ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

The destruction comes as the county faces three lawsuits and open records requests related to its animal shelter. Some of the records sought in those lawsuits have been destroyed, said Mark Pedroli, an attorney who filed suit against the county and its animal control department on behalf of two clients.

“This has never happened,� Pedroli said. “I’ve never had somebody destroy 20,000 pounds of documents in the middle of litigations.�

County officials said no one realized roaches and mice had infested roughly 400 cardboard boxes in a storage room in the animal shelter near North Lindbergh and Baur boulevards. About 250 have already been destroyed.

The problem was discovered in late September. The Animal Protective Association of Missouri, the nonprofit that’s taking over management of the animal shelter, started going through boxes, said Christopher Ave, a spokesman for the health department.

Personnel files, vaccination records, case investigation reports, kennel reports and performance appraisals dating from the 1980s to this year were destroyed, according to from a county records compliance manager to County Council members.

The nonprofit and the county each brought in their own pest control experts to take a look at the damage.

“Both said the same thing,� Ave said, “This stuff needed to be cleaned up immediately.�

Animal control notified acting public health Co-Director Kate Donaldson about the problem.

Donaldson went over to the building on Oct. 3 with public health staffers and “began immediately the process of going through the records and going through the schedule of retention,� Ave said. The for a certain amount of time depending on the type of document, according to county ordinance.

The infestation was so bad that Donaldson, a longtime public health staffer, immediately ordered the records that had met their retention be destroyed because they were a health hazard, Ave said.

But Donaldson didn’t know County Council must approve the destruction of records, Ave said. Approving the destruction of old records is routine at weekly council meetings.

Donaldson was not available for comment on Monday.

Did the county violate any laws?

State law says if a lawsuit is pending and someone has requested records as part of that suit, the records shouldn’t be destroyed, said Jean Maneke, an attorney with the Missouri Press Association and an expert in ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ open records law.

Pedroli, the attorney, said he was seeking rabies records that were destroyed as part of his client’s whistleblower lawsuit. Mandy Ryan, who worked as a county animal population manager from December 2019 to December 2020, claimed in her suit, among other things, that veterinarians in St. Louis County complained they hadn’t received rabies tags from animal control.

Rabies records from 2004 to 2018 and 2020 to 2022 were destroyed, according to the letter from the county records compliance manager.

In another lawsuit, Webster Groves resident Erin Bulfin sued the county after animal control euthanized her family’s dog, Daisy. The dog had nipped Bulfin’s daughter, and the family complied with county ordinance by then bringing Daisy to animal control for quarantine. The family told animal control they did not want Daisy euthanized, according to the suit.

St. Louis County attempted to control what information Bulfin shared about the case, asking a judge to , Pedroli said. The judge denied that request, first reported by television station KSDK (Channel 5). Records on animal intake are relevant to that case, Pedroli said — but the county letter said intake cards from 1987 to 2020 were destroyed, too.

“Why couldn’t they just decontaminate?� Pedroli asked. “Why didn’t they just move them?�

“I’m just pulling my hair out.