"Indeed," Lansing nodded, tapping his finger on a stack of personnel files. "Sergeant Davidson is currently indisposed with the actual caretaking of the animals in question, among other things. But as his partner, and given your own reputation within the department, I wanted your input on both the new routes and who should be assigned to them."
It was a tricky thing to decide. Obvious, straight run routes were more dangerous in terms of raiders, but the less obvious paths were going to be fraught with difficulties of their own in terms of uncleared abandoned traffic, clusters of undead populations, and potential for getting stranded in places where rescue teams might be unable to find them. It was important to get the cows fed, but it was also important to keep their people alive.
That meant choices, and Lansing wasn't going to arbitrarily choose who among their supply agents was best suited for this task without consulting the people who actually worked within the department. He was also aware enough of what was going on around him to realize that Cal was already being stretched too thin with his current workload. The choice to bring in Karen Sharpe on this matter in Cal's place was one Lansing did feel qualified to make. It was logical. She knew what would be required as much as anyone else, after all. There was also the fact that Cal's judgment might be biased in the favor of the cows as his own personal investment level was high by this point (not to mention the relation to his sister). Karen's judgment would probably be less clouded.