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After a year of ignoring the plaintive caterwauling of animal rights activists giving biweekly verbal assault to Pit Chic Kelli Swagel, the Niagara Falls dog shelter service provider, the city council may have actually heard enough.
At least enough to table extending Swagel’s no-bid emergency contract into the new year while the city builds out a new shelter in Hyde Park for which there has been no siting or feasibility study.
Activists with an ax to grind were joined Wednesday by other citizens and Niagara SPCA Executive Director Amy Lewis.
The usual complainants, Tanya Barone, an animal rights activist and gadfly prone to conspiracy theory, and Janine Gallo, a former Pit Chic associate who has actual credentials and has opened a dog shelter on Cayuga Drive in Wheatfield addressed the council.
Gallo, emotional, ranted about the animal control crisis in Niagara Falls. Barone spoke about a fence for which the city allegedly reimbursed Swagel more than $7,000 even though FOIL requests have revealed no receipt.
Barone also read from the Pit Chic contract, citing the lack of public hours at the Erie County shelter as well as the lack of an updated Website where residents can seek missing dogs. Swagel allegedly shifts dogs from her facility to Rescue Buffalo where they are available for adoption.
The tone and tenor of Barone and Gallo’s valid complaints has been ignored and treated like a nuisance at council meetings by everyone but councilperson Donta Myles.
The tide turned Wednesday.
Swagel’s no-bid contract was awarded in 2023 on an emergency basis, two years after the Niagara SPCA started the discussion with the city expressing wishes to terminate its sheltering agreement. There was never public discussion of any alternative.
Amy Lewis, SPCA executive director addressed the council last night.
“I’m really sorry to be here, because it means there’s something wrong with your dog shelter process,” Lewis said. “I originally took a hands-off approach. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.”
Lewis said her initial interaction with the city over severing the relationship was rough.
“If I said it was contentious, that would be an understatement,” Lewis said.
In August of 2021 she initiated the discussion and said she was met with criticism and mudslinging rather than cooperation.
While the SPCA, which is at capacity, at one point house 65 Falls dogs, the Pit Chic has space for 17 and was over capacity within two weeks of opening. The city purchased 45 kennels for Pit Chic. Where the additional kennels are located is unknown.
“You need another alternative,” Lewis said. “Dogs are dying in your streets.”
Lewis was only the tip of the iceberg. The next speaker, a young woman with the first name Jada spoke in hushed, nervous tones about a recent experience she had.
She witnessed a dog hit by a car on Hyde Park Boulevard and picked it up, driving to the SPCA which refused the animal and told her to contact Falls police. Police told her the dog control officer, Donny Booth, was off until Monday.
Finally, her mother identified the location of Pit Chic and she drove to Grand Island Boulevard where Booth’s city vehicle was in the lot. She was informed the shelter was at capacity. It was unclear what became of the stray wounded animal. Jada said no one she encountered even asked how the animal was.
There have been repetitive reports on the crisis in the community, according to Gallo who said she fields multiple calls daily from residents told to call her by the police department, Booth and the SPCA. Her facility is not a rescue facility.
Myra Rodriguez operates a grooming salon, Glitter Paws in the suite next to Pit Chic. She worked cooperatively with Swagel, letting her use washers and dryers and subletting the fenced space behind her shop to Swagel.
That relationship went south when, Rodriguez was attacked by a dog with which she was asked to help.
Ultimately, after the fusillade of crisis communication from the public, Councilperson Brian Archie expressed concern a contract extension would open the city to liability as the crisis continues. Archie moved to table the contract extension with a second from Myles and a 5-0 vote.
