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The recent Grand Jury report identifies several shortcomings in North Bay Animal Services’ management and areas for improvement.
June 26, 2025 – This month, the Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury released a report following a complaint filed regarding the management of North Bay Animal Services (NBAS) in Petaluma. The report outlines several concerns that members of the Grand Jury had with NBAS’s operations, financial model, and facilities, along with broader concerns and recommendations for the animal care system throughout Sonoma County.
The City of Petaluma staff have read the report and are giving it the seriousness and consideration that it deserves. Ultimately, we agree with a number of the findings and recommendations; disagree with some; and identify a few as factually inaccurate.
The City is required to formally respond within 90 days of the report publication date. Staff will draft a response to all of the findings and recommendations in the report with explanatory reasoning and detail and plan to bring the response to the City Council at the September 8th meeting for approval. At this point, we will be recommending conducting an RFP next year for animal services. This would be in advance of NBAS’ 3-year renewal option that comes up in July 2026.
In 2018, NBAS was a new non-profit, and the City contracted with them to take over animal services and operation of the Petaluma animal shelter in that year. New non-profits typically need time to launch and stabilize their operations, and less than 2 years into their existence, NBAS was contending with the pandemic and fire evacuation impacts, as we all were. Over the past couple of years, NBAS has been tweaking and adjusting its operations to optimize in the post-pandemic environment, and we believe that they have been incrementally improving their customer service, veterinary service availability, volunteer coordination, and social media engagement.
While staff have had some concerns over the years about NBAS’s operational plan, our overall assessment is that NBAS as an organization is a caring, competent, flexible, and community-minded animal services provider. At the same time, it is also true that there are areas for improvement. Many of the problems identified with NBAS are also affecting the large majority of shelters across the state, including underfunding, insufficient staffing and access to veterinary care, aging facilities, and difficulty in achieving full community compliance with licensing requirements. However, the Civil Grand Jury Report rightfully identifies successes in these areas by other animal services nonprofits in our community. There are also several opportunities for growth across the Animal Services landscape within Sonoma County.
On our staff we have pet owners and animal lovers, some of whom have adopted family members from North Bay Animal Services. We believe that Petaluma’s animals and community deserves the best care and services possible, and we are committed to providing that care. We look forward to working in collaboration with other Cities and the County to best streamline the quality of services for animals across our communities.
Contact Jamieson Bunn, Communications Program Manager, City of Petaluma, with questions at [email protected].