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Changes at animal control facility raising some concerns

Some current and former DuPage County Animal Care and Control staff members and volunteers are voicing concerns with what they called the termination of the agency's veterinary administrator and the county's perceived lack of a plan to ensure the shelter can operate without him.

County officials confirmed last week that Dr. Todd Faraone no longer works there. A county spokesman on Tuesday declined to discuss the reason for Faraone's departure.

Former and current employees and volunteers told county board members Tuesday that the shelter needs help now that Faraone is gone.

The shelter operation is overseen by DuPage's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

"The concerning part of this termination is that the Office of Emergency Management did not have an emergency plan in place in the event that Dr. Faraone left," former shelter employee Katie Van Eck said.

Van Eck said Faraone performed hundreds of surgeries for shelter animals. Upon his departure, she said, no one at the shelter was authorized to prescribe or administer medication.

"If the county was sincerely worried about the care of the animals, they would have had a plan in place involving another veterinarian who would have stepped in," Van Eck said. "Instead they had a staff member call around to vet hospitals Friday morning asking them to help us."

An online petition has been created, titled, "Repeal the Wrongful Termination of Todd Faraone, DVM." The petition already had garnered more than 1,300 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

County officials, however, tell a different story.

Spokeswoman Joan Olson said creating an emergency plan is the job of the shelter's administrator.

"OEM and the county stepped in to create a plan given the fact there was going to be a change in leadership there," Olson said. "So there is a plan in place. There remains a plan in place. All veterinary services are going to be taken care of."

The county will be working with partner veterinarians to provide animal care, including "everything from routine vaccinations to emergency care," according to a statement from DuPage Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director James Joseph.

"This is an already-existing network of support," Joseph said in the statement. " ... DuPage County is committed to maintaining zero euthanasia of any adoptable animal due to a lack of cage space and to steadily increasing (the facility's) live release rate now and into the future."

Van Eck claims she learned Monday that animals from the shelter would be going to a veterinary hospital in Lombard to be spayed and neutered. A veterinarian also came by the shelter over the weekend as a favor.

Volunteer Laura Young said she would like to see an emergency task force established to help the shelter.

In Young's prepared remarks, she said no advance provisions were made at the shelter for veterinary care.

"Imagine now the number of veterinarians whose help must be enlisted to absorb that care into their own practices," Young wrote in her remarks. "Who contacts them? ... Which cost center is the cost of extensive contracted service provision to come from?"

The animal control facility is a self-supported entity and is not funded with taxpayer money.

Young said it has gone two years without euthanizing any adoptable animals because of a lack of space. Adoptions and rescue transfers were able to keep up with the flow of animals into the shelter, made possible by the in-house veterinary care provided by Faraone, she wrote.

"Without in house medical care, DCACC is currently placed on the razor's edge," Young wrote. "If a pet hoarder arrives today with 10 ill cats ... our open and immediate admission shelter is obligated to receive them.

"If we run out of space, healthy adoptable animals will be euthanized."

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