City in Dogfight with PACCA

The city of Philadelphia is involved in another dogfight.
 
500 dogs and cats that have come through the city shelter, PACCA, are in foster homes. But, there's a major problem. The city of Philadelphia claims it's former animal control agency won't hand over medical records for hundreds of animals. 
 
“There's some that are aggressive, we don't even have rabies data, foster care families could conceivable be fostering an animal that hasn't been vaccinated.  We have no way of knowing and that's a very serious matter,” said Nan Feyler of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
 
PACCA was essentially fired by the city and the Pennsylvania SPCA (PSPCA) took over Philadelphia's animal control January 1, 2009.
 
PACCA lost its contract with the city amid allegations of poor management, improper drug procedures, and care of some animals.
 
Now, if PACCA doesn’t give up its medical database, public health officials said they might have to take the former animal control agency to court.
 
“So four years of records of animals that came through the shelter you don't have...starting with a clean slate,” said Howard Nelson of the PSPCA.
 
The agency says without the medical database they may have a tougher time finding some animals.
 
“The animals could be sent to rescue, adopted or worse they could be euthanized,” Nelson said.
 
The president of PACCA's board, John Martini, was not available to talk to the NBC10 Investigators on camera but said, " we have consistently offered to give whatever information they need to run the facility. It's our view they want to play games with our data…There is personal information about donors in the data base we want to protect."
 
The city said it has no interest in personal information.
 
The NBC10 Investigators spoke to former PACCA employees who told them PACCA did NOT have good record keeping systems.  
 
The PSPCA has used donor money to start remodeling the former PACCA shelter.
 
But the city said what it needs is for PACCA to give back what they paid for.

A former PACCA administrator says the database does not belong to the city. It was paid for by a private donor.
 
Lu Ann Cahn and the NBC 10 investigators have been following this story:
 

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