Wooten: Animal Control Officer May Be in Line to Lose Position

Following a controversial decision to euthanize a dog last month, days on the job as head of Riverhead’s Animal Shelter may be numbered for Lou Coronesi.

According to Councilman James Wooten, liaison to the animal control advisory committee, Coronesi may be fired outright, transferred to another department or kept on as animal control officer but stripped of his duties running the shelter, replaced in that role by a shelter director.

The decision, Wooten said, could come as early as Thursday afternoon when the town board meets in executive session. On the agenda, according to Wooten, will be the question of what to do about the management of shelter.

Expressing no position on whether Coronesi should be fired or transferred, Wooten said Thursday morning that he thinks that hiring a shelter director answerable to the supervisor is the best way to go.

“An animal control officer like Lou is essentially a dog catcher, not qualified to run a shelter,” Wooten said. “I don’t think he can service the animal community wearing both hats. He just can’t do it.”

Wooten said that the town could put a shelter director in place immediately and at no extra cost to the town because a current employee – Jaime Ritter, an account clerk typist in the planning department – had already passed the civil service exam for shelter director. The planning department however, lost a full time employee at the beginning of the year when site plan reviewer Theresa Masin was laid off.

Wooten said that the hiring list Ritter was placed on has now expired and that she would have to take the test again. However, he said, Ritter could be made shelter director right away on a provisional basis pending the results of a second exam.

Animal rights advocates have for years been calling for Coronesi’s removal from the shelter, citing his inability to work well with volunteers, frequently banning them from the shelter for disagreeing with him. But demands for his dismissal have grown louder since Dec. 21, following his decision to order a five-year-old pit bull named Bruno to be put down.

Many, including Wooten, called the decision unacceptable because on the day before Bruno euthanised, stating that “the staff has worked with this animal and it is showing great improvement.”

The very next day, however, Coronesi submitted another report saying the dog must be out down because it had bitten a child before the town accepted the dog. Due to the lack of oversight over the euthanasia process, the animal advisory committee has .

Supervisor Walter, at a town board meeting last month, had been quick to defend Coronesi’s decision because that’s what is called for when a dog bites a child.

However, it turned out that the 22-year-old son of Bruno’s owner – and not a child – was the one bitten and that the bite took place while the son was attempting to break up a fight.

Wednesday evening, Walter, who had authorized Coronesi to euthanise Bruno, charged Coronesi with lying to him.

Rex Farr, president of the Great Calverton Civic Association, had harsh words for Coronesi at Wednesday night’s Town Board meeting, describing him as “almost a despicable human being.”

“You have to make that shelter friendly to the volunteers, and the only way you’re going to do that is to solve the problem at the top,” Farr said.

Matt Hattoff, president of the Riverhead chapter of the Civil Service Employees Association, defended his fellow union member.

“Our animal shelter has not failed an inspection in the last ten years,” he told the board. “I sit here and I listen to these guys. All they do is badmouth the people that work there. If they were that bad, you would have gotten rid of them a long time ago.”

Walter made some news Wednesday night by announcing that the head of the Riverhead Animal Hospital, Dr. Mandip Lachhar, has agreed to come to the shelter on a regular to examine dogs for heart worm, hook worm and other diseases, something that had never been done at the Riverhead shelter.

Walter said that the arrangement – which would pay Lachhar $28 per dog examined – had been worked out by his secretary, Carol Sclafani, a licensed veterinarian technician.

“We will have veterinarian service for these dogs while they’re in that shelter, Walter said. "We deem this as an emergency because of the things we know some of the dogs have had and things that people have alleged them to have had.”

Lachhman, Walter said, would begin examining dogs at the shelter beginning Friday.

“No one is happy about what happened to Bruno, least of all me,” Walter said.  “If something positive can come out of it, let this be a wakeup call for the town.”