EXCLUSIVE: “Gross-out” by Daniel Guss
Larry Gross, president of Karen Bass’s deeply troubled Animal Services commission, “resigned” on Tuesday. Yeah, right!
A date has finally been added to Larry Gross’s City Hall resignation letter.
The move euthanizes his disastrous tenure as president of the 5-person LA Animal Services commission, which oversees the insufferable agency that is exponentially worse now than when Gross came aboard in 2014.
The move surprised and disappointed virtually nobody in LA’s enormous humane community.
Even Gross saw it coming.
More than a year ago.
According to public records, after my 5/22/23 exposé on Gross using undisclosed private email accounts to conduct official city business, he emailed that column to Brenda Barnette, the retired Animal Services general manager (whose ironic side-gig is dog breeding), with this single sentence: “my days may be numbered.”
Let’s zoom-in on that:
But in corruption-saturated LA City Hall, the deceptive practice is commonplace and encouraged, especially at Animal Services, where infamous internet abuser Jim Bickhart blatantly did it on behalf of Councilmember Paul Koretz, who ignored repeated concerns about it:
That was no surprise, considering that he hired Bickhart, aka Snake Pliskin, despite his suspension without pay from his gig as an aide to Antonio Villaraigosa for vicious and anonymous online misconduct, as noted in the LA Times on 3/22/11:
Google “Venice, Jim Bickhart, Snake Pliskin” for the creepy details.
But what does this have to do with Larry Gross’s resignation?
As commission president, Gross controlled the agency’s agenda. I am hardly alone in my OPINION that micro-aggressions such as these intentionally hidden communications may have accelerated the dangerous and deadly decline of Animal Services.
The decline has also been costly, with taxpayers recently settling just one preventable and predictable dog mauling incident for $7.5 million, with much more money likely to be paid in similar anticipated lawsuits.
So Karen Bass needed a visible and substantial change right now, before seven-figure settlements become eight-figure ones, should any of those cases reach a jury.
Which brings us back to Gross.
Bass is stuck with Staycee Dains, who she hired as Animal Services general manager in June ‘23 without interviewing anyone else despite public outcry about Dains.
According to public records, Bass spent no more than 75 minutes interviewing Dains (and perhaps considerably less) in two May ‘23 meetings, only one of which appears to have been conducted in-person. Bass’s office refuses to say whether the mayor attended both meetings and, if so, for how long.
Bass owns the Dains hiring decision and, politician that she is, refuses to admit that it was a colossal and costly blunder. But City Hall insiders say it was done at the recommendation of her long-time aide, Jackie Hamilton, who those records indicate did attend the May ‘23 meetings. Public records show that Gross also attempted to influence the hiring of Dains.
So Bass needed a scapegoat.
Hamilton, a Yale Law graduate, also checks demographic boxes that Gross doesn’t. And yes, demographics always play a factor in City Hall.
Always.
Lacking other scapegoat options, Gross — whose actual expertise is as a tenants’ rights activist — was the obvious choice to boot at worse-by-the-day Animal Services.
Oh, sorry.
Gross wasn’t “booted.”
He “resigned.”
And that leads us to this tease.
The clear candidate to replace Gross as commission president is its current veep Alison McBeth-Featherstone. She not only checks the Bass-favored demographic boxes, she ACCOMPLISHES things in that role!
She recently created and led the successful volunteer clean-up day at the South LA pound, which is needed, regularly, at every Animal Services location.
And last Sunday, she rallied rescue groups, shelter volunteers and constituents of Council District 8 (where 50% of Animal Services dog and cat deaths are performed, barbarically and pointlessly without sedation) as she led an animal wellness and spay/neuter day where more than 400 animals were surgically prevented from reproducing, and/or simultaneously microchipped, vaccinated and given wellness checks in one of the poorest communities in LA. (CORRECTION: “and” was edited to “and/or.”)
But good ideas are often weighed against ill-advised political ones.
Another commissioner, James Johnson — who continually makes odd public comments about his disdain for animals — might be shoved into the role despite admitting in a recent meeting that he shouldn’t be asked questions because he doesn’t understand the issues.
He serves in his current commish role because he is a union plant, and he makes it abundantly clear that he would prefer a different post.
Since neither Johnson nor Bass and company responded to my inquiries about his bizarre statements, we publish the email:
This further publicly establishes that there is undeniable risk that Bass must mitigate, pronto. (Paging attorneys preparing lawsuits against Animal Services! Hit me up, bruhs and ladies! I have a boatload of discovery for you.)
Bass should admit her mistakes, proactively put the right people in place and spend money wisely to remedy problems now rather than paying out even more moolah later.
After Gross’s resignation yesterday, Whitney Smith, an animal rescuer and humane policy advocate known throughout those LA circles, said to Johnson in her blunt, purposeful way, “if you actually think there are more non-profits in LA helping animals than people, and you care more about people than animals, then you are on the wrong commission.”
Her opinion is shared by many.
As City Council prepares for its summer recess, we will catch up on a bunch of other issues and probably enjoy some hearty laughs.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, won the LA Press Club’s “Online Journalist of the Year” and “Best Activism Journalism” awards in June ‘23. Last weekend, he won its “Best Commentary, Non-Political” award. He has contributed to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)