Riverside County Animal Services Director Erin Gettis Resigns

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Riverside County Animal Services Director Erin Gettis has resigned amid a lawsuit over high kill rates at county shelters during her two-plus years as director, according to multiple media reports.

Gettis announced her resignation last week and will leave her position effective Sept. 24, according to NBC Palm Springs. Assistant Director of Animal Services Kim Youngberg will serve as interim director.

Gettis will take a new position as executive director of the Riverside University Health System Medical Center, the Desert Sun reported.

The lawsuit was filed against the county on Aug. 21 by four animal welfare activists in the Coachella Valley.

The suit, spearheaded by the Rancho Mirage-based Walter Clark Law Group and filed in Riverside County Superior Court, seeks a permanent injunction against the Department of Animal Services' humane euthanasia programs.

The group called it a "groundbreaking case" that's predicated on the Hayden Act of 1998. That legislation, authored by then-state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Santa Monica, states, in part, "no adoptable animal should be euthanized if it can be adopted into a suitable home."

The measure further bars euthanization even if a pet lacks qualities that make the animal suited to immediate adoption, "but could become adoptable with reasonable efforts."

The plaintiffs, based on data gleaned and produced by the nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society, contend that in 2022, county Department of Animal Services shelters "killed more animals than any other reporting shelter in the United States."

Altogether, in 2022 and 2023, an estimated 24,000 canines and felines were euthanized in county shelters, according to the organization.

County supervisors have said that municipalities that contract with the Department of Animal Services need to start finding solutions to their stray pet overpopulation problems instead of always leaning on the county, causing it to suffer adverse publicity, especially on euthanasia rates.

"It's time to tell contract cities, `You need to go on your own and build your own shelters,"'

Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said at a late August board meeting. "We're going to have to do something different. We cannot continue to be your punching bag. Because your city has hundreds, if not thousands, of animals being turned into our (four) county shelters, nationally and internationally, we receive the criticism."

Jeffries vented his frustrations during an otherwise routine series of contract rate adjustments for the cities of Desert Hot Springs, Hemet and Palm Desert.

The adjustments were required under the 2024-25 fiscal year budget to contend with unforeseen higher operational costs impacting the Department of Animal Services, resulting in 5% across-the-board hikes in rates, totaling roughly $1.58 million in total obligations for all three municipalities until June 30, 2025.

"We've been asking all these different groups that keep quoting `we're the worst in the nation (for kill rates)' where are you getting that? And it's one group on the internet — Best Friends," Supervisor Karen Spiegel said. "Many municipalities have the same challenges. We have had a severe amount of animals, hundreds at a time, coming into the shelters. Municipalities cannot take these animals. It's very challenging."

To date in 2024, she said, there have been five major seizures by animal control officers countywide, during which hundreds of dogs and cats have been impounded due to neglect, malnutrition and related factors, largely attributable to hoarding by residents ill-equipped to provide care.

Spiegel said in spite of the county now refusing to dedicate resources for contract animal control services in cities within neighboring San Bernardino County, the Department of Animal Services remains under pressure handling unincorporated communities and servicing municipalities in Riverside County.

"People need to know, not everything that's spewed out is accurate," the supervisor said. "And it's not fair to continue to bad-mouth our staff."

A few municipalities in the county maintain independent animal control services, either through city-paid personnel or contracts with non- governmental organizations. Examples are Palm Springs, Murrieta and Temecula.