Calais animal shelter elects new board of directors

CALAIS – A power struggle ended Thursday night when members of PAWS Inc. voted for a new slate of directors for the area animal shelter.

And when the numbers were counted, board members Rhonda Cobb and Robyn Dufour were re-elected to office. Also elected were: Sue Carter, Gale Cottrell, Angel Phelps, Gloria Phillips, Lori Pratt, Marcia Rogers and Dawn Smith who Cobb and Dufour had endorsed.

Unlike elections in years past, the vote was not free of problems. During the past few weeks, a power struggle developed that could have threatened the existence of the city’s no-kill animal shelter and the welfare of the animals it was built to protect.

Board member Ed Nadeau, who was not re-elected Thursday night, led the charge by sending out letters questioning what he called “serious mistakes” at the shelter. He said the shelter was operated by just a few board members who he believed had violated shelter policies.

But Dufour and Cobb, who work at the shelter, said they were doing what local residents had asked them to do: take care of stray and abandoned animals.

Marcia Carlow, one of the shelter’s founders, called the power struggle “growing pains.”

It was Carlow who approached the city more than five years ago and convinced officials that the city had a responsibility to do more than just warehouse dogs and cats on their way to the gas chamber. That led to the construction of the shelter on South Street. The shelter was built to house 25 cats and eight dogs.

Carlow, who was not elected to the board, wished the new board members well and advised them to begin pressuring area law enforcement departments to punish people who abuse animals.

“We have no support for PAWS from any law enforcement” agency, she said. “They are not taking and fining people for letting dogs run or for tying them out and leaving them. It needs to be dealt with. PAWS can’t do it all,” she said.

The Calais businesswoman said she believed there should be rules and ordinances addressing the issue of breeding. She said people allow their animals to breed indiscriminately and then dump the unwanted on PAWS.

Carlow said she believed it was up to the new board to deal with some of those issues.