Mayor Joe Hogsett will find another person to be the Indianapolis Animal Care Services (IACS) director after a woman appointed to the job faced widespread opposition from the community.
The Indianapolis City-County Council on Monday voted 21-4 to indefinitely table a proposal to appoint Kelly Diamond, the current interim director, as the permanent director. The council would have to approve the next person Hogsett finds to take the job.
“As a way to eliminate the bill, we tabled it indefinitely so that way we would not be hearing it at all,” explained City-County Council Vice President Ali Brown. “We will hear again, a bill, when a new person is nominated for that position.”
Lindsey Roy is a volunteer at the shelter. She spoke to upset protestors outside of the meeting to help calm tensions.
Later, she told News 8 she was ready to see Diamond go.
“I think we’re all very excited to see that IACS has the opportunity to have a new leader that is going to be effective in both her leadership and her policy and her strategic plan for improving the welfare for all of the animals at the shelter,” Roy said.
Brown wants people to know they are listening, and that is why the vote happened in this confusing way.
“We heard them. That’s a promise. We heard you. We heard the volunteers from animal care and control very loudly,” Brown said. “We listen; that’s why we had that special committee hearing just to hear from them because we wanted to, and I believe this is the response that they were looking for.”
Diamond was initially up for a final confirmation vote on Feb. 3, but the appointment was sent back to a committee for a second hearing after protestors showed up in droves to ask for more time. The Community Affairs Committee’s second public hearing on Feb. 19 lasted for hours as people testified.
Lauren Wyatt is a former IACS volunteer coordinator. She told News 8 about a month ago that she was given the choice to resign or be fired. She resigned to allow herself the opportunity to volunteer in the future.
“Being blunt, staff and volunteers want to see Kelly Diamond, but also Kelly Laroche, our administrator of policy and planning, not work at IACS because we feel like they don’t care about us, the staff, and volunteers.”
A council spokesperson explained that Diamond could have stayed in the role as interim director if the council voted no and the Mayor did not appoint another person.
The Mayor has not shared a timeline on when he will name a new appointee to the position or when Diamond is expected to step down.
This story was produced by WISH-TV reporter Danielle Zulkosky.
Get the Backstory
The city animal shelter cut hours for volunteers. They worry about the animals.
Volunteers reached out to City-County councilors with their top 10 concerns and asked for more oversight.
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