Susan Overfield

Susan Overfield is the woman who was forcibly removed from the City Commission meeting last week. She emailed me a copy of what she was reading when her 'time' expired. She is allowing me to reprint it here.

I do not know if what she says is true, and I am certainly not adopting her words as my own. For the sake of discussion, though, I thought it made sense to at least publicize what caused all the fuss to begin with. Since we're all talking about it, let's see what she had to say.

So, without further ado...

It is my personal opinion that what is transpiring here this evening is a sub-rosa or behind-the-scenes agenda in which specific people are manipulating the bid and awarding process for personal gain, closed corporation tactics and ignoring fiscal responsibility and animal welfare.

Upon investigation I was surprised to discover that there is not one single person involved with the current shelter and bid or award process that is employed by the city.

I did, however, find the following, which is very cozy:

Mary Willmarth– Foundation involvement – husband Mark is city employee

Peggy Bourne– city employee – husband Rick, Foundation involvement

John Gilbert – Foundation involvement – former city commissioner

Melanie Lattin – Foundation involvement – city employee

Bob James – Foundation involvement – litigation for the city possibly

Gloria LaMott – Foundation involvement – previous shelter board member, resigned before asked to quit, has a rabid anti-shelter recent history, is a close, personal friend of Mayor Stebbins, has been heard on at least two separate occasions to say she is “planning a career change and will become a ‘Director’ of a new city job” and she’s “planning on heading a new position opening in the city managing animals.”

Donna Stebbins – Foundation involvement – on the bid award committee – close personal friend with Gloria LaMott, was heard yesterday after an inspection of the current shelter to say, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the shelter’s not awarded the contract.”

And while I have not had time today to find a link between the police department and the Foundation, I have no doubt it exists and will be discovered.

To my knowledge the city, during the run of this expiring contract with the shelter, has never allocated an increase in funds in order to keep up with general rising costs which would negatively affect the running of the shelter.

This would constitute negligence and/or cruelty in the care of the animals housed at the current shelter as well as causing otherwise adoptable animals to be euthanized for lack of necessary maintenance funding.

San Diego (I spoke with Dr. Goldschmidt), Santa Fe (I spoke with Dwayne Adams) and Denver (I spoke with an original foundation member Mrs. Brown), to name just three, all allocated a percentage of their fundraising monies for new the shelter to be earmarked for the use of the shelter being replaced in order to guarantee quality care of the animals in the old shelter until such time as the new shelter was up and running and the animals were relocated.

The Animal Foundation of Great Falls has done no such thing. As a matter of fact it has required the current shelter to make donations to their fund raising with no regard as to the hardships it causes the current shelter and animals. That is not animal welfare, it is self-aggrandizement.

All this put together leads me to one conclusion. The bid award is co-opted and possibly already predetermined by an unseen committee which is interested in assuring the Foundation complete control and the city the ability to circumvent or ignore actual bid and awarding procedures. The Directorship of the new shelter seems to be a foregone conclusion if Ms. LaMotts statements are to be taken as truth.

Donna Stebbins should remove herself from the City Commision and the bid award procedure, as well as anyone else with city employment and Foundation involvement, due to conflict of interest. Anyone with dual interest of city employment/Foundation involvement should be considered ineligible to apply for employment in the new shelter.

It occurred to me that the city may have planned at some future point to attempt to claim ignorance of the current conditions of and at the shelter and once the bid is awarded and the Foundation can step in, the city can then pass a bond onto the public to underwrite the Foundation’s cost in running the new shelter.

Fiscal responsibility in non-existent here. Award a bid to a higher priced entity without background, infra-structure or experience in shelter management, possibly pass a bond onto the public for the running costs of the new shelter, which is non-profit, and then run the future shelter as a closed corporation with only select individuals being awarded work, contracts, and employment positions.

The bid and award process is in place, dates have been established…meet them and award the bid to the lowest bidder as it should be. The HSCC [Humane Society of Cascade County-Ed.] has no financial or legal blemish on its record of running the current shelter and as such, there is no reason NOT to award the bid to them without extension.

If I am wrong, provide me proof and I’ll recant publicly. If, however you merely wish to state, or infer, that I am making unfounded accusations, you bring your proof and I’ll bring mine and we’ll meet at the newspaper and let the facts be public.