Gloucester VA Links and News: Chief Animal Control Officer

Showing posts with label Chief Animal Control Officer. Show all posts

Friday, November 21, 2014

Gloucester, Virginia: Steve Baranek Wasting Your Tax Dollars?

The question we are asking: Is Steve Baranek, Chief Animal Control officer for Gloucester County wasting our tax dollars? The reason we are asking this is because as of today, Novermber 21st, 2014 we have filed a complaint that he appears to have been conducting personal business while on county employment time. The date in question is July 26th, 2014 where Steve was seen at the Tractor Supply yard sale in the Gloucester County Courthouse Area. We have a picture of him at that event.

Why was he at a yard sale? Now Tractor Supply does provide their parking lot during most of the year for animal swap meets and an occasional yard sale where no animals are present. On July 26th, 2014 the event in the Tractor Supply parking lot was a yard sale without any animals present. Why was he even there? He was in full uniform and driving a county vehicle just like the one pictured above. Why is the county paying him to shop at a private event on private property?

Below is a copy of the complaint form we submitted and filed with the Director of Human Resources of Gloucester County local government.

Gloucester, Virginia Complaint Filing, Animal Control, Official

In the above document there is a picture of Steven Baranek. In the background one can see there are no animals at this event. The complaint we filed with county officials and Human Resources is 2 pages as opposed to the one page above. I added a true signature to the copy filed with Gloucester County to make the complaint official. Why are Gloucester residents being expected to pay for county government employees to go shopping while on duty? This is no different than if he was shopping inside Wal Mart while on duty. This is an outrage for every resident in Gloucester who pays any form of taxes including shopping in any of the local stores. It's an outrage to anyone who comes to Gloucester and shops as some of those tax dollars fund this kind of behavior as well.

If you find this kind of behavior disturbing, please email the Board of Supervisors and tell them about it.

BoS@gloucesterva.info is the email address to the Board of Supervisors of Gloucester. Let them know you DO NOT CONSENT to this kind of behavior by county employees wasting your tax dollars.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Animal Control Criminals of Gloucester, VA Should Be Fired?

Recently we showed how the deputies of Animal Control in Gloucester, Virginia were in violation of a number of their own ordinances, making them criminals without any regard for the law, what we are now going to show is the state law that shows that these criminals need to be fired for their actions in our view. Below in the slideshare container is the story in PDF format that shows what ordinances these deputies have violated in our view as well as picture evidence of those violations. We are linking the original story at the bottom of this post as well.

Gloucester Animal Control In Violation of Ordinances? from Chuck Thompson

Here is the state code of Virginia that shows that these criminals need to go in our view.

§ 3.2-6557. Animal control officers and humane investigators; limitations; records; penalties.

A. No animal control officer, humane investigator, humane society or custodian of any pound or animal shelter shall: (i) obtain the release or transfer of an animal by the animal's owner to such animal control officer, humane investigator, humane society or custodian for personal gain; or (ii) give or sell or negotiate for the gift or sale to any individual, pet shop, dealer, or research facility of any animal that may come into his custody in the course of carrying out his official assignments. No animal control officer, humane investigator or custodian of any pound or animal shelter shall be granted a dealer's license. Violation of this subsection is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Nothing in this section shall preclude any animal control officer or humane investigator from lawfully impounding any animal pursuant to § 3.2-6569.

B. An animal control officer, law-enforcement officer, humane investigator or custodian of any pound or animal shelter, upon taking custody of any animal in the course of his official duties, or any representative of a humane society, upon obtaining custody of any animal on behalf of the society, shall immediately make a record of the matter. Such record shall include:

1. The date on which the animal was taken into custody;

2. The date of the making of the record;

3. A description of the animal including the animal's species, color, breed, sex,

approximate age and approximate weight;

4. The reason for taking custody of the animal and the location where custody was taken;

5. The name and address of the animal's owner, if known;

6. Any license or rabies tag, tattoo, collar or other identification number carried by or appearing on the animal; and

7. The disposition of the animal.

Records required by this subsection shall be maintained for at least five years, and shall be available for public inspection upon request. A summary of such records shall be submitted annually to the State Veterinarian in a format prescribed by him.

C. Any animal control officer or custodian of any pound who violates any provision of this chapter that relates to the seizure, impoundment and custody of animals by an animal control officer may be subject to suspension or dismissal from his position.

D. Custodians and animal control officers engaged in the operation of a pound shall be required to have knowledge of the laws of the Commonwealth governing animals, including this chapter, as well as basic animal care.

We can not argue for suspension as it would imply that these criminals, in our view, would have only transported one animal, one time in a hazardous and inhumane way. It is clear that this would not be the case. Each and every Animal Control Officer is required to know state codes as well as local ordinances. for them to even considering claiming they had no idea is not justified.

§ 15.2-612. Manager responsible for administration of affairs of county; appointment of officers and employees.

The county manager shall be responsible to the board for the proper administration of all the affairs of the county which the board has authority to control. To that end he shall appoint all officers and employees in the county's administrative service, except as otherwise provided in this form of county organization and government, and except as he authorizes the head of a department or office responsible to him to appoint subordinates in such department or office. All appointments shall be based on the ability, training and experience of the appointees which are relevant to the work which they are to perform.

County Administrator, Brenda Garton would be the one now who is responsible for firing them or comes under full responsibility for the criminal behavior of these criminals without any regard for the laws based on the above from what we are reading. Someone has to speak for all the animals who are not able to speak for themselves that have been hamed, treated with cruelty and in inhumane ways by Animal Control Officers.

Now of course, we are not attorneys and none of this should be considered legal advice in any way, only a competent attorney can legally advise you. We are only asking questions based on our research and showing our opinions based on that research. Should the research prove correct, we would expect appropriate actions to go fourth.