Animal welfare advocates say Austin’s hard-fought battle to maintain its status as the largest no-kill city in the country is in jeopardy as city leaders prepare to name the next chief of Animal Services.

A broad spectrum of about 20 activists gathered Friday at Austin City Hall to urge City Manager Spencer Cronk to step away from the two finalists for the position and reopen the hiring process in a more inclusive and engaging way.

Larry Tucker, former chair of Austin’s animal advisory commission, said stakeholders with knowledge and experience with no-kill policies — which discourage euthanasia for animal population control — were kept out of the hiring process and resulted in a candidate pool that did not include other highly qualified applicants who should have been considered.

"If you have stakeholders involved, which we’ve always had since we became no-kill, it changes the process,” he said.

The gathering Friday comes after Ellen Jefferson, executive director for Austin Pets Alive, published an open letter last month saying the finalists, Don Bland and Linda Cadotte, weren’t qualified for the job.

“Both lack community experience in a city this size. Both have animal welfare experience but have not saved anywhere near the percentage nor number of animals that Austin does and is mandated to do, even though their communities had much lower intake,” the letter said.

Advocates say city leaders need to eliminate arbitrary job requirements for the position, like holding a college degree, and consider changing the posted salary to attract better candidates.

Ryan Clinton, an attorney who worked for years to get no-kill policies adopted and maintained in Austin and has written or co-written no-kill implementation plans, said Friday that Austin’s no-kill status is a major point of community pride, and even a selling point to bring business to the city.

Austin has been a no-kill city since 2011, which has meant that the Austin Animal Center was required to hit a live-release rate of higher than 90%. In March, members of the Austin City Council voted to increase that requirement to 95%.

Release figures from the Austin Animal Center show the facility has maintained an average live-release rate of 97% or higher every month. Through all of 2018, the average rate at the shelter was 97.69%. That number has steadily risen since at least 2015, when the live-release rate was 94.4%

While the live-release rate for dogs has consistently been in the 98-99% range, cats see more fluctuation. In February, the live-release rate for cats fell to 95.5%. In June, it dipped to 96.3%.

Clinton said issues like decreases in live-release rates for cats and a recent case of eight unborn puppies being cut from their mother’s womb and killed unnecessarily are troubling indicators for the future of animal welfare in Austin.

“One of the reasons we’re here is to draw the city manager's attention to the issue, because we do think that there is complacency and indifference in the city manager's office with respect to this issue,” Clinton said.

The reasons for that, he said, are Austin’s years of success in keeping animals alive at its shelters.

“Our city manager has never seen us fail before, because our city manager is relatively new in the job,” he said. “Our city manager wasn’t there when we were fighting for no-kill in 2010. Our city manager wasn't there when we were begging the city to implement different programs and policies back in 2009, or 2008 or 2007. So, understandably, the city manager doesn’t see this as a priority.”

City officials have stood by their finalists, who were picked after a nationwide search that used community input on ideal candidates.

“The city of Austin is proud of the final two candidates and knows that both of them are seasoned public service professionals with a passion for animal care. We’re confident that the successful final candidate will lead Austin Animal Services programs and initiatives into the future,” the city said in a statement on Friday.