A day after he was named to head the Animal Services Department, Ed Boks laid out an ambitious vision for the city of Los Angeles.
Boks said Friday that he believes that Los Angeles can be "the first major city to truly accomplish the no-kill" policy in shelters and that it should strive to do that in five years. He considers San Francisco as the "national model" of a well-funded city animal agency with a no-kill policy. And he suggested Los Angeles challenge New York City -- whose animal control department he headed until Friday with a mix of frustration and success -- to see which city could achieve the goal first.
"By New York and Los Angeles engaging in this kind of contest, it really raises the bar in every city," Boks said in a telephone interview from Arizona, where he is visiting family. "This has been every community's dirty little secret far too long."
The agency's newest general manager -- its fourth in four years -- takes over a department often under attack by a vocal animal welfare community for killing thousands of stray animals each year. Extreme activists have resorted to such tactics as painting the word "murderer" on the car of a former animal services department head and setting off a smoke bomb in the lobby of the apartment building where outgoing general manager Guerdon H. Stuckey lived.
Boks said he was well aware that he was coming to a city where animal rights activists are known to be aggressive.
"It's a passionate cause, and passionate people feel strongly," Boks said. "Usually it erupts into what you call radicalism when people feel they haven't been listened to. We may not be able to do everything they want to do, but certainly you can give opportunity for every sector of the community to speak on this. Everybody brings a piece of the puzzle, and that's my role -- to put the puzzle together."
But Boks also said he wanted to meet with the department's employees and reassure them of his commitment to saving animals.
"People don't get into this line of work unless they have an inherent love of animals," he said.
Half the staff signed a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa protesting his firing of Stuckey, saying the mayor had caved in to pressure from animal rights activists.
On Friday, City Councilman Greig Smith said he had received telephone calls from employees of the Animal Services Department making allegations, which he had not verified, that Boks "is very strongly aligned with the extreme animal rights issues."
