worth, Ladra assumes — but they are, predictably, looking at diversity programs, green energy spending and — wait for it — traffic calming devices like Miami-Dade’s beloved speed bumps. Not our speed bumps!
Translation: “We smell liberal spending. And we don’t like it.”
They also raised their eyebrows about the millions of dollars worth of property tax growth in the last few years.
“Particularly in light of these increases in revenue, we are concerned about the $400M+ budget gap that you have announced,” the letter says, with all the sincerity of a campaign attack ad.
This isn’t the first time Team DOGE has sniffed around Miami-Dade. Levine Cava’s office released correspondence to the Miami Herald Tuesday that shows they’ve already turned over details on employee salaries, contracting, and tax revenues. And now they’ve got until Aug. 13 to cough up even more records — or potentially face fines.
Ladra smells a rat. And the stench is not just coming from Tallahassee.
Because while the DOGE letter is pitched as a dry fiscal oversight move, it just happens to come days after Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, a vocal DeSantis loyalist trying to position himself for a congressional run, made a pilgrimage to Ingoglia’s office and posted a cheerful video talking about “ensuring county resources serve our taxpayers best.” Because, of course the state knows better than the local government that was actually elected to manage this mess. And they’re so good with our money.
Levine Cava’s team isn’t playing dumb.
In a strongly worded statement, the mayor reminded DOGE that Miami-Dade’s tax rate has actually gone down 2% since she took office — and that her administration is already subject to routine audits. She said she’d cooperate with the review “to the extent that it adds value without disrupting local governance.” That’s like saying “¡Cuidado!”
“If DOGE requires clarification on budget line items we have already clearly documented, we will help,” she said in a statement. “But there is no need for duplication, nor for politically driven investigations that could divert staff time away from critical services.”
La Alcaldesa — who last month put a freeze on a $5 million grant to a shady non-profit secured by Commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, another GOP county elected who also happens to be BFFs with House Speaker Danny Perez — also took a swipe at what she called “staged political theater,” saying her priorities remain on things like infrastructure, housing, and public safety, not partisan witch hunts. That’s like saying, “No te hagas.”
Read related: STRIP show: Miami-Dade’s Anthony Rodriguez wants to fix procurement
But the timing couldn’t be worse. The mayor is in the middle of budget season, on media and town hall tour to defend a flat tax rate that ensures “core services,” but still includes cuts to parks, meals to the elderly, and charity funding, plus fee hikes for transit, gas, and even parking at county parks. So, walking Bella is going to cost you $5.
It is no wonder the mayor is getting push back from commissioners and the community.
At public town hall meetings in Miami Gardens and Westchester, Levine Cava blamed the width of the money hole on the five new constitutional offices elected in November. They account for 44% of the budget gap. She also warned residents that rolling back the tax rate even a small amount — as Gonzalez and others, like Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado, want to do — would mean deeper, even more painful cuts.
Regalado requested a special appropriations committee meeting for commissioners to go “line by line” through the budget and find places to cut. The meeting is August. 20. Anyone going might want to pack a lunch. And a snack. And a pillow.
And maybe a handheld fan. Because the political heat is rising — and Levine Cava’s Republican critics are turning up the flame. Congressman Carlos Gimenez, her GOP predecessor at County Hall, couldn’t resist piling on. He took to social media to praise the state probe, and he didn’t even use her full name — just “Mayor Levine” — like she’s a high school vice principal who got caught dipping into the prom fund.
“In just a few years, Mayor Levine has turned our good stewardship into a massive deficit,” posted Gimenez, who might just be running for Miami Mayor.
Good stewardship? Maybe Gimenez is gettin’ a little senile. Ladra remembers when he suggested rolling blackouts at fire stations to make up for his budget hole. That’s like putting out dumpster fire with a squirt gun.
To be fair, La Alcaldesa should have seen this $402 million deficit coming. In fact, Ladra remembers warnings about the drying up of federal COVID funds, for years. COVID was in 2020, remember? We had warnings, but not foresight? We’ve also had years of soaring property values. Where has that money gone?
Ladra would welcome a true independent audit. Keyword: Independent. And that’s not the same as a politically-charged probe that looks more like campaign ops than budget watchdogging.
And that’s because DeSantis is holding the leash.
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Eenie, meenie, miny, moe.
A recent poll suggests Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava could just edge out Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar in 2026. But wait, isn’t she going to run for governor?
