San Angelo's City Council will take up Animal Services in Item E of the Regular Agenda in its upcoming meeting. The agenda states:
Discussion and review on Animal Services and challenges faced by San Angelo and other cities throughout the state/country (Presentation made by Neighborhood and Family Services Assistant Director Morgan Chegwidden)
City Council may wish to revisit their August 2023 budget session which provided special focus on disturbing events involving loose and aggressive dogs. Shelter Chief Chegwidden contacted Best Friends Animal Society for assistance the day before the meeting. The content of her e-mail is below:
Hello (Best) Friends,
I’m fulfilling my ELC promise to ask for help, to be brief:
Certain San Angeloans are speaking out about dogs that Animal Services has been “slow” to respond to. We’ve got call history with prompt response. In short - a resident owned an adult male and female, bred one litter of 8 pups with the intention to sell, pups are now 6 months old and frequently loose killing cats and a small breed dog. Sunday the 8 pups attacked a large breed dog, who received prompt medical care with a favorable prognosis.
Bigger picture, these citizens are speaking against community supported sheltering - the single best resource saving us while (constantly) at capacity. I’m clarifying with management and elected officials - lifesaving programming is never intended to leave dangerous, reactive, or bite dogs in the community. “Leave them be” works for adult, street-wise dogs that are likely less than a mile from their home. These 8 pups warrant a shelter intake when owner fails to take responsible action.
I’m expecting public comment calling for the end of community supported sheltering/all lifesaving programming at City Council - potentially 8/29/23 workshop or 9/7/23 meeting. Any stats, case studies, language that you can recommend to continue pursuing life first for each animal we serve is appreciated.
You can view the show at our YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@CityofSanAngelo?si=FPgG19422_dZw5yf
Appreciate y’all!
Morgan Chegwidden
Council may wish to consider that its Animal Shelter Advisory Committee failed to achieve a quorum in October with the three missing members the Chair, Vice Chair and a city employee who'd resigned and been told not to attend by staff liaison and committee member Morgan Chegwidden.
City ordinances require the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee to meet three times a year. It failed to meet this requirement in 2023.
Council may wish to consider the October Fox West Texas story on the failed ASAC meeting. It stated:
Several attendees of the event expressed a strong desire to reschedule as soon as possible.
“It’s something that the team will certainly consider and try to get on the schedule pretty quickly,” Chegwidden said.
That meeting was never rescheduled. "The Team" decided by November 14, 2023 to not hold another ASAC meeting and wait until January 2024. The team's decision was never shared with the public.
The team had their hand's full with a panleukopenia outbreak in the cat colony behind the Animal Shelter. This development was shared with Best Friends but once again, not the public.
City Council may wish to consider the ASAC's two vacancies, even as they reappoint PAWS Jen Murphy to a third two year term.
Council approved borrowing $2 million eleven months ago for urgent shelter updates. Construction financing would have the project finished in August 2023. It has not yet been bid.
Context is important. Council may wish to consider Chegwidden referred to their budget session as "the show" to Best Friends staff. For many San Angeloans the Animal Shelter has turned its back on the people it is there to serve.
The City Council background packet has the following information:
Summary/History:
National challenges are largely related to domestic canines, as cat programming serves that species well. Previously, "easy to move" categories, such as purebreds and puppies, languished in both public and private shelters, creating a bottleneck with increased lengths of stay. American shelters are carrying 245,000 more animals this year than last year. One shelter reports the average length of stay increased from 15-18 days to 28-30 days. With an average intake increase of 5% and adoptions down by 1.2%, many shelters are making space-based euthanasia decisions for the first time in years.
San Angelo faces some of the same challenges with decreased adoptions/transfers (32% fewer than the prior year). Pressures on owners such as economic (inflation for dog food is 16% more than last year), restrictive housing (prohibited size, breed), managed owner surrenders to animal services, and policy restricting capacity contribute to more dogs at large and more dogs being abandoned at the shelter (34 last quarter). Local ordinances set an optimal standard for pet ownership, but families are not operating in ideal circumstances and need resources to house dogs.
For fiscal year 2022-23, Animal Services impounded 2,901 animals (28% less than the prior year), 1,491 of which were dogs (38% less than the prior year) but walk-in traffic, workload, and demands for service maintained. 49.8% of all animals were adopted or transferred (or 1,476 animals - 32% fewer than the prior year), 40.9% were returned to owner or wildlife released (or 1,213 animals - 10% fewer than the prior year) and 9.3% were euthanized or died in custody (or 275 animals). Deaths decreased 55% from 614 to 275 animals. 90.7% of animals were released alive, but the climate wasn't celebratory.
