Manager of The Barn on Baseline responds to neglect allegations

GENOA – The woman running The Barn on Baseline said she is doing everything she can to help animals at the shelter.

Roberta Shoaf, who runs the shelter and is president for the DeKalb County Animal Welfare League, said some of those needs can’t be met instantly.

Shoaf said the league’s board has been talking about getting air conditioning at the shelter and new benches for the dogs for months. She said board members have been waiting for bids from air-conditioning contractors for months and that she needs one more bid for new air conditioning.

“I can’t just go out and spend $30,000 on air conditioning,” Shoaf said. “I don’t have the authority to do that.”

Once the board gets the final bid, it will be able to vote on the bids via email to get the installation process moving as quickly as possible.

Demonstrations against the animal shelter have continued after allegations that dogs were mistreated by Shoaf and shelter staff for 29 days. That includes members of the public not being allowed into the nonprofit's board meeting Monday and a June 24 protest in front of the shelter during the shelter's open house, which was planned for months by the board, Shoaf said.

The concerns stem from a chihuahua named Bert, who was adopted June 15 by couple Drew Alexander and Katy Schertz of Sycamore. Bert came into The Barn on Baseline as a stray May 8. He was adopted by another family
May 23, but he was brought back June 1 because it ended up not being a good match, Shoaf said. Then Shoaf went on vacation for a few days.

On June 10, while Shoaf was on vacation, Bert was fine but still not ready to be adopted, she said.

Alexander said Bert was close to death when he and his girlfriend, Schertz, adopted him June 15. He said the facilities reeked of urine and feces and that Bert had several severe health issues, including a gastrointestinal infection, significant dehydration and gaping sores.

Alexander and other animal activists expressed their concerns about Bert and other animals at the shelter during the DeKalb Animal Welfare League’s June 18 meeting.

Shoaf said the league’s meetings generally are not open to the public, with the exception of an annual meeting in April. But she said she as president of the organization and other board members became aware there was a group of people who had concerns about the animal shelter they wanted to address.

Shoaf said she and board members present determined that they would give the concerned people a forum to speak, so they allowed the group to speak before the board’s regular meeting.

“They overtalked us,” Shoaf said. “They yelled, they screamed, they were rude and they left.”

Shoaf said the shelter is a last stop for a lot of these dogs, who are strays with significant health issues most of the time. But she said she has accepted responsibility for what happened and Bert being adopted in the condition he was in.

“They shouldn’t have taken it – it shouldn’t have gone out,” Shoaf said. “Had I been there, they wouldn’t have taken it, but I wasn’t.”

A 2016 tax return shows about 13 percent of The Barn on Baseline's annual budget was spent on animal expenses, which includes veterinarian bills, Shoaf said. She said
84 percent of the budget goes into animal care, which includes employee salaries and building costs.

A July 9 Freedom of Information Act request was filed by the Daily Chronicle to the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which asked for all documents about complaints and responses to those complaints regarding The Barn on Baseline. It was denied July 10 because the investigation still is ongoing, according to the department’s FOIA officer.

Mark Ernst, bureau chief for the Illinois Bureau for Animal Welfare, said the state first conducts a facilities inspection and then investigates the complaint, and both are unannounced.

“Obviously, it doesn’t do any good to tell them, ‘Hey, we’re coming’ and give them plenty of time to make corrections before the inspection,” Ernst said.

Ernst said penalties that may result from potential violations could range from fines to shutting down the shelter.

But, Alexander said, it’s not his goal to shut down the shelter. He said he just wanted to make The Barn on Baseline a better place for animals, and that’s why he told Shoaf ahead of time that he was going to file the complaint with the state.

Alexander said it was a toss-up; he either could do nothing and have the animals displaced as a result of the shelter shutting down, or he could tell Shoaf about his plans to notify authorities and scare her into improving the conditions at the shelter.

“As a plan, it worked,” Alexander said. “It cleaned up significantly.”

Shoaf confirmed she was aware it was Alexander who filed the complaint with the state. She said she passed the facilities inspection June 22.

"And I've passed every single one of them for the last
25 years," Shoaf said.

Lisa Gonzalez, public health administrator for the DeKalb County Health Department, said there only has been one formal complaint filed in the county against the shelter recently. She said animal control officials also have told her there haven’t been any complaints filed previously.

“We don’t have history of getting complaints regarding Barn on Baseline,” Gonzalez said.

Alexander said he has since filed several reports, including one to the Illinois Bureau of Animal Welfare, claiming
29 counts of abuse and neglect against The Barn on Baseline – one for each day that Bert was under the care of Shoaf. He said just because his claims are regarding one animal doesn't mean there aren't more animals out there that have suffered similarly.

“You have to take one animal’s experience to make this real to a lot of people,” Alexander said.