Levine Cava, who is termed out in 2028, hasn’t said a peep about either, but people keep imagining her into these races because she’s probably the strongest Democrat in the state, getting re-elected last year against the Trump train that ran over Miami. Her political consultant, Christian Ulvert, is getting bored of telling people she is not running for higher office.
At least not yet.
“She was honored to be re-elected by nearly 60% of Miami-Dade voters and she’s going to do the important work as the mayor,” Ulvert told Political Cortadito.
“She is not going to be on the ballot in 2026.”
Besides, he already has another candidate in the CD-27 race. Which may explain his tweet Monday making it clear: “No! Not happening.”
So, this is just somebody’s ultimate fantasy.
Salazar, who has become increasingly unpopular because of her blatant lies and alignment with Donald Trump‘s cruel immigration policies, which impact her constituency big time, is vulnerable. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has put her on the list of flippable Republican-held seats and they’re desperately searching for their Holy Grail.
The poll by Kissimmee-based Kaplan Strategies — a one-stop shop for “all your political communication needs” — shows La Alcaldesa with a 2 point lead over Salazar. And while that is within the 3-point margin of error, it is still closer than the other candidates who have already announced their candidacy in the Democratic Primary next August (except for Robin Peguero, who announced most recently).
The bigger picture that has local Dems smiling: Salazar doesn’t get more than 45% against anybody.
The survey of 804 likely general election voters in late July shows that “if the election were today,” former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey would get 38%, environmental entrepreneur Richard Lamondin (Ulvert’s guy) would get 34% and accountant Alexander Fornino, a progressive accountant Ladra only heard of through this poll, would get a whopping 35%.
Levine Cava, meanwhile, got 44% and pushed Salazar down from 45 to 42%. The undecideds on that head-to-head were lower, also, which is natural since La Alcaldesa has more name recognition across the whole district, which includes parts of Miami, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Key Biscayne, Pinecrest, North Bay Village, South Miami, West Miami and several areas in the unincorporated Miami-Dade.

Davey’s tiny lead among the other candidates is probably because he ran in the last Democratic primary, losing to former School Board Member Lucia Baez-Geller (54%-46%),who also was not in the poll. But one would think Davey would do a lot better than just a few points above Fornino and Lamondin, who are basically unknowns.
The poll seems to indicate that voters could support anybody against Salazar, who has coming under fire in recent months for taking credit for extending TPS to some immigrants, when it was a judge in California who did that, defending the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz — she sat on a bed and it was soft! — and her ill-named Dignity Act proposal, which only applies to some immigrants who want want to do the backbreaking, menial jobs nobody else wants without opening up any benefits or giving them any chance to become legal residents or citizens. It’s
Salazar beat Baez-Geller last November by more than 20 points, riding on Trump’s coattails. Since then, two special elections in Florida April 1 show that those coattails are shorter. Republicans still won in districts 1 and 6, but their margins were smaller than Trump’s. Former state CFO Jimmy Patronis beat Democrat Gay Valimont to replace the embarassment that is Matt Gaetz, and gambling executive and former State Sen. Randy Fine beat Democrat Josh Weil for the seat vacated by Mike Waltz when he became Trump’s national security advisor.
Both Valimont and Weil outspent their GOP opponents, but neither have the same name recognition as Levine Cava, who is so well known she is contemplating a statewide race.
A week after the special elections, the DCCC put CD 27 into their “districts in play” list, which maps 35 competitive Republican-held seats they think could be flipped next year.
“This result suggests a potential battleground district heading into 2026,” Kaplan Strategies principal Doug Kaplan wrote in his poll message, according to Florida Politics, which broke the story about the survey Monday.
It’s not entirely unexpected. Levine Cava’s Tallahassee dreams may have been dashed by David Jolly, the former GOP Congressman who turned blue and is tearing across the state to run for governor next year. On Tuesday, Jolly’s campaign announced the endorsements from 60 current and former Democrat electeds, including a ton of La Alcaldesa’s friends: State Rep. Kevin Chamblis, former Senator Dave Aronberg, who ran for state attorney in Palm Bach, and former state reps Steve Geller, who also served as a senator and Broward County mayor, Dan Gelber, who was also Miami Beach mayor, Annie Betancourt, Elaine Bloom, Joe Geller, a former North Bay Village mayor now on the Miami-Dade School Board, Cindy Lerner, who was mayor of Pinecrest, and Juan-Carlos “JC” Planas, who ran for Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections last year but lost.
