The St. Louis County Council voted Tuesday night that it has no confidence in Public Health Director Kanika Cunningham’s leadership of the county animal shelter.
The 6-to-1 vote was to pass a resolution based on a report with recommendations from the council’s Ethics Committee. The vote of no confidence was one of these recommendations. It also recommends an online dashboard with statistics on the shelter and notes that the county is not required to operate an animal shelter at all.
Council Chairwoman Rita Heard Days said she hopes the vote leads Cunningham to make changes.
“(The vote is) a message to Dr. Cunningham,” Days said. “I’m hopeful that she’ll see that and she’ll rectify some of the things that have happened under her watch.”
She said the vote was largely a way for the council to make a statement on the shelter’s management.
Some of the problems with the shelter mentioned in the report, which was based on more than 13 hours of testimony from people involved with the shelter’s operations, were a parvovirus outbreak, poor communication among leaders and poor sanitation.
These incidents all occurred after the county took back control of the shelter from the Animal Protective Association.
The only council member who voted no was Lisa Clancy. She said the report, written by Ethics Committee Chair Michael Archer, was sloppy and editorialized.
“I do have serious concerns about relying on it as the basis for a no-confidence vote,” Clancy said. “The report includes important testimony, but it also has significant limitations.”
One of the concerns Clancy raised was that no shelter volunteers were subpoenaed to testify during the four hearings to investigate operations. She said volunteers see the day-to-day operations more than anyone else.
Shelter volunteer Jasmine To spoke during the public comment portion of the council meeting. She said shelter conditions have vastly improved.
“The Ethics Committee report reflects a moment in time during a leadership transition, not current conditions,” To said.
Cunningham said in a statement released before the vote that the report was inaccurate.
“The report misrepresents the situation at the shelter, containing numerous inaccuracies and serves primarily as a political circus by the County Council,” Cunningham said. “We will continue our focus on the health and welfare of the people and animals in our community.”
The Department of Public Health did not respond when asked to give specific examples of inaccuracies.
One aspect of the report that does appear to be inaccurate is the statement that Dr. Carole Baskin, the health department’s director of communicable diseases, is a veterinarian. Kim Brown, chief operations officer of the APA, said during her testimony that Baskin is allergic to dogs, and this became problematic while Baskin was serving as the county’s liaison to the APA.
The report identifies Baskin as a veterinarian.
“The main point of contact then became one of the veterinarians, Dr. Baskin,” Archer said in the report. “Dr. Baskin acting as a liaison with the APA was problematic: Dr. Baskin could not go into treating rooms nor treat dogs since she was allergic to dogs.”
According to Baskin’s LinkedIn page, she holds a doctor of veterinary medicine degree but has never actually worked as a veterinarian. She has been the director of communicable diseases for the county health department since 2019.
The report also says, “The defining moment as to mismanagement of the Animal Shelter was the testimony that the St. Louis County Animal Shelter, under the management of Dr. Cunningham, was the hiring of a veterinarian who has an allergy to dogs.”
If this refers to Baskin, it is inaccurate in two ways: Baskin has never worked as a veterinarian, and Cunningham did not hire her. Cunningham started working for the county in 2022.
