Tony La Russa wants nothing more to do with the Animal Rescue Foundation, family severs ties over ongoing leadership concerns

WALNUT CREEK — Tony La Russa and his family made it clear today that it was their idea to sever ties with the Animal Rescue Foundation, the East Bay animal welfare nonprofit they founded in 1991, because they believed its leaders are no longer committed to fostering a culture of “compassion and care for animals” and of “mutual respect” amongst employees.

In a statement shared with this news organization, the former Oakland A’s manager said that he and his family have asked to have their names removed from ARF’s title and to no longer have their “reputations” associated with the nonprofit, which has long been synonymous with the Alamo-based family’s brand of local philanthropy. The family’s attorney also sent ARF a cease and desist letter last Friday demanding that the nonprofit stop using La Russa names, likenesses and social media accounts within the next 90 days. The family is also demanding the return of its personal baseball and music memorabilia.

La Russa’s statement, issued with his wife Elaine and daughters Bianca and Devon, comes two days after ARF issued a press release that tried to put an upbeat spin on the split, saying the parting of ways capped “30 years of a successful partnership” and marked “ARF’s evolution and response to today’s challenges in animal welfare.”

“Compassion and care for animals is our family’s passion,” La Russa said in his statement. “But ARF’s current leadership, policies and attitudes work against fulfilling its mission. We have concluded we must completely separate ourselves, our name and our reputation from ARF.”

La Russa, who retired from baseball in October, said that for years, the “close-knit culture” of ARF had been “like an extended” family —  “like-minded people who shared a passion for animals” and “a bond of mutual respect and trust.”

“This culture was an important factor in ARF’s early and continued success,” La Russa said. “That is, sadly, no longer the case, which is why we no longer want to be associated with the foundation we created.”

Greg McCoy, the board’s president, proclaimed: “This organization has never been stronger. We look forward to ARF’s next lifesaving, life-enriching innovations.”

But the La Russa family had raised concerns about ARF’s leadership and workplace culture for at least two years. “The final straw” came last month, when ARF “mishandled” the Feb. 9 adoption of a dog named Lovebug, the family’s statement said.

In spite of behavior notes and instructions saying that Lovebug needed a harness, ARF sent Lovebug home with her elderly adopters without a harness, and the dog immediately escaped before they could get her into their home, the statement said. Over the next two weeks, the La Russas learned that ARF had halted several search-and-rescue attempts, even though Lovebug had been seen numerous times by neighbors.

Finally, on a night when temperatures dipped below freezing, a group of volunteers and members of the La Russa family set a trap to catch Lovebug, who was rescued and returned to her new adopters, the statement said. But instead of celebrating that Lovebug’s life had been saved, ARF told the 20-year veteran volunteer who had organized the rescue that her services were no longer needed, the statement said.

“This response to a person who has devoted 10-15 hours per week to the organization for 20 years, and fostered over 570 animals, is heartbreaking and unacceptable,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for ARF could not be immediately reached for comment.

The La Russa family first raised concerns about ARF’s leadership in April 2021, when the organization faced allegations that its executives nurtured a “toxic” workplace culture, rife with bullying, favoritism, retaliation, and ageist and racist comments.

The venerable Bay Area nonprofit was hit with four lawsuits, filed by former and current employees who alleged that ARF’s long-time executive director Elena Bicker and McCoy, the board chairperson, “tolerated, engendered and permitted a toxic workplace culture.” One of those lawsuits has since been settled on undisclosed terms, while the other three are still pending, according to Contra Costa County Superior Court records.

Due to concerns about ARF’s leadership at the time, Tony La Russa, his wife and daughters resigned from the board, but agreed to remain loosely affiliated with ARF to aid in its fundraising efforts, while the organization was supposed to make changes.

Susan Lee Vick replaced Bicker as the organization’s top executive in January after Bicker announced her retirement. In a brief statement, ARF’s marketing manager Cole Kuiper said Bicker’s departure didn’t have anything to do with the leadership controversy two years earlier. “Elena Bicker’s retirement was solely related to the fact she and her husband both planned to retire in 2022,” Kuiper said.

But the La Russa family doesn’t think ARF has meaningfully addressed any of their concerns over the last two years and “continues to make decisions that the family cannot in good conscience, support — like the nearly-tragic Lovebug situation,” its statement said.

The family also wasn’t pleased that ARF tried to get ahead of the story by issuing its press release on Monday. The family said they had hoped to part ways in a less public fashion than this, but they took exception to some of the wording in the press release, which suggested that ARF made the call to end its association with the La Russa family, not the other way around.

“This statement is disingenuous and deceptive,” Bianca La Russa said. “This was not mutual, nor was our action a severed ‘partnership’ as ARF claims. Our family founded this organization. ARF has been in our hearts for over 30 years.”

The La Russa family founded the organization after a stray cat wandered onto the playing field during a 1990 game between the Oakland A’s and the New York Yankees. After La Russa, then the A’s manager, and his wife learned the cat would likely be euthanized because the East Bay didn’t have a no-kill shelter, they established an organization to rescue dogs and cats from high-kill shelters and help them be adopted into loving homes.

The organization’s mission and La Russa’s connections won ARF support from enthusiastic volunteers and famous friends in sports and entertainment, who helped with annual fundraisers such as its annual Stars to the Rescue benefit. ARF soon grew into a preeminent Bay Area animal welfare nonprofit, responsible for more than 47,000 animal adoptions and operating out of a gleaming animal shelter, veterinary hospital and community center in Walnut Creek. In 2019, ARF announced a major expansion, with the launch of its “Pets and Vets” program to pair veterans with rescued service dogs.