ANIMAL ACTIVISTS ALARMED BY MAYOR'S FIRING OF KNAPP.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

Mayor James Hahn fired the head of the city's Animal Services Department on Tuesday, raising protests by animal welfare activists worried that city shelters will revert ``to the Middle Ages.''

Dan Knapp, general manager of the Department of Animal Services, got word of his termination Tuesday afternoon from his hospital bed where he claims to be recovering from stress-related seizures caused by an outburst by a former councilwoman.

``So I'm laying in my hospital bed, having a few seizures (and) as the doctors reduce my medicine I get the shock of my life,'' said Knapp, referring to an abruptly worded letter read to him by his wife.

``I'm in shock, I'm just in overwhelming shock.''

Knapp's firing follows months of absences from work for health-related reasons. Hahn's letter gave no reasons for the termination, effective the day before Knapp received the letter. City department heads serve at the pleasure of the mayor.

A Hahn spokesman would only say it was time to change the guard at the city pound.

``This is a critical department in the city,'' said Hahn spokesman Matt Middlebrook. ``The mayor felt he wanted to go in a different direction.''

Middlebrook would not specify the new direction of the department.

Knapp, former head of the Sonoma County Humane Society and an expert on feral cats, was recruited to lead a disheveled shelter system in 1993 and took the top animal services job three years ago. Since then, he has worked to stop the killing of 50,000 unwanted dogs and cats in city shelters every year.

Jerry Greenwalt, Knapp's former assistant, will serve as interim general manager during a a nationwide search for a permanent replacement.

Animal welfare advocates are livid about the decision to ax a man they say led the drive for a ``no-kill'' city and who helped unite the animal welfare community.

``The humane community is furious,'' said Melya Kaplan, executive director of Venice Animal Allies. ``This is unconscionable. This will push back the department into the Middle Ages.''

Under Knapp, she and other advocates said, ``animals were important for the first time in this city.''

``I'm red-hot angry,'' said Michael Bell, head of Citizens for a Humane Los Angeles. ``Dan has been ill ... but he has been given the direction he can work from home.''

Since Knapp joined animal services, the city has cracked down on unlicensed pets with higher fees for unfixed animals. Voters also approved Bond Measure F, in part to upgrade city shelters and build five more,including two in the San Fernando Valley.

He said he received a stellar review from former Mayor Richard Riordan in November.

Knapp said his health problems began April 30 during an ad hoc budget committee meeting in which former Councilwoman Rita Walters ``was really more difficult than she usually is to me - I'm trying to put it politely - and I had seizures afterward.''

Since then, he said, doctors attributed his seizures to his work and he said the city agreed to his absences - a month after his first seizure and from Aug. 23 until this week. He has since quit driving, moved closer to his office and conducted agency business from his home.

In a memo dated Oct. 9, Knapp told senior staff members that ``I am not dying or resigning, and will at some point return to my duties. ... My greatest hope is that we may survive the slowness of bureaucracy to see that day.''

He's not without his critics.

Last year, Knapp was roundly attacked after he said the Democratic National Convention was the ``catalyst'' for stepped-up patrols for stray dogs that would have been killed in higher numbers because of overcrowding at city kennels. He later reversed his position.

Sources close to City Hall say Knapp made promises that he didn't deliver. They charge he was also a jealous leader who got rid of Greenwalt and stripped his management in order to gain complete control of the office.

``He, in fact, made his position indispensable,'' said one source. ``So when he was there (at work), he was wondering why he was so stressed out.''

Some in the animal welfare community also said he was often inaccessible and could have done more to help abused animals.

Knapp, for his part, is saddened by an exit letter from Hahn that gave no reason for his departure. Knapp earned $128,000 a year, plus a car that he turned in last week for an extra $500 a month. ``All compensation stopped as of yesterday,'' he recalls the mayor writing in the letter.

Staff Writer Jason Kandel contributed to this report.