Yucca Valley Animal Shelter advocates aim to amplify their message outside of Town meetings

At the Yucca Valley Town Council meeting held on October 21st, the Animal Shelter Committee update from the September 18th meeting was delivered by committee chair Jim Schooler. The recap went over the second of the planned monthly meetings, as the third was canceled due to what the town said via press release was “no new business requiring committee action at this time.”

Schooler acknowledged the significant public comment about the “pace of the improvements” at the shelter, as well as some specific cases with individual animals. Town Manager Curtis Yakimow detailed some of the spay and neuter events that the town had held, along with increased outreach to rescue groups and directly to residents via social media campaigns and advertising. He also spoke briefly about the partnership the shelter has maintained with the Joshua Tree No Kill Shelter. 

A press release from the Town of Yucca Valley shared some statistics:

The shelter began the year hosting 11 adoption events and increasing promotion in the local newspaper, online platforms and radio ads featuring the popular “Pet of the Week” segment. These efforts raised awareness of the animal rescue need across the greater Yucca Valley community. As a result, pet adoptions increased by 21% for dogs and 44% for cats, providing 211 dogs and 90 cats with forever homes between January and September.

You can see the full press release here.

Animal Shelter Committee Chair Schooler asked if there had been any claims filed for expenditures related to any of the rescues from the shelter, to which Yakimow replied “we have not received any claims. You’ll recollect that specifically with rescues, normally the accepting organization or the accepting individual does sign a waiver and acknowledgement of potential costs. But specific to your question, we have not received any claims for any of the costs associated particularly or specifically with, for example, Joshua Tree No Kill Shelter.”

Animal Committee Chair Schooler replied “Well, if I could suggest that if there are such claims that we look into participation in resolving those claims.”

Mayor Jeff Drozd then asked where town staff was at with recruitment for the new shelter manager, a position that the Town Council has said they’d like to see filled before things like the often asked for volunteer program are implemented. 

Town Manager Curtis Yakimow said that they’re at the final stages of the first rounds of recruitment, but it’s still too early for any sort of accurate estimate of timeline. 

Public Comments

In public comments, Carolyn Lee spoke about the animal shelter’s website and its lack of updates to their adoptable animals. She also praised Susan Herring and what she called “our beautiful desert animal loving community” for helping her locate a neighbor’s pet which had gone missing for eight days. She said that same community of animal lovers is ready to volunteer at the shelter. 

Cheryl Contopulos spoke directly about the frustrations with the lack of deliverable dates and other progress indicators: “…We all pretty much know the situation at the shelter and with no updates, then that’s when we’re going to start falling apart or bugging you more because we’re concerned. So I’m going to address the Dobermans, the three Dobermans that were briefly mentioned, they were sent to VCA to be euthanized because they had diarrhea.”

In a report by Stacy Moore of the Hi-Desert Star, Town Manager Curtis Yakimow directly addressed those dogs along with a dog named Midnight, which resident James Porter characterized as “malnourished and neglected.”

Resident Susan Herring brought more energy to the room, which had rapidly dwindled in attendance over the course of the meeting.

Susan Herring: “And by the way, making us sit for three and a half to four hours endlessly, month after month, borders on sadistic and unethical and unprofessional. And Z107.7, I hope you quote me because your room has been full of people in this community that care about our shelter and how it’s operated and the animals that are housed there.”

Some of those same sentiments were shared by James Porter, who has continued to ask for an independent investigation into the actions that led to the condition of the dog named Howdy.

Then in regards to the dog named Midnight, Porter suggests a new way to address what he says is a habitual ongoing problem.

Possible Yucca Valley Film Festival demonstrations

James Porter: “We need to step up our approach to how we address this. So I’m going to encourage our community to be at the Yucca Valley Community Center on November 7th at 5:00 PM. And let’s line the red carpet for the film festival with photographs of all of these dogs coming out of the shelter, starved, neglected, mistreated, abused, so that the world and anybody watching can see what’s happening.”

Joshua Tree resident Melissa Spurr spoke out for homebodies everywhere, saying she wished she didn’t have to come down to the Town Council meetings time after time. But the canceled meetings and the still lacking volunteer program keeps bringing her back “because the town still doesn’t seem to be getting it right.”

