How NYC DOH and NYC ACC Stifle Free Speech Every Day
NYC's overworked rescues are forbidden from criticizing ACC, under threat of dead puppies and kittens.
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s September 26, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, New Yorkers of all persuasions spoke as one pissed-off MFer to help shame sheet-soiling Disney executives into reversing their craven “indefinite” three-day suspension of ABC’s late night talk show, hosted by Jimmy “Win Ben Stein’s Money” Kimmel since its inception in 2003 and threatened with extinction by Trump goons with mad big feelings.
Betcha a dollar no more than a relative handful of those New Yorkers are aware of state-sponsored censorship happening for years, right out in the open, all across liberty-loving New York City itself. And wouldn’t you know, it isn’t NYPD enforcing the city’s ongoing anti-American expression oppression, but the non-profit contractor currently known as Animal Care Centers of New York City, and its minders at the city health department.
It’s been a year since New York City Council Member Lynn Schulman heard from overworked, under-appreciated cat rescuers who are doing the job ACC won’t: managing the city’s enormous homeless cat population pretty much on their own, often if not usually on their own dime, despite ACC’s $1.4B city contract plus millions more in taxpayer funds allotted annually for operating expenses and Eric Adams press conferences.
Schulman chairs the council health committee. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene [sic], which tells ACC what to do, is controlled by the mayor and overseen by Schulman’s committee. On paper, anyway. The council may at times quarrel with the mayor, but IRL everyone who draws a city salary is ultimately on the same team. And for 30 years they have elected to let ACC do whatever it wants to homeless companion animals as long as it doesn’t blow back on them and their overfed teammates.
This is not a problem. It’s The Problem. As TSNY reported after last September’s rescue hearing, to the surprise of no one, it was revealed that:
ACC has no plan to handle overcrowding at its facilities, though intakes are down by about half since before COVID
ACC has no TNR program to speak of, instead dumping that labor- and cost- and emotion-intensive job onto private citizens
ACC releases intact animals to rescues, forcing the small and often-struggling orgs to cover spay-neuter costs
ACC discontinued many rescue- and public-oriented services during the pandemic and to date has not brought them back
NYC devotes about a fourth as much to animals per capita as other major U.S. cities
ACC and the city health department, which supervises the ACC system, insist ACC does not need additional funding despite all of the above — in part, one supposes, because ACC doesn’t spend all the money it is currently allocated.
For nearly eight hours that day, New Yorker after New Yorker testified to the financial and psychological hardships forced upon them by DOH and ACC, including a Queens woman who told the committee she has gone bankrupt saving animals, many of them injured or ill, without city assistance.
Here’s an excerpt from Schulman’s statement at the top of the hearing:
“As chair of the health committee, I am committed to making sure that the city is providing enough resources and support to address this issue and we will use this hearing as an opportunity to explore ideas for potential legislation and identify actionable steps to take to enhance these efforts over the past two years.”
Notice the lack of commitment to action beyond exploring and identifying potential yadda yadda yadda. Sure enough, if Lynn Schulman has introduced legislation since last September to help ACC rescues, The Scoop New York was unable to find it. TSNY asked Schulman’s office about her seemingly non-existent bills, and why she hasn’t held a proper ACC oversight hearing in years, leaving advocates unable to question electeds and DOH/ACC personnel about conditions at the city kill pound, progress on helping rescues, or anything else. We also asked for an update on her pledge, announced at the hearing, to work with other members of the council’s Queens delegation to bring low-cost vet care to the borough.
There was no response. This was expected.
Here’s how seriously Schulman takes her position as a public servant: It’s been a month since ACC reopened after an unprecedented (in recent history, at least) weeks-long shutdown to public intakes, in defiance of ACC’s contract with New Yorkers as open admission. For no fewer than 33 days, the nation’s largest city effectively didn’t have an animal shelter. Even Eric Adams noticed. Yet Schulman has called no hearing, shirking her oversight responsibilities and sticking it to New Yorkers for caring one way or another.
Then there’s the outright lying. When TSNY asked Schulman’s office why she canceled a scheduled ACC hearing last spring, a flack sent this:
“Unfortunately, the council is just very focused on the contentious budget season right now, and right now the council just wouldn’t be able to dedicate the full time and attention NYC ACC deserve. We hope to have this hearing as soon as summer is over, and we can definitely keep you updated when we figure out our next date.”
That was May 2024. We’re definitely still waiting on that update.
[Hold up. Didn’t the City Council just now put $500,000 toward subsidizing spay-neuter? — Ed.]
That’s a big 10-4 good buddy! At last year’s hearing rescues told council members the city needs funding for as many as 200,000 surgeries per annum. A full year and countless births later, the council announced a “pilot program” to cover 3,500 procedures, to be performed at a single clinic — Brooklyn’s new Flatbush Cats facility. That $500K is good for 1.8 percent of the number of surgeries rescuers estimate are needed for one year.