Aronberg, Gelber, Lerner and Planas all have worked with Ulvert. It might be awkward at the Christmas party if La Alcaldesa jumped in the governor’s race now, after her pals have committed to Jolly.
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There are four public budget town halls this week
It’s budget season, and you know what that means: the spin cycle is on high.
Facing a gaping $402 million hole in the county coffers, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is out here trying to sell her $12.9 billion budget for 2025-26 as “fair and balanced.” But it looks more like it’s failing and bruised.
The mayor has taken to the airwaves and went on WPLG Local 10’s This Week in South Florida Sunday and has had two community meetings so far to defend the 2025 budget. Saturday’s community meeting in at the North Dade Regional Library was standing room only.
There are four more this week where residents are encouraged to go and share their concerns and priorities. The next one is tonight at 6 p.m. at Westchester Regional Library, 9445 Coral Way.
There’s another town hall at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Arcola Lakes Senior Center, 8401 NW 14th Ave., 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Dennis Moss Center, 10950 SW 211 Street and 6 p.m. Thursday at Oak Grove Park, 690 Ne 159th Street.
More information on the proposed budget can be found on the county’s website here.
Packed house at the Miami-Dade budget town hall Saturday at the North Dade Regional Library.
Levine Cava says her budget protects “core services” like garbage pickup and transit. Because, apparently, if your bus still shows up and your trash still disappears, you should just shut up and pay the extra taxes and fees.
And there are plenty of those. It will cot 50 cents more to ride the bus or train. Gas tax goes up 2 cents a gallon. And we will now have to pay a brand-new $5 “get-in-the-park” fee — but don’t expect a lifeguard at the pool. We can’t afford those.
Read related: Facing $400M budget shortfall, Miami-Dade cuts senior meals, lifeguards, more
The county is also shutting down two senior centers and ending some home-delivered meals to the abuelos and abuelas. And it may as well be shutting down some non-profit organizations with up to $40 million in cuts to grants.
Meanwhile, the county has committed $46 million to the FIFA World Cup, which Levine Cava said is an “obligation” once the bid was awarded, which is before her time. And she added that the millions are not going to the billionaire organization itself. The funds go to “local leaders” to raise money to put together programming, she told the Sunday show’s host Glenna Milberg. Was she talking about Rodney Barreto? And does this make it better, or worse?
Also, she did warn us that the allocation could mean cuts in services.
Commissioner Kionne McGhee has asked for his colleagues to support refunding the gift and putting that money into the non-profits whose grant funds have been cut. But Levine Cava suggested on This Week in South Florida that only the last allocated $10.5 million can be withdrawn. How come we are still committed to the $25 million in in-kind services?
La Alcaldesa insists the cuts in the budget are necessary, mostly blaming a state-mandated boogeyman: Amendment 10, which created five new constitutional offices that the county now has to fund — to the tune of nearly half the budget gap. The spotlight is on newly-elected Sheriff Rosanna “Rosie” Cordero-Stutz, who wants $40 million more than the mayor gave her. That’s a tenth of the entire deficit. If she doesn’t get it, she says, the mayor and commission are “defunding the police.”
Levine Cava has said that she has increased police funding each year, and that it’s going up almost 9% this year. That’s not defunding. That’s reinvesting in flashbang grenades and training simulators and expensive software contracts and overtime.
Still, commissioners aren’t all on board with the spending plan. Some even voted for the flat tax rate the first round thinking they can lower it after the public hearings. They can’t raise it, but most people will pay higher taxes because their property values rose.
Read related: Buyer’s remorse: Kionne McGhee wants refund on $46M to FIFA World Cup
Commissioners Roberto Gonzalez, Juan Carlos “JC” Bermudez, Raquel Regalado and newly-appointed District 6 Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis were particularly concerned that the cuts are not being made in the right places. Regalado has called for a special meeting to go “line by line” through the budget to find efficiencies and waste. Like with an X-acto.
Because when you add up the slight raise in property tax with the other fees and the fare hikes, everyday working people are the ones who are going to feel the squeeze.
The commission will vote on the final budget in September. Between now and then, the public has those four community meetings this week and two public hearings at County Hall Sept. 4 and Sept. 18 before the commission makes a final decision. There will also be a Committee of the Whole scheduled at 9:30 a.m. for commissioners to discuss the budget and make changes.
