Ex-Manager Calls Humane Society Dysfunctional Woman Says Gossip, Backbiting, Nit-Picking Led To Her Resignation Last Month

The woman who recently resigned as director of the Spokane Humane Society’s animal shelter says the organization is rife with dysfunction and that a new leader is doomed to fail unless things change dramatically.

Early last month, Lynne Brown quit her job managing the shelter on North Havana.

Brown said Thursday she decided to leave after 18 months because some members of the organization’s board of directors ignored complaints, played favorites and had nothing good to say about the work she and her staff tried to do.

In addition, she said, some people who work at the shelter either ignored her authority or worked to undermine it.

“It’s the biggest gossipy place on the Earth,” Brown said. “The lying and cheating and back-stabbing that goes on there is unbelievable. I got tired of time and again going to the board and never getting any response from them.”

Lois Richards, vice president of the Humane Society’s board, said Brown had her own problems at the shelter. Richards also said the board of directors investigated all of Brown’s complaints.

“Her claims that her complaints were not acted on are wholly inaccurate,” Richards said.

Brown was hired in March 1999 to help lead the nonprofit agency out of a period of scandal and turmoil. A veteran animal control officer, she was charged with running the day-to-day operations of the shelter, including animal care, euthanasia and managing the shelter staff.

Brown became director shortly after the board had fired one director after nine months on the job and another had left after only a month.

Joe O’Shaughnessy, whom the board tabbed to raise money and promote the Humane Society in the region, was hired at the same time.

O’Shaughnessy, who served as executive director, was forced out of his job by the board last month, becoming the 10th former executive director of the Humane Society in the past decade.

He agreed with Brown that the shelter is a den of rumormongering and backbiting.

“I once remarked to one of the board members that it is the most gossip-ridden and story-ridden place I’ve ever dealt with,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It could be really cruel.”

Brown said Thursday that her disillusion with the shelter was caused in part by conflicts she had with O’Shaughnessy and the board’s handling of them.

She accused the former director of harassing her and creating “a hostile work environment.”

O’Shaughnessy denied acting inappropriately toward Brown.

“I think it’s the other way around, actually,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I don’t think Lynne and I got along that well. I think there was a trust issue there.”

Brown said she took her complaints about O’Shaughnessy to the board, but it never acted. Instead, board members began criticizing her work, she said.

Richards said that’s not the case. Brown’s complaints were investigated and were part of the reason the board ultimately asked O’Shaughnessy to leave, she said.

But Brown also was the target of complaints, Richards said. At least three staff members at the shelter had complained about offensive language Brown allegedly used, she said, and there were accusations that Brown had tampered with the shelter’s euthanasia log.

The board confiscated Brown’s keys to the shelter and placed her on administrative leave while they investigated those claims, Richards said.

“If they decide they don’t like you, they will find a way to make your life miserable,” Brown said Thursday. “That’s why they won’t be able to find a director, and they won’t be able to keep a director. I’m not going to work at a place like that.”

Brown quit shortly thereafter, although the board probably was going to clear her in the tampering case, Richards said.

“My own personal view is that she would not have been fired,” she said.

Brown said Thursday the only way the shelter can run efficiently is if the board “cleans house,” replacing the current staff with new people who have allegiances to no one but the animals.

Firing more than a dozen employees is preposterous, Richards said.

“The society is not going to embark on any mass firing,” she said. “To even make that suggestion is totally irresponsible.”

The 12-member board also needs to stay out of the day-to-day operations of the shelter, Brown said. Otherwise, it will never work, she said.

“I feel sorry for anybody trying to come in there,” Brown said. “The board just wants someone in there they can nitpick. They’re so negative.”

Richards scoffed at that as well.

“I can’t control her personal relationship with individual members of the board,” she said. “But for her to claim that the whole board is negative and carping and blah, blah, blah, is inaccurate.”