Animal shelter’s failings reflect our community’s lack of vision

Thank you, Ali MacGraw, for such a heartfelt letter in The New Mexican (“Shelter’s supporters deserve explanation,” May 27) concerning the loss of culture and heart of our formerly fabulous animal rescue and adoption center.

How can this happen?

St. Francis, our guardian saint of the city, is rolling in his grave right now. Santa Fe, as the city of refuge and faith, has become not Santa Fe Different, but Santa Fe Corporate.

The selling of Santa Fe is so sad to me. Prefab, prison-like residences for “affordable housing” are produced somewhere else and loaded into the earth with PVC pipes as kits. They are all over America.

Once, I heard the new CEO of Homewise say on the radio during a real estate show, “Well, there are affordable houses and attainable houses.”

I was aghast.

We all know the secrets are flying around behind closed doors, making deals that are really shortsighted and not at all visionary, which is really what our city could be:.

There is enough creative talent in this city to really influence the entire world, but we have fallen into a parody of what we want to sell as Santa Fe — gray mediocrity, gated communities, ugly renovated Bellamah houses and too many marble countertops for me.

But let’s focus on restoring our humane society. Profits should not be made from struggling animals and people who are too poor to even care for them.

That we have no veterinary emergency center, or vets who are not corporate, is the end.

Save your soul and get rid of the new California owners of our animals’ lives.