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Opinion By Michael Rosenberg, co-founder of the Pets’ Trust
I went to the Miami-Dade animal shelter in Medley Sunday, to observe the protest, not to participate. I wanted to see what the message was, what it is the protesters wanted.
The animal shelter at Medley holds a special place for me. As a human, I lived in a dog cage in that building for three days in October of 2012. Yes, it was hot, old and decrepit, and a place where 60 to 80 mostly healthy animals were killed every day from 1970 to 2013  to make space for the 100 or so dogs brought to the shelter each day, on average. The policy from 1970 (as far as I can go back) to 2013 was to kill for space.
One hundred animals would be surrendered each day, and 60 to 80 were killed to make space. Every day.
Read related: Protesters want answers, justice for Rocky at Miami-Dade animal shelter
The Pets’ Trust was founded to try to stop that. But while the community overwhelmingly supported the Pets’ Trust plan with their votes, elected officials did not honor those votes. If you really want to be angry, watch the movie to learn more about the Pets’ Trust and what our elected officials didn’t do: Political Animals…The Story of the Pets’ Trust.
Flash forward to 2025, and while the killing has dramatically decreased (in the shelter), the intake of animals stays the same. Many animals are still turned away. The new shelter that was built in 2015 is beyond capacity, so the dungeons of Medley were reopened to create more space.
No one wanted to open this old draconian shelter, but as the new shelter simply could not hold all of the animals, the Medley shelter was brought back to its awful life. There was simply no place to keep this overflow of continued incoming animals and killing for space is not an option anymore.
Of course no one likes the Medley shelter. It’s natural to want to protest the conditions there. The good news is this Medley shelter is coming down and a brand new 25,000 square foot, very modern facility will be built in South Dade. It will take time to build it, but at least it is coming.
However, warehousing animals is not the solution and this is where the majority of the money is going towards. In the past 12 years MDAS has received $327 million dollars. The County plan spent $200 million dollars more than what had been their previous average budget from 2012 back and the chart shows you what they have to show for it. Intake numbers are the same as the early 2000’s when the average budget was $10 million, and today it’s actually worse because more and more animals are being turned away and the shelter is over double its capacity.

Most animals come in healthy and some start to become sick from contagious diseases, stress and become unadoptable which can lead to being euthanized. The adoption rate has not changed in the past 12 years and spay/neuter surgeries are far behind.
Read related: Animal advocates protest shelter conditions, use of old ‘house of horrors’
It’s wonderful that the protesters want to keep the plight of our animals in the forefront of public attention, but signs calling this a death camp, a killing shelter, or that Miami-Dade Animal Services Director Annette Jose is lying, are not the correct message.  The message for what was needed and still is needed is the message of the Pets’ Trust Plan, the overpopulation problem that is the cause of there being so many animals — half a million cats on the streets for example — is an extensive spay/neuter program doing at least four times what we are doing now.   We need to do over 100,000 of these surgeries a year, not 25,000…..or we’ll never get ahead of the problem and sadly, the new shelter will be full on the day it opens.
If I participated in this protest, my sign would have been…..More Surgeries Now!
Again, I thank the protesters for wanting to make conditions better, but while the new animal shelter will be a better place to live, it will not solve the animal overpopulation problem which is the root of all of this mess we are in.
Michael Rosenberg is a tireless advocate for animals and humans in Miami-Dade and beyond. Rosenberg is co-founder of the Pets’ Trust Initiative, which got 65% of voters to agree in 2012 on a massive spay/neuter plan to help keep the population of strays down. He is also the longtime president of the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations.
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It shouldn’t take a dead dog to get someone to pay attention to the horrible conditions at the Miami-Dade animal shelter.
But that’s what happened.
A growing pack of protestors gathered again for the second Sunday in a row outside Miami-Dade Animal Services’ overflow facility to demand answers — and justice — for the animals allegedly suffering and dying under the county’s so-called care.
They came armed with signs, chants and fury. No political group, no formal organization, no paid advocacy. Just plain old human outrage — the kind that bubbles up when a terrier mix named Rocky dies of heatstroke in his kennel and nobody seems to be held responsible.
“These dogs can’t speak,” Nicolette Acosta, one of the protesters, told WSVN 7 News. “We’re here to do just that, to provide that voice for them, and I don’t care how long it takes.”
Ladra kinda loves her.
