Full commission to decide shelter issue
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Several meetings between the county’s Health and Welfare Committee, the County Executive and Humane Society members to discuss the issue have been held, with the latest being Monday afternoon when the committee eventually voted to send the proposal to the full commission for a decision.
“With what we know, as of today,” Health and Welfare Committee chairman Wayne Pryor said, “we have two options. We can give the Humane Society the money they want to operate, or the county is to go into the animal shelter business and operate it themselves. There’s a lot of pros and cons on both sides of that deal.”
Pryor said Director of Accounts Linda Hillis had been asked to come up with a tentative minimum figure on what it would cost to open a county shelter. Hillis came up with a figure of around $80,000, but Pryor pointed out if the county then subtracted the $25,000, counting around $3,000 in fuel, it now gives the Humane Society, the county would only have to come up with another $55,000.
However, at a later meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee, Commissioner Michael Martin said that figure was woefully short of what it might really cost the county, claiming it would probably be more in the order of $200,000 to $300,000.
“Tell it like it is,” Martin said.
County officials had hoped, at one point, to be able to take the current shelter back over, thus saving money to construct a new one, but that plan was thwarted since the county had previously donated the land to the Humane Society.
“The county made out a clear deed to the Humane Society back in 1987,” Pryor said, “with no clauses attached. I assumed that once they went out of the animal shelter business it would revert back to the county, but evidently that’s not how it is.”
All along, the county has made it obvious it is reluctant to pony up $80,000 of the $100,000 the Humane Society needs to operate the shelter rather than the $22,000 or so it has been contributing. Meanwhile, Humane Society members have made it clear the fundraising required to come up with the $80,000 themselves is too time consuming for volunteers, most of whom have full-time jobs or businesses to run.
Pleas from the group to institute some sort of mandatory spay and neuter and licensing laws in Warren County, in an effort to reduce the animal overpopulation problem and generate some revenue, have fallen on deaf ears.
Commissioner Herb Wright felt the Health and Welfare Committee had been saddled with the issue unfairly, and made a motion to send the problem back to the Procedures and Rules Committee, which is now responsible for non-profits.
But before that motion was voted on, committee member Terry Bell pointed out the obvious.
“We don’t even know if the full commission wants to go into the shelter business,” Bell said. “Why can’t we just ask the question ‘Do we want to get into the dog business or not’ at our next county court meeting. That gives all 24 commissioners a chance to give their opinion on that.”
Pryor asked Wright if he would be willing to withdraw his earlier motion to send the issue back to Procedures and Rules, and once he agreed, Bell made a motion to send the issue to the full commission for a vote. The motion passed unanimously.
Costly endeavor
It’s been estimated the county could open an animal shelter for around $80,000. That’s a figure Commissioner Michael Martin disputes, saying it will more likely cost $200,000 to $300,000.