In a reference to the previously mentioned dogs, Melissa asked “What will it take for Yucca Valley to finally approach this issue with the compassion and urgency it deserves? I’m tired of having to come down here and speak about something the town should have handled long ago.”

Follow-Up interview with James Porter

Yucca Valley resident James Porter caught up with me via phone on Friday, October 31st. This is an excerpt of our conversation where we talked about the demonstration and his thoughts on the free speech zones that is sure to be addressed at Tuesday’s Yucca Valley Town Council meeting. James Porter has a background in law enforcement and has been a regular at the Yucca Valley Town Council meetings for most of 2025. He has worked closely with the town along with being one of it’s sharpest critics. James is also active with other shelters in the area, including the Joshua Tree No Kill Shelter.

You can listen to our conversation here, or read the transcript below:

Robert Haydon: I wanted to talk to you a little bit just specifically about what there were if there were nascent plans about protesting at the Yucca Valley Film Festival, or is this something that’s definitely going to happen? Do you want to talk a little bit about your plans for that?

James Porter: So we don’t have we don’t have a formal plan in place. I mean, there have been some conversation amongst kind of the animal advocacy group about like, how do we get our message out if the town is apparently not listening? You know, there was there was a lot of concern with people that the town had asked us to participate in these animal committee meetings, which we did.

We held off on any other approach other than the few of us coming to town council. And then really, for all intents and purposes, there’s been one meeting. I mean, there was the orientation, kind of the startup.

And then we had one business meeting. And then the next one was canceled. And there’s a lot of unanswered questions from the first meeting.

And there’s just kind of been this feeling that the hard questions are getting avoided or we’re just kind of getting stonewalled on those. And animals are still coming out of the shelter looking really bad. There was some talk about how how do we how do we get the message across that like this is still going on and the town’s got to do better.

So the idea of a process has come up a few times. And the idea of doing it at the film festival was 100 percent organic and on the spot, an idea. So there was no planning.

Robert Haydon: Have you have you spoken to anybody at the Yucca Valley Film Festival about the possible intention of being down there or anything like that?

James Porter: No. So I did email Curtis and the town council today to let them know my concerns about what their proposal is. I’ll tell you one of my frustrations with this.

There’s there’s plenty of people willing to protest, but it’s not that anybody really wants to. People just want their voices to be heard and feel like they’re getting honest feedback from the town. We actually reached out to the group, reached out to the mayor and offered a compromise.

And that was because you reschedule the canceled animal committee meeting and let us let us have our voices heard. And if you’re willing to do that before the film festival, we’ll cancel the protest. All we want to do is be heard.

And he declined to do that, said it wasn’t within his power to do that, which I do not believe is the case. But that therein lies the problem. People don’t feel heard and things like that continue to make us not feel heard.

And, you know, protest, unfortunately, is just one of those ways to address government concerns when all other avenues fail. Will there be a protest? I don’t know.

I mean, I think that that Curtis offers a nice olive branch, whether that was the intent or not, and getting it put on the agenda and an offering to answer questions from the public. I my personal belief is that people feel like they’re getting answers. Then then there’s no point in protesting.

Robert Haydon: What is your reaction to the free speech zones or the email sent out talking about the areas that are being sort of introduced for that?

James Porter: I mean, once again, I come from a long career in law enforcement. I’m not I’m not familiar with any local jurisdiction that has such a thing.

Now, I mean, I understand there are legal reasons that government entities can can create these free speech zones. But most of them rely on some some public safety concern or traffic movement or something along those lines. And there is none of that from us.

I mean, there is not there is not and has never been any threat to anybody. Of course, none is everybody in this group is like well-heeled professional people. Nobody is going out there and causing problems.

And it strikes me that this is not content neutral, which is one of the big legal requirements. I mean, the the the the feeling from me and others is that this is a direct response to the fact that we have have the audacity to say we’re going to come and protest at one of the town’s premier events. And frankly, I don’t think it’s constitutional.

And I think that if it was if it was tested, it would be problematic.

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