10/31/2026
🚨 CALL TO ACTION: PART 1 of 2 🚨
Here is the original post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19iP9SiRDx/
Countless of you have reached out, saying that you want to DO something and asking WHAT CAN I DO? HOW I CAN HELP?
Every person seeing reading this post can do CALL TO ACTION PART 1️⃣
Click here https://tr.ee/CALL-TO-ACTION for 2 prewritten emails for you to copy and paste into your email with a full detailed contact list for the Spokane County Commissioner and all Local and State Elected Officials. It is a safe link to Google Docs for you to share.
Simply find the contact information, copy and paste the pre-written email, or write your own, and email it to the Spokane County Commissioners, Local and State Elected Officials before Election Day on Tuesday, November 3.
Only the commissioners can fix this, and the Board typically meets on Mondays and Tuesdays, so a letter sent now reaches them before that week’s meetings. Every letter tells them the public is watching this VERY CLOSELY.
Even if you don’t live here you can still send letters in support of Rescue4All and fight for our Refuge dogs 🫶
Rescue4All has been saving dogs in Spokane County for more than a decade, including animals pulled from SCRAPS itself under past leadership.
Now that same agency has issued criminal citations against me, some based on nothing more than a Facebook video, by choosing to treat a legitimate 501(c)(3) rescue as a commercial kennel.
🐾Recue4All Linktree: https://linktr.ee/rescue4all
We need you!! I need you, our R4A Refuge dogs need you!
We can't do what we do without you!!!!
Please share our posts, text your friends, talk about this we need all the support we can get!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support and helping fight for our R4A Refuge Dogs!
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Here is the letter in full:
Spokane County Board of County Commissioners
1116 W. Broadway Avenue
Spokane, WA 99260
Subject: Requested Amendment: Verified 501(c)(3) Animal Rescues Should Not Be Classified as Commercial Kennels - SCC 5.04.020(6) and (10)
Dear Spokane County Commissioners Jordan, Waldref, Kerns, Brooks, and French,
I am writing to ask the Board to amend Spokane County Code so that verified 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues are no longer classified as commercial kennels simply because of the number of animals in their care.
Rescue4All has spent years doing work that most people in this county never see. It takes in the dogs nobody else will take: animals coming out of shelters, from law enforcement, from rural counties with no resources, and from families who have run out of options. It has even pulled animals out of SCRAPS itself under previous leadership, helping the county when the county needed help.
Nothing about how Rescue4All operates has changed. What changed is how the code is enforced, and because of it, a woman who has given years of her life to saving animals is now facing criminal charges. This information is public on the Spokane County District Court website: some of the violations filed against her are based on a SCRAPS Animal Protection Officer viewing a Facebook video, and the officer never visited her property or contacted her.
At the same time, SCRAPS tells members of the public it is full and cannot take in stray or found animals, and hands them a resource list with Rescue4All's name on it. The county cannot tell the public to call rescues for help while prosecuting a rescue for answering the call.
Across this region, 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues are already stretched to the breaking point. They run on donations, volunteer hours, and the personal savings of the people who lead them. Animal welfare is in a crisis, the surge of unwanted animals is never ending, shelters are full, abandoned animals and owner surrenders are up, and every 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue I know is turning away animals it wishes it could save.
Forcing these organizations into commercial kennel licensing adds thousands of dollars in application fees, renewal fees, paperwork, and legal risk to groups that have nothing left to give. Spokane County's published 2026 Land Use Fee Schedule lists the Conditional Use Permit application fee at $5,098.43. The CUP renewal fee is an additional $161.00. On top of that, a commercial kennel license costs $150.00 per year, with a $25.00 late fee if not timely renewed.
Animal shelters in Spokane County are expressly excluded from the commercial kennel definition, which means they are not subject to the Conditional Use Permit requirement that applies to commercial kennels. A 501(c)(3) rescue caring for the same animals at a loss is classified as a commercial kennel and must pay the $5,098.43 CUP application fee, the $161.00 renewal fee, the $150.00 annual license, and the $25.00 late fee, while the shelter down the road pays none of it.
