(February 12)  Chino Hills Public Works Commissioner Barry Fischer on January 29 tendered his resignation in apparent protest over the city’s policies and actions with regard to animal control.
The 72-year-old Fischer, who was named by the major newspaper in Chino and Chino Hills, The Chino Champion, as Chino Hills Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 2013, has been active for several years in advocating that Chino Hills operate on its own or contract with a no-kill animal shelter.
He has decried city policies and city council decisions which run counter to that goal, in particular the city’s ongoing contract with the Inland Valley Humane Society, which has a policy of euthanizing animals that come under its stewardship if adoptions are not effectuated within a 30-day deadline.
An outgrowth of Fischer’s dedication to that issue was his inability to accept  the city’s code enforcement and ensuing legal action against Charles and Lisa Price, who had taken it upon themselves to operate a private non-kill animal adoption clinic which had saved hundreds of dogs and cats from being put to sleep at the Inland Valley Humane Society facility. Ultimately, the Prices were prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to jail time for what Fischer saw as their acts of compassion and courage.
Fischer said that Charles Price was an individual of “high moral character” whose military service and volunteer work demonstrated a personal value system that should have been embraced by the community.
Fischer was councilman Peter Rogers’ appointee to the commission. In tendering his resignation,  Fischer sought to vector the community’s attention to the upcoming annual renewal of the city’s contract with the Inland Valley Humane Society in July, and suggested that city residents insist that the council either end its relationship with the society or alter the contract it has with it for animal control services to disallow the euthanizing of animals originating in Chino Hills that are taken in at its shelter.