Hennessee named new animal control officer

‘I feel honored the selection committee selected me for this job,’ Hennessee said. ‘My first goal is to protect the citizens of Warren County, and to run the Animal Control Center to the best of my ability.’

The job came open due to the March 9 resignation of former animal control officer Charles Smith. In the weeks following Smith’s resignation, part-time employee Joey Williamson has been working to cover the operations of the department, something County Executive John Pelham says the county appreciates.

‘This is a gentleman who was part-time that has stepped up and has done a wonderful job to the best of his ability,’ said Pelham, noting he is aware that Williamson by himself could not handle the workload of two employees. ‘We have not been able to service all the calls or respond to some people,’ Pelham added. ‘And we appreciate the patience of the citizens of Warren County during this time.

‘We had one individual, part-time help, who has been trying to feed, water, clean up, return calls, respond to calls,’ Pelham said. ‘It’s been difficult for several weeks now. Our Health and Welfare Committee worked very hard to hire a new officer. We had over 30 applications. The job was taken very seriously, the process was taken very seriously, and we’re proud to have Mr. Hennessee on board. I would also like to say we sent everyone who applied a letter, and I want to thank everybody who applied for the job, especially those who took the time to come in for an interview.’

Pelham says there were many good applicants, but ultimately only one could be chosen.

‘I think David is going to be a good fit for us,’ Pelham said. ‘I think David is going to be a long-term employee. Chuck Smith did a wonderful job, our thoughts are still with Chuck, but he had some health problems he was dealing with, and though I haven’t talked to him in a while, we hope he is doing better.’

Pelham says there will be some training required for the new officer.

‘We’ll have to begin the process again of attaining the levels of training with Mr. Hennessee, he’s agreed to do that,’ Pelham said. ‘We are an animal control facility, but we’ll continue to work to the best of our ability to find homes for these animals, to adopt out the ones that we can.

‘I have had personal conversations with Mr. Hennessee about our expectations for this job and this department,’ Pelham continued, ‘and he has assured me that he is willing and capable to rise to meet the task and I’m confident that he can. So after the first of May hopefully we’re going to get back on track, and when citizens call in needing help, they will not have to wait as long as they have been waiting for the past several weeks, but it’s really just been out of our control.’