It’s been over 3 years since three dozen volunteers wrote to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals seeking the approval to start up local county SPCA chapters in their communities to combat animal cruelty.

The NJSPCA — a quasi-public entity charged with preventing animal cruelty in the state– is affirmatively required by statute to assist individuals to form local SPCA chapters in counties where they do not exist.

However, the NJSPCA has not even reviewed the county chapter applications submitted for Camden, Ocean and Mercer Counties back in December 2008 and February 2009.

Camden, Ocean and Mercer counties have been without a county SPCA chapter for many years, and the NJSPCA does not have the staff to handle cruelty calls and investigations in Camden, Ocean or Mercer counties, or most of the state below Route 195.

There are interested people willing and able to help, why not let them get to work?

Animal cruelty is a serious problem.  Every minute that the NJSPCA delays, more animals are at risk.

The NJSPCA should immediately approve the charter applications and let these volunteers join the effort to prevent animal cruelty.

Preventing animal cruelty is a significant public interest.  To be part of the solution, the NJSPCA needs to stop turning away volunteers!

For information about the volunteers’ lawsuit against the NJSPCA, see nj.com / Trenton Times article.  Mercer County anti-animal cruelty activists sue the NJSPCA over delayed county charters.” http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/11/mercer_county_anti-animal_crue.html

Anti-cruelty advocates in Camden, Ocean and Mercer Counties have sued the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for failing to act on their applications to form county SPCA chapters.  The NJSPCA has kept plaintiffs waiting over three years during which time the NJSPCA claims it has been working on procedures to commence review of the applications.  The would-be volunteers are now asking the Court to step in and grant the languishing applications.

The suit, filed August 20, 2012 in Superior Court in Middlesex County, where the NJSPCA has its headquarters, alleges that the NJSPCA approved county charters for friends of the board in December 2008 but turned around and refused to act on county charter applications that the plaintiffs filed in December 2008 and February 2009.  In court papers, the NJSPCA claims that it did not have procedures to review the applications.  “We can’t understand how a quasi-public entity charged by statute with both protecting animals from cruelty and assisting persons to form county charters could refuse to review these applications, especially when it had just reviewed and approved applications for friends of the board,” said John Micklewright, a Certified Animal Cruelty Investigator, and a plaintiff in the suit.  “Whether the NJSPCA can’t or won’t get its act together and approve our applications, the failure is hurting animals,” said Jane Donoghue, a former Commissioned Humane Law Enforcement Officer with the NJSPCA, and plaintiff.

While there are a number of active county charters around the state, there have been no County SPCA chapters in Camden, Ocean or Mercer in at least a decade.  The NJSPCA has admitted that it is short on personnel for the southern part of the state, and yet has not acted on these applications that would enable over thirty volunteers to actively protect animals in Camden, Ocean and Mercer counties.

When plaintiffs filed suit, they filed an application seeking to expedite the case, so that it could get resolved as quickly as possible.  The NJSCPA filed opposition to the motion.  At a court appearance on October 9, 2012, the Court issued an order that depositions be completed by December 15^th, and set a trial date for February 4, 2013.  “We can’t believe what the NJSPCA is making the applicants go through years of waiting, and now a law suit, when we just want to volunteer to help animals,” said Kristine Schmidt, a volunteer for Pet Rescue of Mercer, and a plaintiff in the suit; “we’re going through all of this because the animals need us.”

Plaintiffs are represented by Dante DiPirro, Esq. of the Law Office of Dante DiPirro in Hopewell, and defendant is represented by Harry Levin, Esq., of Levin Cyphers in Toms River.