Gilland: I have not lost confidence in the director

Horry County Council chairwoman Liz Gilland took five minutes of the 30 minutes made available to the public during Wednesday night’s board meeting to praise the Humane Society’s efforts and to tell the board she stood behind shelter director Renee Macklen.

Gilland, who spoke at the shelter’s grand opening in Conway in 2006, told the board Wednesday, “One of the best days that I had in my 16 years on county council is when the Humane Society decided to take over our animal shelter; that was a huge plus for the county.”

The county and the HCHS signed a contract on July 1, 2006 turned the operations of the county’s shelter over to the HCHS and provide the HCHS with more than $536,000 in tax dollars to run the facility.

News13 filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Dec. 12 with the county’s public information office asking to inspect the contract, but as of this posting, that document had not been made available to us.

Gilland cautioned the board and public against rushing to a decision in working to correct the distemper issue at the shelter, “I am not here to say off with her (Macklen) head, she was the woman responsible, she was the one at the top, she needs to go because of the situation that occurred. I came here to say from everything I understand that situation can occur at the very best run shelter in the country,” Gilland said.

However, the board voted unanimously Wednesday to terminate Macklen.

“The executive review committee had been meeting for the past couple of weeks before the distemper situation came up and in light of the distemper situation, that was just icing on the cake because we felt she did not handle the situation appropriately,” HCHS president Kate Philips told News13.

The shelter continued adopting animals out to families after the shelter received confirmation that a dog in the shelter tested positive for the deadly Canine Distemper Virus on Nov. 24.

Shelter records show the shelter adopted 36 dogs out from the shelter until the shelter closed Dec. 8.

Macklen admitted she ignored a veterinarian’s advice to shut the shelter down and euthanize every dog in the shelter when she became aware of a diagnosed case of distemper as early as Nov. 3, “One vet suggested we euthanize all the canines in the facility at that point, however, I could not make that call, nor could I put my staff through that without knowing the results.”

“I haven’t lost confidence in the board, I haven’t lost confidence in the director, I haven’t lost confidence in the staff,” Gilland told the board Wednesday night.

“If mistakes were made it’s because we’re all human and mistakes are sometimes made,” Gilland said.

After more than two hours Wednesday night, dozens of people who adopted pets from the shelter, who later returned them to be euthanized, asked Gilland to stay to hear their stories.

“I’m sorry for those of you; I haven’t heard your stories and I won’t be able to stay to hear them. I have been on the go all day long and I’ve got one more place to go before I go home, so I’m sorry I have to leave before I hear from the rest of the public,” Gilland told the 60 people gathered inside the Chapin Memorial Library Wednesday.

Gilland pledged to push the county to help shelter officials when the HCHS board determines what is needed to prevent another situation like the one that closed the shelter on Dec. 8.