Tables Turned

When the Hermitage Cat Shelter imploded last year, Mary Jo Spring
went on a rampage.

Before it was over, Spring, the executive director, had banned most
of the shelter’s 70 or so volunteers and fired much of its staff. Some
she accused of theft, others of plotting against her. These actions
culminated in lawsuits targeting three of those former employees.

One suit singled out former vet technician Katy Heck for defamation.
But instead of Spring’s actions leading to revenge, the Hermitage found
its collective dirty laundry revealed for public view. It spilled out
last week, as Judge Michael Miller of Pima County Superior Court
considered a preliminary injunction against Heck. The measure would
have stopped her from criticizing Spring and the board on her Web site,
savethehermitage.org. But
before the hearing was over, Spring’s missteps—seemingly
encouraged by her attorney—had left her legal crusade in
tatters.

A day after that hearing, Judge Miller denied her injunction
request. And a day after that, Spring dropped all of the lawsuits.

But Heck, a science teacher, has not likewise abandoned a
counterclaim against Spring, who has taken to publicly calling her
detractors “terrorists.”

The hearing also revealed the Hermitage’s dire financial situation
nearly three years after Spring—who had no previous shelter
experience—was hired to raise money. Particularly damning was
testimony by Vernon Alexander, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel
and aerospace executive who served on the Hermitage board from August
to October.

“There was $350,000 in the Hermitage account when Spring was hired,”
Alexander told the court. “But when I left, they were down to $32,000.
… She had done no fundraising activities.” He even recalled talk of
dipping into the shelter’s endowment fund, “which, to me, was
unethical,” he said. To help turn that around, Alexander used his
experience to design a detailed fundraising campaign. When his work was
ignored by Spring and the board, he quit in disgust.

But the fiercest criticism of Spring’s management centers around the
mass cat euthanizations at Arizona’s first no-kill animal shelter. (The
Hermitage has quietly removed “no-kill” from its name.) Many of those
felines were killed for medical conditions that some believe may have
been caused by a harsh cleaner called Husky arena disinfectant. One
former volunteer was so upset about Husky’s use at the Hermitage that
he photographed what he claimed were puddles of it on the floor, next
to cat food.

Spring has steadfastly argued that Husky is safe, and was never
allowed to puddle where cats could drink it. But her attorney, Adam
Weisman, seemingly goaded her into contradicting that stance. Weisman
showed Spring several photos showing puddles at the Hermitage, which
she repeatedly identified as monsoon rainwater.

“How do you know that’s not disinfectant?” Weisman asked.

Spring looked befuddled. “Is that a puddle of disinfectant?” Weisman
asked again.

“Yes,” Spring said finally, to the audience’s astonishment.

Perhaps realizing that he’d just helped obliterate his client’s
case, Weisman glanced up at Judge Miller. “I’d like to take a short
recess, your honor,” he said, and the crowd dispersed into the
lobby.

That was a key moment for several reasons. First, it offered
evidence that Spring was hardly the hands-on manager she’d claimed to
be. Second, it vindicated the allegations of former volunteer Sean
O’Connell, who had taken those photos with his cell phone. Spring
booted O’Connell from the Hermitage’s volunteer pool after he’d raised
concerns about the solvent in an e-mail to the shelter. Third, it
justifies much of the criticism raised by Heck and others.

Spring had blamed the death of so many cats on inept staffers and
the Hermitage’s longtime former veterinarian, Dr. Tim Ireland. In a
complaint filed last year with the Arizona State Veterinary Medical
Examining Board, Spring accused Ireland of being negligent “in not
reporting abuse and neglect, and not recommending euthanasia of
suffering cats.”

In May 2008, Spring terminated Ireland’s relationship with the
shelter, and contracted with the Humane Society of Southern Arizona for
veterinary services. The society’s medical director, Dr. Karter Neal,
subsequently euthanized more than 50 Hermitage cats, many of them for
stomatitis (mouth inflammation).

By October, the state had dismissed complaints against Ireland. In
an earlier interview with the Tucson Weekly, Dr. Ireland opined
that Husky cleaner—rather than neglect—was a prime suspect
for health problems among the Hermitage cats.

“They were using cleaning agents that were hard on the cats,” he
said. Husky “does a very good job of sterilizing the environment. But
if ingested, it causes very severe oral ulcers and other problems. It
certainly can worsen stomatitis.”

As the hearing preceded, other parts of Spring’s case began
unraveling as well, such as her claims that former staffers Rosalie
Torske and Paula LaRue stole the donor database and other information
from the Hermitage computer system when they left. Spring alleged that
they then used the information to harm the shelter’s reputation and
fundraising abilities.

Judge Miller didn’t buy it. In his decision, he wrote that the
criticism of Spring—who did not respond to requests for comment
from the Weekly—has come from a variety of sources,
including former board members. Regarding the data that Torske and
Larue were accused of taking, “As a nonprofit corporation that relies
upon unpaid volunteers and donors,” he wrote, “information about the
activities and goals of the organization is made available in a variety
of contexts.”

A couple of paragraphs later, Miller denied the injunction request.
And now the Hermitage’s other lawsuits have disintegrated.

In the meantime, Heck’s countersuit is still lurking—even as
Mary Jo Spring runs out of “terrorists” to blame.

This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2009.