Even before Rocky died, actually since at least 2023, protesters had been decrying the conditions at animal services and the use of the overflow shelter that was the grossly “sick” building, the “house of horrors” for both the animals and staff, that had to be replaced pronto with the new $15 million building in Doral. It was too terrible to use for animals then, but it’s okay for the dogs now that they’ve run out of space at the new, shiny shelter.
Read related: Animal advocates protest shelter conditions, use of old ‘house of horrors’
Recent horror stories include a horrible outbreak of Streptococcus equi zooepidemicus, a bacterial infection that can cause hemorrhagic pneumonia in dogs and potentially affect immunocompromised people. Because the shelter was at double capacity, the disease spread faster. 
To address the situation, the shelter is urging the public to adopt or foster animals to reduce overcrowding and is temporarily suspending some services, like the on-site wellness clinic and stray animal pick-ups. But some people who have adopted or fostered dogs have had to bring them back after they infected their pets at home, one activist said.
There is no enrichment programming for the animals while they stay at Camp Death. In fact, sometimes they are barely walked. The county budgets for 280 employees at Animal Services, but they only have 255 currently working there. So, not enough dog walkers.
Acosta calls the situation at the shelter a “multi-system failure.” She calls out the county for its botched response to a deadly bacterial outbreak, its lack of transparency, and its absolutely bonkers dependence on community-donated fans to keep the animals cool.
Fans. In Miami. In July.
Ladra would laugh if it weren’t so freaking sad.
“We should not have to be scrambling as a community to donate fans,” Acosta said Sunday, demanding a full investigation into the conditions at the Medley facility — one with “actual measurable numbers and outcomes.”
You know, like a grown-up audit.
Miami-Dade County spends millions on animal services, a department that many activists and animal lovers say is broken and backwards. The budget is increasing to $45 million this year from $43 million last year. The county is in the process of developing a new $11.5 million animal shelter in South Dade to replace the current overflow shelter in Medley, which will become a residential development featuring at least 100 income-restricted apartments.
All with A/C, Ladra bets.
But that facility — which got a request for $1.5 million in state funds from Sen. Ileana Garcia — still needs final approvals and won’t be completed until the fall of 2027, at the earliest.
Update: Rita Schwartz, co-founder of the Pets’ Trust Initiate — a non-binding referendum passed by 65% of the voters in 2012 — said the money could be better spent.
“Right now, all the money is going towards the two overcrowded shelters and frustrated employees that can’t possibly take care of all these animals humanely,” Schwartz told Political Cortadito. “They are cramped in small cages and not nearly walked enough. They are not addressing the root of the problem so tax payers pay millions of dollars more each year for the same if not worse results. Warehousing the animals is not the solution.
“The Pets’ Trust plan would provide the much-needed services to get ahead of the overpopulation crisis. Right now, it’s impossible for the public to get an appointment to spay/neuter their pets and not enough resources for the following services.”
At Sunday’s protest, State Rep. Fabian Basabe said that more has to be done. “I didn’t come here as a politician. I came here as a neighbor, a father, an animal lover,” said Basabe, who this year c0-introduced Dexter’s Law, which would strengthen sentences for animal cruelty and create an online database of those found guilty of it.
Read related: Politicos pose with pets; insult our intelligence with photo ops
“What’s happening in this facility is heartbreaking and unacceptable,” Basabe told the protesters, though they know it. “Taxpayer funds are being mismanaged,” he said.
“Daniella Levine Cava has had years to fix this,” he said, adding that the Miami-Dade mayor has gotten tons of emails and phone calls about this. He likens it to the cruelty at the Miami Seaquarium, where she finally acted last year, after public outcry, to evict the operators who had been mistreating the animals.
“That’s not leadership. That’s crisis control,” Basabe said. “If she truly cared about animal welfare, these conditions would never have been allowed in the first place.”
He also told the protesters that he was going to request a review of the shelter by the Florida Department of Agriculture and an investigation into where the funding resources are going.
One of the points that protesters make is that the department is top heavy with bloated salaries. The Animal Services director makes more than $200,000 a year and there are four assistant directors.
No wonder there’s no money for fans.
The department issued a canned statement last week: “We understand the community’s concerns, and we share the same goal: to provide every animal with the best possible care and a chance at a loving home.”
Meanwhile, however, they may get sick. Or die from the heat.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Rita Schwartz, co-founder of the Pet’s Trust.
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