Requirements eyed for shelter director job

While the Town of Hempstead continues its nationwide search for an animal shelter director, questions have been raised about the residency and civil service requirements for applicants, officials said.

At the town board meeting Tuesday, officials said 75 applications had been submitted for the post, which has been vacant since March when acting director Pat Horan was reassigned after a 17-year-old video surfaced on the Internet that purports to show her and other shelter employees taunting a kitten apparently about to be euthanized.

The town could hire a "provisional" animal shelter director, who would later have to take the state's civil service exam, officials said at the meeting. And the town's Civil Service Commission could waive the four-month residency requirement, they added.

The commission is "aware of the nationwide search," said town spokesman Michael Deery.

Once hired, any provisional director would have to score in the top three on the civil service exam, said Councilwoman Dorothy L. Goosby, who is on the committee to find a new shelter director.

Animal advocates at the meeting also brought up concerns about a Facebook page called "Hope for Truth and Justice for Hempstead Shelter." The page, which bashes banned rescue workers who have criticized the way the facility operates, was reportedly started by animal shelter employees.

"We cannot govern what our employees do on their free time," said senior Councilman Anthony J. Santino, who ran the meeting in the absence of Supervisor Kate Murray. "It's a free country."

But town officials at the meeting said they had "no indication" that shelter employees were running the Facebook page.