Trying to find out what Halifax is up to: it's not easy!

From: Francesca Rogier

Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:24:55 -0300

To: "Salsman, Katherine"

Cc: "MacDonald, Andrea", "Scolaro, Lori", (the court clerk; Animal Services; David Hendsbee; the vet; the trainer; Mayor Kelly; legal consultant Kirthi Jayakumar)

Conversation: Awaiting response to July 23 email: HRM's plans for Brindi?

Subject: Re: Awaiting response to July 23 email: HRM's plans for Brindi?
Ms. Salsman,

Thank you for your reply.

Would you kindly explain what is meant by “usual practice”? Other than the evaluations of stray dogs by and at the city pound, I am not aware of any practice or policy by which HRM regularly assesses seized dogs. If such a practice exists, surely HRM would have had Brindi evaluated some time ago, but I never received any such documentation as part of disclosure.

Clearly we are not dealing with anything of a usual nature in this instance, at the very least. So I would still like an answer as to why the assessment results will not be made known.

Also, when do you expect a decision will be made?

Thank you,
Francesca Rogier   

From: "Salsman, Katherine"

Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:59:55 +0000

To: Francesca Rogier

Cc: "MacDonald, Andrea" , "Scolaro, Lori"  

Subject: RE: Awaiting response to July 23 email: HRM's plans for Brindi?

---

Ms. Rogier,  

As previously stated, the assessment will not be released because it is an internal document. It is not our usual practice to release documents of that nature.

The assessment has not yet been completed and therefore no decisions have been made.

Katherine E. Salsman

Municipal Prosecutor  

HELP SAVE BRINDI - LIST OF CONTACTS

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LIST OF CONTACTS

TELL THEM: HALIFAX MUST NOT KILL BRINDI!

·      Please contact often and be sure to ask for a reply.

·      Send photos of Brindi with them if you can (download from the blog or Save Brindi).

·      Calling them, if you are able, and using regular mail or postcards is very powerful.

·      For emails, try to avoid using Brindi in the subject line because many of them just dump them!

·      ALSO IMPORTANT: To be more effective, please cc all messages to the media. See list below.

THANK YOU!! 

Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)

Website: http://www.Halifax.ca

Address:          Halifax  City Hall

1841 Argyle Street, Main Floor

PO Box 1749

Halifax, NS B3J 3A5 Canada

Mayor Peter Kelly: kellyp@halifax.ca

phone: 001 902 490 4010

twitter: @mayorpeterkelly

Head of Halifax Legal Services: Marian Tyson tysonm@halifax.ca

Municipal Prosecutor: Katherine Salsman salsmak@halifax.ca

Manager of HRM Animal Services: Andrea Macdonald macdonaa@halifax.ca

Supervisor of Animal Services: Lori Scolaro scolarl@halifax.ca (she issued the original euthanasia order)

HRM Animal Services

P.O. Box 1749

Halifax, NS B3J 3A5

Phone: 001-902-490-7371 or 490 1791

Fax: 001 902 490-6142

Homeward Bound City Pound

Website: http://www.citypound.ca

Address:             201 Unit 9 Brownlow Avenue,

Dartmouth, NS B3B 1W2

Tel: (902)407-SAVE (7283) Fax: (902)406-8588

Homeward Bound Owner/Director: Hope Swinimer email: hopeswinimer@accesswave.ca

HRM MUNICIPAL COUNCILORS: see Halifax.ca for full information.

Brindi’s local councilor is David Hendsbee.

Website:http://www.hendsbee.ns.ca/contact.htm

Mobile:     1 902.483.0705

Home:      1 902.829.2465

Mailing Address: 1 Chamberlain Drive, Dartmouth, NS B2Z 1B1

Email addresses for all municipal councilors: harveyb@halifax.ca, adamss@halifax.ca, barry.dalrymple@halifax.ca, brad.johns@halifax.ca, darren.fisher@halifax.ca, David.Hendsbee@halifax.ca, sloaned@halifax.ca, humd@halifax.ca, jennifer.watts@halifax.ca, karsteb@halifax.ca, lorelei.nicoll@halifax.ca, mcclusg@halifax.ca, mosherl@halifax.ca, outhitt@halifax.ca, peter.lund@halifax.ca, rankinr@halifax.ca, streats@halifax.ca, smithj@halifax.ca, utecks@halifax.ca, walkerr@halifax.ca, wilema@halifax.ca

Twitter addresses for some councilors: @barkhouse @downtowndawn @councillorwatts @darrenfisherns

PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL OFFICIALS

Attorney General and Minister of Justice: Hon. Ross Landry

Email: justmin@gov.ns.ca

website: http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/minister.asp

Minister of Municipal Affairs: Hon. John MacDonnell snsmrmin@gov.ns.ca

website: http://nslegislature.ca/index.php/people/members/John_MacDonell/

Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations

1505 Barrington Street

Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 2M4

Phone: (902) 424-5550

Fax: (902) 424-0581

Member of Parliament for Halifax/Eastern Shore: Peter Stoffer stoffp1@parl.gc.ca

website: http://peterstoffer.ndp.ca/

Community Office:

2900 Hwy #2

Fall River, Nova Scotia, B2T 1W4

Tel: 902-861-2311 or toll-free (NS only) 1-888-701-5557

Fax: 902-861-4620

Ottawa Office:

Room 242 Confederation Bldg.

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Tel: 613-995-5822Email: stoffp@parl.gc.ca

Member of the Provincial Assembly (MLA), Eastern Shore: Sid Prest sidprest.mla@ns.aliantzinc.ca

Website: http://nslegislature.ca/index.php/people/members/Sidney_Prest/

7907 Hwy #7, Unit 2

P.O. Box 6

Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia

B0J 2L0

Phone: (902) 889-2112

Fax: (902) 889-3190

E-mail: sidprest.mla@ns.aliantzinc.ca

For all MLAs: http://nslegislature.ca/index.php/people/addresses/

IMPORTANT: To be more effective, please cc all messages to the media.

Local media: news957@rogers.com, radionews@halifax.cbc.ca, Eileen.McInnis@CBC.CA atlanticnews@ctv.ca, news@ctv.ca, jackie.foster@ctv.ca, marnoon@cbc.ca, cbcns@cbc.ca news@globaltv.com, newsroom@herald.ca, letters@herald.ca, editor@herald.ca, Rick.Howe@rci.rogers.com, mileshowe@hotmail.com

Local media on Twitter: @cbcns @cbcmainstreet @maritimenoon @jordimorgan @theRickHoweShow @news957 @chronicleherald @twitcoast @tim_bousquet @openfileHFX @HalifaxMagazine @HalifaxNSNews @nealozano @CKDU881FM

National media: CBC radio and TV, CTV, Global TV, National Post, Globe and Mail

OTHER LOCAL TWITTER ACCOUNTS:  @hfxnovascotia @halifaxtweeters @occupyns

NOTE: Contacting individuals directly and often brings better results than online petitions. We have done petitions over and over, the last total was 10,000 signatures, but the judge and the city ignore them! Belfast ignored nearly 200,000 signatures on petitions for Lennox, sadly!

Alarm bells: Halifax signals all things Brindi are secret from now on

On June 26, the provincial judge turned over all control and rights to my dog Brindi to Halifax - the very city that has wanted to kill her since July 2008. That June, animal services officials had arbitrarily muzzled her, then told me about a law allowing them to seize and destroy her without any further ado if she was reported for anything, including not wearing her muzzle even accidentally. They seized her on July 24, 2008, after exactly that unfortunate thing happened four days earlier: she accidentally got loose for about 20 seconds, without causing injury to anybody.

There is no law in Halifax mandating seizure and destruction of a dog under a muzzle order merely for being off its property without the muzzle on. The supreme court later quashed that euthanasia order, but Halifax didn't return Brindi. And the city never held anybody accountable for those boldfaced lies, either.

It's no exaggeration to say that both of our lives were ruined that sad day. Many times over, in fact.

Last month, after prolonging Brindi's already lengthy stay in the pound by nearly four more months (on top of 18 months since the 2010 seizure), and after I put together a very strong case for Brindi's release, bolstered by the trainer's excellent testimony, Judge Buchan gave carte blanche to Halifax officials, saying they should do their own usual" assessment on her, and after August 1, they are free to decide for themselves what to do with her. (For some strange reason the prosecutor told the media the date was August 21 - not sure what that was about.)

During the trial, the prosecutor argued - as always - that there was only one option for Brindi: death. Somehow the judge ignored this consistent position, as well as the fact that Brindi has been assessed positively many times already. The most recent one was carried out on June 13 by behavioral consultant Susan Jordan; her report lay on the judge's desk.

Now the municipal prosecutor, 2009 law school grad Katherine Salsman, tells me that the results of Brindi's assessment will be in an "internal document". In other words, she will not share the results with me or the public. After two days puzzling over this, I came to the alarming realization that it must mean the city is planning to keep secret what they ultimately will do with/to Brindi a secret.  And that they must have decided to have her killed.

So the only reason for these officials to keep their decision a secret is if they plan to kill her. This would not be a surprise, as Halifax officials have wanted to do since 2008, and spent an inordinate amount of money trying. But it is extremely dismaying news, and everyone should take notice.