ROCKINGHAM — A sea of red shirts filled the seating area in the courtroom Monday evening as local animal advocates voiced their dissatisfaction with the current operations of the Richmond County Animal Shelter.
Around 50 supporters stood in solidarity as Kristi Newton-Maines walked to the podium to address the Richmond County Board of Commissioners regarding the shelter’s handling by K2 Solutions.
“We feel K2 Solutions has failed miserably throughout their contract of our animal shelter,” Newton-Maines said.
K2 was awarded a three-year contract to take over operations in July 2021 after pleas for improvements from Netwon-Maines and others.
Click here to read the story on the contract.
Since then, however, Newton-Maines said K2 has had compliance issues and three disapproved inspections, including two back-to-back reports this year.
Click here to read about the recent inspections.
Newton-Maines said one of the issues that bothered her the most was the shelter being out of food.
“K2 Solutions is allotted enough money to never run out of any type of animal food,” she said.
The other issue was “copious amounts of feces.”
“No animal should have to live in filth,” she continued. “If this were happening in the community, Animal Control would cite warnings, and if not rectified would be giving fines.”
Newton-Maines also pointed out that at the time of the second inspection, the shelter was posting that it was at capacity and had “many criminal-hold dogs.”
However, according to the inspection report, there were 65 dogs on premises, with a capacity of 105.
She also questioned K2’s euthanization practices — which were at issue in the February inspection — and record keeping.
“K2 Solutions has not shown anything worthy of our hard-earned tax dollars from the beginning and has continued to deteriorate throughout the contract,” she said. “K2 Solutions has cashed our checks with little positive results and is an example of how not to run a shelter.”
She went on to say the company is “there to make money” and that the “animals are not properly taken care of … The less spent on the animals, the more they profit.”
K2 Founder and CEO Lane Kjellsen and several other company representatives were also at the meeting, but no one spoke publicly.
However, Kjellsen did issue a statement on the shelter’s Facebook page the evening of March 1.
“I want to thank the community for pointing out K2’s recent mistakes made in our management of the Richmond County Animal Shelter,” Kjellsen. “K2 acknowledges that we’ve made some errors, and as always is endeavoring to learn, correct and improve. It is what we do.”
Kjellsen went on to say that the county sought out the company’s help to take on the operations of the shelter “because of the constant turmoil created by gossip, hate and infighting.”
The statement continues:
“We reluctantly accepted and took on the challenge. K2 accepted the contract largely out of duty, citizenship, and stewardship to give back to this County — a place that we’ve called home since we bought our canine training property in 2009. Since that time, we’ve become one of our County’s largest private employers. K2 has been a stellar County tax-payer and has not applied for any economic benefits from the County or the state in return for all of our investments, improvements and development of our facilities or the County jobs we’ve created. I believe that Richmond County has been a great home for K2’s Canine Training Academy and I believe we have been a good steward to the County in return.
We have great employees from our community working at our Shelter (and at our Canine Training Academy), who persevere through all of the allegations and inuendo that ensues—even when they are trying to do well, and especially when they make a mistake. It is not an easy job. By and large, our team has done our County a tremendous service and they should receive our community’s thanks. … We asked for an update on our adoptions, and more than a hundred of our citizens have responded with comments and pictures of their animals in happy, loving homes.
Since taking over the Shelter in the summer of 2021, we have taken in over 5,555 dogs and cats from our community, amounting to almost 200 animals per month. Of those animals, we have returned 337 of them to their owners and directly adopted 1,884 of them to new homes. We’ve transferred another 1,209 to adoption agencies up and down the east coast, and as far west as Colorado, at our own expense. Unfortunately, we’ve been forced to euthanize 1,785 animals that we were not resourced to care for. Ideally, we would have unlimited facilities, people, and dollars, allowing us to care for all of the animals without ever requiring euthanasia, but this is our reality.
These recent inspection results show that we’ve made mistakes—mistakes that we take very seriously. We have and are continuing to conduct After Action Reviews and develop corrective action plans. We are already implementing changes, especially to correct the biggest of those mistakes, and we will continue to improve. In an already challenging situation, K2 asks for the support of our community. The handful of members that continually harass our employees and tear apart each mistake we make only continue to break down the morale of those truly doing their best in an nearly impossible situation.
Which brings me to my final point. The work that our dedicated team has done over the last few years, taking thousands of animals off the streets, caring for them, and finding homes for the vast majority of them, is not “good business” for K2—we’ve taken this on to try to help. The act of saving these animals in strict compliance with the varying standards of inspectors is difficult. K2 does not profit from this job, which we knew would be the case when we agreed to help—we simply pay the bills, almost.
…K2 was founded to serve our country and its people, including the citizens of this County. If the community and the Commissioners determine that they no longer want to retain K2’s services, we will accept that notice and provide operational support to transition the contract. …”
Newton-Maines said she and other animal advocates want positive change at the shelter and that renewing the contract “is far from positive.”
She said it would be in the best interest of the community and the animals for operations to be overseen by a board with “non-paid, non-political” individuals with knowledge of animal care, behavior, rescue and health.
“There are several of us here tonight that are capable and have our own attributes that will help the shelter succeed,” she said. “This community will help the animals in the shelter and community, lowering owner surrenders and euthanasia rates.”
One of those groups, Richmond County Operation Fix, has focused on helping local animal owners get their pets spayed and neutered.
Founder Allison Story said the group has fixed 215 animals in the past year.
Before the K2 takeover, Story said the group had partnered with the shelter to help offset the cost of 600 animals being fixed. However, she said, “That program ceased upon their arrival.”
Story commented under Kjellsen’s letter, but her comments were removed.
Following Newton-Maine’s comments, the board went into closed session for “contract negotiations” — although it wasn’t on the agenda.
No action was taken after the closed session.
Commissioner Andy Grooms acknowledged the presence of the K2 representatives, saying “It means a lot, y’all showing up, taken what was given here tonight.”
“We have worked together for about three years and I will say y’all have moved a lot of animals and worked with us on a lot of things and that is appreciated,” Grooms continued. “Not everybody steps up in the position that you’re in and tries to make a difference.
Chairman Jeff Smart also offered appreciation to K2, as well as to Newton-Maines for bringing the concerns to the board.
“We will take into consideration what was said tonight … and we’ll move forward and do what’s best for our citizens of Richmond County,” Smart said, before closing the meeting.
