Koretz's Corruption Continues
How Best Friends Keeps Ripping Off LA; Desperate Lawmaker's Latest Ploy
By Daniel Guss
@TheGussReport - This column has for years reported that uber-wealthy Best Friends Animal Society continually rips off the people of Los Angeles with City Hall’s blessing despite consistently raking in more than $50 million in annual revenue. The media, mayors, controllers, commissioners and councilmembers, especially the embattled Paul Koretz, look the other way while homeless and lost animals at Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) suffer.
Koretz, who came in a distant second to CPA Kenneth Mejia (who was also endorsed by the LA Times) in the primary for the upcoming City Controller race, now illegally and aggressively censors critics of his leading role in recent LAAS scandals including the cruel, if not criminal, conditions at LAAS and his direct role in misappropriating $1.5 million in donated funds from the city’s Animal Welfare Trust Fund.
To be clear, this is corruption. Not as salacious as Koretz’s former colleagues Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar, convicted and facing trial, respectively, for corruption, but Koretz’s abuse of power is every bit as harmful and with vastly more voiceless victims.
(Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times)
So it was no surprise to see a story this weekend on Fox News about Finn, "a young Nova Scotia Duck Tolling-Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix…up for adoption at Best Friends Animal Society in Los Angeles.”
The article says that Finn was rescued in Maricopa County, Arizona, which is just the latest violation of the contract between Best Friends and the taxpayers of Los Angeles that was completely ignored by Koretz…again.
The contract explicitly states that only animals from LAAS are to be housed and placed for adoption at the publicly funded Best Friends facility in Mission Hills, a rule that Best Friends, LAAS and Koretz have ignored for years.
Finn’s presence at the Mission Hills pound was independently confirmed over the weekend by this column.
Every homeless or lost animal deserves the care of the community in which it is located, and there are many sources for that in Los Angeles, with Best Friends being the deepest pocketed. It has the money and people to provide great care for Finn, but not where his presence is strictly prohibited and biased against “less desirable” animals. Best Friends contractually agreed to abide by this rule.
The rationale for this rule is simple. When LA City Hall dolts approved building the Mission Hills pound with millions of dollars from Prop F., they failed to crank in the cost of staffing and operating it. Hard to believe, but that was City Hall’s excuse when it later ran a rigged scheme to allow the already-selected Best Friends to occupy the facility for free, with no rent, maintenance, utilities or security, instead of one of the more-efficient and transparent local rescues with less panache and much longer presence in LA.
According to its tax returns, Best Friends raked in more than $300,000,000 over a recent five-year period.
Also, Best Friends, it seems, got to keep all revenue it raked in using the taxpayer-funded facility, including animals it cherry-picked for free from LAAS, without having to report on the animals’ eventual outcome, which all other rescues are required to report. Best Friends has also not disputed allegations that it has transferred animals in its care to high-kill pounds outside of Los Angeles, making it’s misuse of LA facilities even more egregious, cruel and unfair.
Koretz, it should be noted, was a staunch defender of controversial LAAS GM Brenda Barnette, who had a major conflict of interest: her daughter was employed by Best Friends while these deals were made and rules were broken for years. Koretz knew this, did nothing about it and even sent out attack emails…which he explicitly denied sending…until shown them.
Only then did Koretz sheepishly and lamely claim that what he irrefutably wrote in his email about critics “wasn’t about (critics) specifically, rather about people who might give similar criticism.” Ironically, the leaker of Koretz’s email was City Hall’s infamous bully, Jim Bickhart, who was suspended when he worked for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and later hired by Koretz for his staff. And then there’s this from 1993, proving that nobody ever gets fired from City Hall for long.
Back to Best Friends…
Koretz, responding to a media inquiry from this column last week, wrote, “I haven’t seen your evidence (about Finn). I would find that interesting,” despite ignoring years of earlier complaints of the same Best Friends misconduct. He has yet to respond to the evidence provided, but said he doesn’t regret the contract with Best Friends. Eric Rayvid, a spokesperson for Best Friends, did not respond as previously promised, after being shown the same evidence. Larry Gross, president of the Garcetti-appointed LAAS Commission, did not respond at all.
Koretz, who now seeks the City Controller’s job that would put him in charge of what would — and more importantly, what would not — be audited in city government, has long ignored humane issues, including:
His dog-and-pony show about ending abuse of elephants in circuses visiting LA. After putting on a theatrical City Council presentation in 2013 of the sounds elephants make after being tortured with “bull hooks,” Koretz failed to tell the public that he had already brokered a deal that did nothing to help the pachyderms, allowing the abuse to continue despite a “ban” on bull hooks that would not kick-in for years. It was the simple economics of circuses that forced them out of business
Koretz has done nothing about the alleged current abusive and neglectful treatment of animals at a pony ride in Griffith Park, including against elderly, disabled and overheated animals
After years of ignoring complaints about poor and insufficient conditions for elephants at the LA Zoo, Koretz, less than two months before the election of the next City Controller, suddenly introduced a motion to send Billy, the Zoo’s highest-profile and long-suffering elephant, to sanctuary years after other elephants at the facility died prematurely despite years of warnings that that would happen.
Koretz sat silently on his duff, keeping this effort in queue until he desperately needed a campaign ace-in-the-hole.
Like he needs right now… just as Koretz’s career appears to be headed for pasture itself.
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(Daniel Guss, MBA, was nominated for three 2022 L.A. Press Club awards and was a runner-up in 2021 and 2020. He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, 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.)