Sarah Brown Has Not Been a Leader

On Tuesday, March 4, Sarah Brown will be officially confirmed as the new Director of Community and Veterans Services, which oversees Manatee County’s animal services. While I look forward to working with Sarah Brown for the betterment of animals, I can not withhold my objections to her being promoted - again. I believe the shelter and Animal Services (now called Manatee County Animal Welfare) have had many of the same problems for years that she has failed to address. In any organization, leadership is everything. I don’t feel Sarah has been a good leader. 

Perhaps most egregious was the July 3, 2023 copy/pasted email telling 11 shelter volunteers with over 50 combined years of donated time that their services were no longer needed. Many months later, most of them were allowed to return, but there has never been an explanation for why they were terminated in the first place - except to send a message that volunteers had better tow the line and not complain publicly about anything shelter-related. These terminations devastated the volunteers and deprived the animals of much needed love and exercise. To me, they were indefensible. 

There is also the problem, which I wrote about on November 30, 2024, of Brown providing false information related to the progress of the new kennels that will eventually be installed at the Bishop property. As I wrote then, it’s not so much the false information, it was the fact that Brown didn’t care enough to stay updated on the progress. 

Below, I discuss just a few other items that show a pattern of poor management under Brown at Animal Services. 

Bad Hires

Successive poor hiring decisions over the past five years have led to the current situation where a recently hired entry-level employee has been placed in the shelter manager position.

The current shelter manager was hired last summer to be in charge of the adoption process at the shelter. While her application states she managed a shelter in Palm City, Fl for 5 months, when asked whether the County can contact her previous employers, “no” is checked for all listed previous employers.

So how did we get to a point where our County shelter, with approx 100 dogs (plus cats), as part of a department with a $3million budget, is being managed by a 1st year employee with no confirmed shelter management experience? Because the previous manager, Jennifer Hume (aka Jennifer Held) recently quit after a tumultuous, predictably short-term stint as Manatee’s shelter manager.

Hume should never have been hired in the first place. Again, we have the red flags of checking “no” to the job application request to contact previous employers. Turns out that prior to being hired by Manatee County, she made the Norfolk, Va news and (see also) after her Norfolk public employer discovered that while she was on a paid leave as the Norfolk shelter manager, she took a job at a St. Petersburg, Fl shelter without telling either employer she was collecting two paychecks. This was pointed out in emails to Brown and widely posted on social media. 

Under Hume/Held, the Norfolk shelter was cited by Virginia’s Office of Veterinary Services inspectors for not providing “adequate and appropriate veterinary care” for the animals at the shelter and was also failing to isolate animals with suspected infectious diseases.  Yet Hume was hired, and quickly promoted to shelter manager by Brown. She lasted less than a year.

Prior to that, in 2023, Brown hired Matthew Loge to be the Volunteer Coordinator. The VC is a part of the shelter management team. Now having two years of shelter experience, how is it that Loge, who has management experience as a former Charlotte County school principal, was not considered for the current manager position? It could stem from the fact that in May of 2023, just before being hired by Manatee County, Loge was forced out of Charlotte County for sexually harassing a young teacher (also see here). This was widely reported, but even if somehow the County wasn’t aware of this history, questions should have been asked at his interview. Consider this from an 11-8-23 email I wrote to the entire BoCC, Charlie Bishop, Brown and Courtney Depol:

Talk about hypocrisy. All Manatee County animal shelter volunteers just received a letter informing them they will have to re-register and pass a full background check, including fingerprinting. The letter was signed by the new shelter volunteer coordinator Matthew Loge, who is featured in the news report below. Yes, that's right, volunteers are required to pass a thorough background check, yet Manatee County managers Sarah Brown and Jodie Fiske just hired a man who sexually harassed a teacher while he was a Port Charlotte school principal. This report was published in June!

On his Manatee County job application, under "Reason for Leaving" his job as a school principal in the Port Charlotte School District, he writes only "Resign" Resign is NOT A REASON FOR LEAVING. Resign is the act of leaving. Asking the “reason for leaving” is the same as asking the "reason for resigning" - so “Resign”  is clearly not an acceptable answer. If this wasn't talked about during the interview - that is incompetence by Sarah Brown and Jodie Fiske… And even if they were so incompetent, it is still a misrepresentation on Mr. Loge's part. To let an employer believe something known to be false (that there were no issues causing his resignation) is the same as a lie.

The history of bad hiring extends even further than Hume and Loge. Prior to Loge, the shelter’s Volunteer Coordinator was Janine Davis, who was hired in 2020 despite not having the required 3 years of professional experience. In fact, according to Davis' job application, prior to being hired by Brown, Davis held a series of short-term administrative assistant jobs. The real reason Davis got the job is that she was Brown’s Pinellas county friend and gym partner. Davis admitted this to me when I asked her directly soon after meeting her in 2020. Later, in an under-oath deposition, Davis confirmed that it was Brown who informed her about the VC job and asked her to apply.  

As I wrote in a 2-12-2020 email to Sarah Brown and the entire BoCC: 

Please explain to me how one candidate for this job is refused consideration based on not meeting the minimum requirements while the person hired’s (an admitted friend of Chief Brown) application falls well short of meeting the minimum requirements of 3 years experience.

