ANIMAL SERVICES DOGFIGHT MANAGER OF SHELTERS CLINGS TO JOB.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew and Rick Orlov Staff Writers

Badgered by animal activists and pressured to resign by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Guerdon Stuckey - the embattled head of the Animal Services Department - refused to quit Wednesday.

Instead, sources say the 50-year-old general manager has gone into seclusion at the advice of his attorneys and has threatened a wrongful-termination lawsuit.

``It's a dogfight: He said today he's not quitting,'' said a high-ranking animal-control official who said he fears Villaraigosa has finally caved into what he called ``ecoterrorists'' who have targeted Stuckey and other department workers.

``All employees are concerned that the terrorists are now going to take over the department and go after other people as well.''

Even though he had no experience with animal-welfare issues, Stuckey, a former bureaucrat from Maryland, was named to the job a year ago by then-Mayor James Hahn. Animal-rights activists who had picketed Hahn and Animal Services workers vowed to continue their protests.

Villaraigosa promised during his mayoral campaign to replace Stuckey in the $152,000-a-year job because of city failure to quickly adopt a low-kill animal-control policy. After taking office, however, Villaraigosa softened that position, saying he wanted to give Stuckey and other general managers the chance to prove themselves.

In addition, aides said Villaraigosa didn't want to appear to bow to pressure from animal-rights extremists after they began to demonstrate in front of his home and at his public appearances - tactics they had often used against Hahn.

``I don't feel I have the latitude to comment at this point,'' Villaraigosa said Wednesday after a spokesman insisted that Stuckey had neither resigned or been fired.

Sources, however, say the mayor's deputy chief of staff, Jimmy Blackman, last week gave Stuckey an ultimatum to resign or be fired.

At an Animal Services Department's holiday party Friday, however, observers said Stuckey acted as if nothing adverse was happening to him.

In seeking Stuckey's resignation, the mayor has repeated what some critics see as a passive-aggressive pattern of replacing city department heads. After he was elected, Villaraigosa moved quickly to seek the resignations of Wayne Tanda at the Department of Transportation and Kim Day at Los Angeles World Airports.

As mayor, Villaraigosa has wide authority over department heads and can hire and fire them as he sees fit. A fired general manager's only recourse is to get 12 members of the City Council to overturn the decision. In the past, however, golden handshakes have frequently been given to forced-out city officials.

Even before Stuckey arrived in Los Angeles from Rockville, Md., where he worked in municipal government, he became the target of protests over his lack of experience in animal matters.

Although he was given some time to adjust to his new job, he soon became a victim of extremists who smoke-bombed his downtown Los Angeles apartment - apparently one of the acts that prompted his wife to leave the city and return to Maryland.

The Department of Animal Services, with a $15.6 million budget, runs six shelters across the city. This year it is expected to rescue 55,000 pets - and euthanize 26,000 dogs and cats.

A potential successor to Stuckey, according to some sources, is Ed Boks, departing executive director of New York City Animal Care and Control, operator of that city's shelter system.

Boks, a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, had sharply cut animal-kill rates as head of the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control in the Phoenix area. After assuming the reins of the New York City shelters two years ago, he declared war on euthanasia, cutting the kill rate nearly in half while increasing animal adoptions by 105 percent, according to some reports.

``He gets outstanding marks from the animal-control officers in New York and Arizona,'' said Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, a newspaper that tracks euthanasia rates across the nation.

Clifton, who has known Boks since he was a civil-rights activist in college, credited his people skills within the contentious world of animal welfare for saving animals.

``If anybody can handle Los Angeles, ... he's the guy to do it,'' Clifton said from his Washington state office. ``Basically, if you can't get along with Ed Boks, you can't get along with people.''

Stuckey critics remained unconvinced he was on his way out.

``We won't believe Stuckey is even fired until someone announces it,'' said Pam Ferdin of the Animal Defense League, which has picketed Villaraigosa and others.

``We want to see what we've always wanted to see (in a department manager): credentials, dedication to no-kill, energy and public outreach. Most importantly: stopping the killing.''

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