Action Needed! Please Help the Homeless Animals of Orange County

The OC Board of Supervisors has the new OC Animal Care contract between the county and the cities on its Agenda on February 24, 2026.

It’s Agenda Item #4. We’re asking the Board to include regular updates on the shelter’s Strategic Plan in this contract. You can look at the Strategic Plan here. The Strategic Plan remains the blueprint for a good shelter.

The shelter doesn’t appear on the agenda often. It’s important for us to speak up.

If you have the time, you can come to the meeting and make a Public Comment in person (in addition to the email). Information on attending the Board meeting is here: https://board.oc.gov/addressing-board

The meeting starts at 9am, but there’s some ceremonial stuff. Our agenda item will come up as soon as the ceremonial stuff is over. Probably between 9:15am and 10am. They validate your parking, usually in the lobby. Once you arrive, you can go to the front and fill in a Public Comment form.

Please email the message below to: response@ocgov.com with the subject line “OC Animal Care, Agenda Item 4". Please copy and paste this message “Agenda Item 4: Orange County residents need to know what the county is doing to put the OC Animal Care Strategic Plan to work. The Board approved this plan in 2018 but the implementation veered off course during COVID. It's time to get back on track. Please add a provision to this contract requiring regular progress reports on the implementation of the Strategic Plan”. You are welcome to modify the message if you wish.

For the last 3 years we’ve been asking the county to apply the OC Animal Care Strategic Plan. We need to let the county know that we’re serious. The executive summary includes the following protocols: dog playgroups, more lives saved, more fostering, careful record keeping, and more. The Plan, in fact, adopts the guidelines of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians.

Please take a few seconds to tell the Board that we won’t settle for a second-rate shelter.