After nearly a year-long search, county officials hired a new animal shelter director — one from within their own walls.
The new director, Monica Schmidt, has been working at OC Animal Care in Tustin since 2020 as the assistant director. When former Director Andi Bernard stepped down last May, Schmidt took over as interim director.
Last month, county supervisors formally hired Schmidt — the third director in the last five years for the agency.
It’s a role that’s undergone criticism over the last several years after concerns that certain shelter policies were increasing euthanasia rates. Bernard’s resignation came less than a week after activists protested outside her home, shouting with megaphones and holding signs claiming that she “supports animal abuse.”
After Bernard stepped down, a shelter spokesperson said “escalating negativity” directed at the former director had become “distracting and disturbing.”
[Read: Head of OC Animal Care Steps Down as Activists Fight for Open Shelter Policies]
Critics have spent years calling for a more open shelter, arguing that OCAC’s practices prevented animals from getting adopted and resulted in more euthanized animals.
Animal shelter officials were slow to reopen kennels for public viewing after the pandemic. Even years after most county buildings and Southern California animal shelters were reopened to the public, OC Animal Care’s kennel areas remained largely closed off.
Visitors were required to have an appointment to meet any animals and were often required to choose which animals to meet based on photos on a computer screen instead of being able to walk around the kennel areas.
That changed in January when the OCAC officials added daily viewing hours from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
[Read: OC Animal Shelter to Allow More In-Person Visitors]
Schmidt said the viewing hours are an “ongoing conversation” that could change if staff sees a need to make another shift.
“We are still seeing the majority of adopters choosing to pre-schedule, so that is something we’re continuing to monitor,” Schmidt said in an interview. “We’re continuing to hear from our staff — who are not only facilitating the meet and greets but also working in the lobby — the majority of our folks do tend to visit in the afternoons.”
The shelter’s viewing hours include Saturdays and Sundays.
“[Schmidt’s] cooperation in accommodating our office’s request to open the animal shelter to the public seven days a week, without requiring an appointment, is highly appreciated,” Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said in a statement released last month. “I have full confidence in her ability to further enhance OC Animal Care.”
Margot Boyer, an animal advocate who started a 2022 petition to reopen the kennels, said the hiring process raises some questions.
“Was this a true search, or was the position kept open specifically for Monica Schmidt?” Boyer said. “Monica Schmidt kept the COVID-era restrictions in place, blocking access to adoptable animals. On her watch, the animals got worse care, and the kill rate climbed.”
OC Community Resources spokesperson Alexa Pratt said there were 60 total applicants for the position.
As director, Schmidt said one of her biggest priorities is to reconnect with the public, volunteers, staff and rescue partners.
“All of those stakeholders, I’m committed to engaging with them, hearing from them, really finding where we have overlapping goals and can work together to really make life better for people and pets in our community,” she said. “That’s a huge goal for me.”
The shelter was also the focus of a scathing OC Grand Jury report, released last summer, that echoed activists’ calls to reopen kennels to the public, reduce kill rates and reinstate a trap, neuter and release program that officials shuttered in 2020.
[Read: Grand Jury: OC Animal Shelter Needs Updated Policies to Stop Killing More Animals]
Orange County officials disagreed with the majority of findings in the grand jury report. County supervisors narrowly approved a response to the report, disagreeing with 14 of the 17 findings and declining half of the recommended actions.
Although grand jurors found the shelter has been euthanizing animals at higher levels than in previous years, Schmidt emphasized that euthanasia is always the last resort.
“[Euthanasia] is never the first conversation that we’re having,” Schmidt said. “We try to exhaust all of our resources to find positive placement for an animal before we ever get to that point. And we will continue to commit to that.”
Schmidt is the third director the shelter has had in five years.
Michael Kaviani, who started as OC Animal Care’s director in August 2018, resigned on Christmas Eve in 2019 and moved to a Colorado-based nonprofit. Bernard stepped down in May 2023.
Schmidt has had about 16 years of experience working in animal welfare. Before coming to OCAC, she worked in a large-scale humane society in Texas.
One of her first priorities as the permanent director will be to fill vacant positions, especially for animal care attendants.
“I think that there are a lot of animal-loving folks out in the community who might be very interested but might not necessarily just be looking on the county government jobs website,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that I hope to expand — how we’re able to reach the community and share about those job openings.”
Schmidt said staff will be launching a free microchipping clinic and a “foster to adopt” pilot program in the upcoming weeks.
The foster program will encourage people to take a dog home for two weeks and then adopt that dog after the foster period comes to an end.
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.