It’s not the least CMs could do. They were already doing that. But given the scope of the crisis and the city’s long history of ignoring it at New Yorkers’ expense, a one-time infusion of discretionary cash is something along the lines of a drop in the bucket. Calling it a “pilot” doesn’t make that any less true.
[Yowza. 1.8 percent! Why wasn’t I informed? — Ed.]
Now about that expression oppression: Despite the abuse they endure, you won’t hear many if any rescues criticize ACC publicly. There’s a no-good reason for that.
ACC releases animals only to rescues that are approved as “New Hope Partners” by yet another resource-sucking legal entity: a non-profit called the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, which has nothing to do with the mayor’s office but has a handle that flat kills on grant applications.
When over the summer an adopter stepped up to save Cornflakes from ACC, the Mayor’s Alliance are the people who, along with the “shelter” and DOH, instead banned the adopter for life because an extant New Hope “partner” bailed during the adoption process although she knew it would mean Cornflakes’ extermination when he had a home waiting. It did.
As yours truly reported for Gothamist in 2019, the Alliance secured a $15 million grant (see?) to make NYC no kill by 2008. When it did no such thing, the Alliance pulled a Best Friends and punted the “no-kill” target to 2015. When in 2019 I indicated to Alliance spokesperson Steve Gruber (still collecting that check) that I wanted to discuss his org’s no-kill goal, I never heard from Gruber or the Alliance again.
The contract DOH/ACC/MANA rescues must sign prohibits them from calling out ACC neglect and abuse, under threat of losing access to animals who need their help and without it might well end up in a trash bag:
There it is, in black and white and blue: If you want to save animals from the New York City kill pound, you are expected to kiss the ring. Should you choose not to sacrifice your Constitutional rights to Risa “Anyone Know How to Run an Animal Shelter?” Weinstock, your services are not welcome. Your compassion has no place. If animals die as a result — and they are dying right now — due to “overcrowding,” well, whose fault is that?
No matter how qualified or experienced you are, if you’re not a New Hope member, ACC will exterminate a dog before allowing you to save her. If this sounds unimaginable to you, as it should, ask NYPD.
TSNY reached out to council reps Robert Holden and Joann Ariola, who like Lynn Schulman represent Queens on the health committee and claim Friends Of The Animals status. At last September’s hearing, Schulman name-checked Holden and Ariola as being involved in the aforementioned low-cost Queens clinic effort, so we asked them for an update as well.
FOTA Holden ignored us. Ariola’s office replied:
“My office has been working closely with local rescues to formulate legislation that can help the situation citywide, and looking into where we might be pre-empted by state law, to see if we need to work with state partners to remove potential roadblocks. I hope to have a legislative package put together by sometime next year to begin reversing New York City’s rampant overpopulation issue, and take some of the financial burden off of pet owners seeking to do the right thing.”
It’s nice that Ariola’s office responded, and even nicer that, rather than answering our actual question, they confirmed that promises made in 2024 to New Yorkers who have desperately needed help since at least 1995 will not be addressed until “sometime” in 2026 — and only then if “hope” finally graduates to action, as (minus $.5M) it has somehow failed to do since those promises were made 12 months ago. Same shit. Different decade.
Bottom line is the New Yorkers who do DOH’s and ACC’s jobs for them are in addition to a life of financial hardship repaid with coercion and psychological torture. Snitch and the hostages die.
NYC ACC is run by small, scared people lording over their little fiefdom while doling out as much pain and abuse as they can get by with. It’s the only power they have, and like all bullies, they only punch down.
Also like all bullies, they are weak and small-minded. They can be defeated. Just ask Disney.
The Scoop New York will have much more on the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals and its blatantly, sadistically unconstitutional No Hope [Shhhh!! — Ed.] rescue contract as soon as we can manage.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
You can love companion animals or you can love watching their adoptive families terrorized by the government, but not both.
With Election Day drawing ever closer, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his reelection campaign are flailing.
Shocker: Transport Workers Union president John Samuelson, who once campaigned to make it legal for reckless bus drivers to maim and kill New Yorkers in crosswalks, thinks horses should die violently on city streets as well. All carnage is the same so long as John gets paid.
State lawmakers announced a bipartisan effort to take credit for protecting pets from shady boarding facilities while not actually doing anything about it.
Related: Good on Clifton Park for not waiting for Albany to act.
Related: Misdemeanor cruelty charges were filed against the operators of an Altamont boarding hellhole that may have starved poor Diesel to death.
A pair of suspected serial animal abusers in Fort Greene were caught on video dragging and kicking a cat and NYPD responded with its trademark enthusiasm for public service and protecting the vulnerable.
An abuser or abusers released three pythons in Forest Park in Queens, leaving the snakes to die along with any small pets they may encounter.
Town of North Hempstead Animal Shelter will host a free rabies clinic for cats, dogs and ferrets on October 4 (a week from tomorrow).
Even NYC squirrels aren’t safe from City Hall.
This week on social media
Food recalls
The FDA announced no new pet food recalls this week. Check here for info on prior recalls.