Virtually no nonprofit rescue operating on donations and volunteer labor can absorb that cost, and the threat of criminal prosecution makes good people think twice about doing this work at all in Spokane County. When a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue closes, those animals do not disappear. They end up back in the county's system, at the taxpayers' expense.
The word "commercial" should mean something. A commercial kennel is a business: it breeds, boards, or sells animals to make money for its owner. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue is the opposite. Every adoption fee and every donation goes back into food, vaccines, spay and neuter surgeries, and veterinary bills, and most 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues still lose money on nearly every animal they place.
Nobody is getting rich saving dogs. Yet the current code counts animals without asking why they are there, so a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue caring for abandoned dogs at a loss is treated the same as a breeder selling puppies for profit. Applying a law written for businesses to 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues is not common sense.
The constituents of Spokane County do not want it, and they never expected their government to interpret the code that way.
This is not an attempt to escape oversight or avoid doing things the right way. Washington already has strong animal cruelty laws under RCW 16.52, and those laws apply to every 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue, every shelter, and every pet owner in this county. If any 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue neglects or mistreats animals, SCRAPS has every tool it needs to act.
What I am asking for is fairness and clarity. County code already recognizes animal shelters operated by 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations as something different from a kennel, but it leaves the final call to one person's discretion.
Washington state law does not treat these categories as interchangeable. RCW 82.04.040(4)(c) defines an "animal rescue group" as a nonprofit organization exempt under Section 501(c) whose primary purpose is preventing animal abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation, or homelessness, and which obtains animals exclusively from stray, abandoned, surrendered, or transfer sources rather than through intentional breeding.
The state's animal protection chapter, RCW 16.52, exempts "a private, charitable not-for-profit humane society or animal adoption organization" from the dog breeding regulations that apply to commercial operations. And Washington's animal cruelty statutes contain no definition of "kennel" that would sweep in a nonprofit rescue; kennel classification is a matter of local code. Spokane County Code counts animals without regard to whether the organization is a 501(c)(3) rescue operating at a loss. The state already recognizes the distinction. The county code should reflect it.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue's legal standing should not depend on who happens to be running the agency that year. The same organization doing the same work should not go from trusted partner to criminal defendant because of a change in personnel.
The code defines a commercial kennel as a place where dogs or cats are boarded, bred, bought, sold, exhibited, or trained for compensation. Nothing a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue does fits that definition. The only reason a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue is placed in that category is the number of animals in its care. Once a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue keeps more than eight dogs or ten cats over six months old, the code deems it a commercial kennel regardless of whether anyone receives compensation. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue forced into that category must agree to inspections, pay licensing fees, and meet minimum standards of care or risk being shut down.
The county's own code excludes designated animal shelters from the commercial kennel definition, which means they are not required to obtain the Conditional Use Permit that commercial kennels must obtain. The rescue across town, caring for the same animals under the same cruelty laws, is classified as a commercial kennel and pays every fee that comes with it.
Animal shelters in Spokane County have no inspection or licensing requirement, and the only thing separating them from a 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue is the approval of the SCRAPS Director, which is given at the Director's discretion. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue meets every other part of the animal shelter definition but is still classified as a commercial kennel.
I respectfully ask the Board to:
Amend Spokane County Code Title 5, Chapter 5.04, specifically sections 5.04.020(6) and 5.04.020(10), so that a verified 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescue meeting the code's definition of an animal shelter shall not be classified as a commercial kennel.
Make the matching amendment to the zoning code administered by Building and Planning, so 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues are not cleared under one code and cited under the other.
Direct a review of current enforcement actions against 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rescues while these amendments are considered.
The responsible people who chose to do this work are not asking for special treatment. They are asking to be allowed to keep saving lives without fearing that the county they serve will treat them as criminals for it. Please give them that certainty.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Commissioner District & ZIP code]
[Your email address if you want to include it]
[Your email address if you want to include it]
[Your phone number in you want to include it]