This stinks. It is nepotism. It makes me sick as a taxpayer … I have volunteered for close to 2 years at MCAS. I love volunteering and the mission of the shelter. But the mission is being sabotaged by mismanagement. There is no clearer example of mismanagement than nepotism. It is bad government, poor leadership, and bad judgement.

Davis lasted 2 years as the Volunteer Coordinator before being promoted by Brown. She left the County in 2023. During her time, it can be objectively said that the volunteer program suffered. As the shelter became full during 2022, Davis ran the volunteer program into the ground by requiring unnecessary hurdles for volunteer applicants. After applying online, a potential volunteer was required to make an appointment for an interview, then make an appointment for an on-site tour of the shelter, then had to return several more times to do non-animal chores like laundry and dishes. Then, they were required to shadow another volunteer - for five days. These excessive hurdles created a bottleneck at a time when volunteers were desperately needed (they always are).

Out of curiosity, I submitted Public Record Request 30198 asking for MCAW volunteer applications submitted in 2022. I was told it would cost $591.00 for these records. Shocked, I emailed records manager Debbie Scaccianoce asking why so much? She replied that “over 500 applications” had been received during 2022. How could this have been allowed to happen right under Brown’s nose?

These poor hiring decisions have left Animal Services without a bench of experienced employees that could possibly become much needed management material. Instead, MCAW now has an 8 - month employee as shelter manager and no official assistant manager. Two days a week, there is no manager on duty at the shelter - a problem I heard from volunteers and brought to the attention of Brown and Lee dePalo at an October 29, 2024 meeting. I followed up with a November 14, 2024 email to County Commissioners, part of which is below:

…This is typical of what I've come to know about Animal Services. Volunteers are not allowed to speak up. Sarah is afraid to speak truth to power, so conditions continue to be neglected. These are problems that a new shelter won't fix. Currently there is a management vacancy. However, even before the vacancy, there were no managers on duty over weekends. How can that be allowed to happen? Managing an animal shelter is not managing a bank, or working at HR. You assign one manager to work Sun-Thurs and the ass't manager to work Tues-Saturday. Management 101. Because without management on duty over weekends, employees tend to slack off. It's human nature. And it only takes one employee to create a downward spiral. This is what volunteers see and it causes morale problems, the dogs get less exercise which leads to higher stress... ...

Public Records Avoidance

The shelter is now and always has been short of volunteers (see this April 2023 post by a long time volunteer). In 2023, I sought information on how to request a formal shelter evaluation from the University of Florida Shelter Medicine program. Such valuable management assistance is available, at no cost, to any public shelter that makes a request. On July 27, 2023, Program Director Cameron Moore replied that Manatee had evaluations done in 2018 and 2022. The same day, July 27, I submitted Public Record Request 31436 requesting the 2018 and 2022 Maddie’s evaluation reports. I received the detailed, 17-page 2018 Maddie’s report, but regarding the 2022 evaluation, I received an email from Dana Rawls:

Dear Mr. Daniels,

There is no report for Maddie’s in 2022.  So as a result, no report exists.  

Respectfully,

Dana Rawls 

Public Records Assistant County Administration|Records

How could that be? A Maddie’s evaluation is a big deal (see the 2018 evaluation report). Cameron Moore and her team visit the shelter, talk to staff, inspect records and review processes. The final report includes a detailed list of recommendations. A Maddie’s report is a valuable, historic, public record - not just for the public, but for County Administrators and Commissioners. Ms. Moore told me an evaluation was performed in January of 2022. Manatee County informed me there is no record of any evaluation in 2022. 

After going through dozens of public record emails, I discovered why there is no record of an evaluation from Maddie’s in January, 2022:

Taken from a January 26, 2022 email exchange between Sarah Brown and Cameron Moore:

Cameron Moore writes:

“…I do plan on outlining some suggestions for you and hope to have that done by the end of the week and would certainly love to help your team implementing any or all of it.”

Sarah Brown Replies:

“Can we talk through the suggestions on the phone rather than email? Last time the report was used as a weapon. I’ll call you and explain.”

Having gone through discovery in a legal matter with Manatee County, I knew the extent to which Sarah Brown goes to avoid making a public record, but I never imagined she would seek to hide a shelter evaluation report conducted by the Univ of Florida Shelter Medicine Program. On August 21, 2023, I emailed Charlie Bishop, Courtney Depol, and Commissioners Kruse, Rahn, VanOstenbridge, and Ballard informing them of the missing report. I included my correspondence with Cameron Moore and Brown’s email requesting the report by phone. In the email, I wrote:

If this isn't illegal, it is definitely unethical. I'm sure none of you are surprised. Unethical behavior and circumventing the public records law has become normalized in Manatee County government.

Sarah Brown needs to go. She is a poor leader. She has no vision. She isn't respected, she is afraid of confrontation, she misleads by not providing an accurate picture of the shelter - mainly because she doesn't know. She has never walked a dog.

Leadership is everything. A new shelter with a poor leader is still a bad shelter.

In her reply, Courtney Depol copied Debbie Scaccianoce and directed her to please provide the report. She didn’t understand that I had already requested the report and been informed it doesn’t exist. Part of my response to Depol: 

“Will Sarah Brown be held accountable for avoiding the Public records law?”

Unfortunately, Tuesday will confirm the answer is no. 

David Daniels
Manatee County

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