The Animal Shelter Advisory Committee meets tomorrow for the first time in six months. After approving the October 2022 minutes and getting several monthly reports the committee plans to discuss community-supported sheltering of unowned pets. The slides reference an effort by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control. That shelter is open to the public seven days a week.
San Angelo's City Council effectively forced unowned pets to stay in the community when City Councilman Tom Thompson gave the green light for the Animal Shelter to have a hard maximum number of pets in November 2022. At least one resident was threatened with arrest if they took the stray dogs that killed their outdoor cats to the shelter as it was at capacity and city officials did not deem the dogs dangerous.
Forced community "sheltering" will get worse as the city renovates the Animal Shelter. The city's purchasing department is yet to issue a bid request for those renovations despite borrowing nearly $2 million ($1.6 million for shelter renovations).
Debt issuance fees are $49,000, bond counsel fees $3,500 and interest costs
$41,327. Those total $93,827, a significant amount that could fund a
low cost spay/neuter program. That leads to the next item on the agenda.
The ASAC will consider enforcement of the city ordinance requiring pets to be spayed-neutered and funding to assist with such surgeries. The background packet provides no statistics on the focused effort to identify adopters who did not get their Shelter pet spayed/neutered. This is not a new issue.
“So the veterinarians report a missed appointment but we would not report a compliance issue.” -- Morgan Chegwidden to City Council on 2-20-18
The packet also does not include the number of citations given by Animal Control officers in their normal business. Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden's predecessor said the city would give citizens a grace period to get used to the new ordinance before writing tickets for failure to spay/neuter.
Not providing data on spay/neuter is a fixture for the City of San Angelo. It has hidden behind adoption contractor Concho Valley PAWS a number of times when compliance data was requested.
Staff propose the ASAC once again ask City Council for $10,000 in funds for low cost spay/neuter. Council chose not to act on that recommendation in November 2022 when it effectively cut off citizen access for turning in a loose dog. Surrendering an owned pet dog had been virtually eliminated years ago.
Update 4-20-23: The city is live streaming the ASAC meeting.
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