An increased need for field services was identified and communicated for funding. Animal Services Officers responded to 6,111 cases in FY23 and investigated 264 animal-to-person bites, up 56% from the prior year. Additionally, staffing is needed to manage this workload and prevent further increases.
Funding facility improvements ensures continued efforts, but shortfalls have been identified, including (1)preparing a temporary facility to house displaced animals and (2) staffing animal care at two locations. Although originally planned to proceed in November 2023, complex engineering needs prompted a new timeline to break ground this summer.
Funding Source(s):
Financial Impact:
Other Information/Recommendation: Staff recommends a three-prong approach to support these challenges.
1. Adopt legislation encouraging pet-friendly housing. Landlords should lift breed and weight restrictions, allowing families to stay together, decreasing owners re-homing their pets, and preventing households from releasing their pets to the neighborhood at large.
2. Incentivize community support to increase local adoptions, particularly marketing to young adults.
3. Funding (1) additional animal services officers, (2) four part-time temporary shelter workers during construction project, (3) preparation of temporary animal housing, and (4) free microchips to residents of target neighborhoods.
Attachments:
Presentation:
Note the background packet includes data for adoptions/transfers. Shelter adoptions for FY 2022 were 1,144 cats/dogs. Adoptions for FY 2023 fell to 586 cat/dog adoptions. That's a 49% drop for a service provided by contractor Concho Valley PAWS.
StateoftheDivision has many posts with city provided data on the number of unaltered dogs released from the shelter, the predictable consequences of choking off shelter intake (which resulted in more loose dogs, many unaltered), and the terrible predicament pet owners are put into when moving into assisted living or a nursing home (not an acceptable reason for the shelter to assist).
San Angelo's Animal Shelter is a Pets Alive, Best Friends shelter which often means no service and no support for tax paying citizens. City Council has allowed, even encouraged these developments.
City staff will likely gloss over community problems created by Animal Services in citing national data and other shelter experiences. What's missing is feedback from San Angelo citizens and dedicated local animal rescues.
Most rescues have washed their hands of the city and its low performing shelter (in actually serving people). I will be surprised if anyone turns up on Tuesday in the bitter cold. The morning low is expected to be 7 degrees.
The topic is the fifth item on the Regular Agenda. Who will wait patiently in the audience for their turn to speak for three minutes? The Youtube "show" will reveal the answer.
Update: The ASAC agenda for January 18th mirrors the City Council item.
Discussion and review on Animal Services and challenges faced by San Angelo and other cities throughout the state/country (Presentation made by Neighborhood and Family Services Assistant Director Morgan Chegwidden)Council will have met and "provided direction." Community input? Definitely not wanted.
City Council will hold a Strategic Planning Session on January 26th. Animal Services deserves a dedicated planning session. I encouraged Council to do just that in 2021.
Update 1-16-24: City Council heard from Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden and three representatives from Concho Valley PAWS, the groups that instituted changes from 2019 to today that choked off shelter intake. In public comment at the beginning of the Council meeting a citizen said "I moved here two years ago and I have never witnessed an animal crisis like I've witnessed here."
Citizens wishing to give public comment on the Animal Services item on the Regular Agenda had to wait until nearly noon to do so. Anyone there before 8:30 am would have waited three and a half hours for three minutes of comment time.
Council expressed their desire for public town hall meetings on the animal situation and asked staff to work up specific proposals for improving our third world loose pet problem.
At the end of the meeting Council approved PAWS staffer Jen Murphy for another stint on the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee. Under future agenda items Councilman Tom Thompson indicated his wife had been bitten by a dog. Council person Karen Hesse-Smith asked about following up with Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden about planning the suggested town hall meetings.
Update 1-17-24: Shelter Chief Morgan admitted to Council that changes at the Animal Shelter "led to pet owners dumping their animals at the Animal Shelter or letting them loose." This was predictable.
Update 1-22-24: San Angelo Live may have well run an Animal Shelter press release in its piece on the recent City Council discussion. Live missed the extreme juxtaposition between national and local statistics, i.e. shelters elsewhere are doing more while for most statistics San Angelo's shelter did far less. It also failed to report Council's desire for a town hall meeting on the Shelter.
Live's Joe Hyde said his publication does not do investigative reporting as it is too expensive. That may explain why Live tends to be a mouthpiece for Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden and contractor Concho Valley PAWS.
Update 1-25-24: The City will hold a public meeting at the McNease Convention Center on February first. And the topic is ......streets.
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