Weekly Animal Services Open Houses to Start Feb. 7th

San Angelo's City Council provided direction to city leadership to seek public feedback on Animal Services via a Town Hall meeting, similar to what the city did with ADA compliance in March 2023.  

Last week the city held a public meeting on streets.  The city informed the public seven days before the street Town Hall and twelve days before the ADA session.  Both the ADA and street meetings were livestreamed on SATV, the city's YouTube channel.

Fox West Texas and Concho Valley Homepage ran stories on the Animal Services Open House shortly after receiving the city press release.  

Both pieces make the open house sound like a one time event.  It's not, according to the City Calendar.

The information does not state if the weekly meetings will be recorded.  

The Concho Valley Homepage story closed with:

With an open house on the way and a canine overpopulation crisis growing within the town, it may be up to the community to decide whether San Angelo has gone to the dogs.

For years the shelter released unaltered dogs back to owners.  For years the shelter choked off intake from citizens wanting to responsibly surrender their pet.  Neither death nor moving to assisted living were good enough reasons for the Animal Shelter to take an owner surrender.  Amelia knows.

City leaders promised a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance combined with required microchipping would reduce the number of loose animals in city streets.  Managed intake and a hard cap on shelter capacity did the opposite.  Shelter policy effectively turned into "let them roam."  

Releasing unaltered animals back to less than responsible owners meant puppies became part of San Angelo's wandering dog problem.

Staff referred to enforcing the spay/neuter ordinance and breeder permit purchases as "kicking the ant's nest" in late Summer 2022.   City policies and practices helped create our "gone to the dogs situation."

The shelter applied Pets Alive and Best Friend Animal Society programming, which transfers sheltering to the community.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden and PAWS Director Jenie Wilson repeatedly stated San Angelo has a large number of irresponsible pet owners.  Who would count on them to step up and do more?  

San Angelo is five years into programming that kept unwanted dogs out of the shelter.  It should be no surprise that they fill the streets.

Councilman Harry Thomas said just that at the Council's last meeting.

“There are more dogs on the streets than there’s ever been.”

Yes there are.  It's from years of "letting them roam unaltered."

Update 2-6-24:  San Angelo Live informed residents of their opportunity to tour the Shelter tomorrow evening.  The city added the Shelter Open House to its news feed as of 10:00 am this morning.

Update 2-7-24:  Fox West Texas reported:

Open house events will be held from 5-6 p.m. Wednesdays through August.

Update 2-8-24:  Someone who went to the first Open House noted:

They had Animal Control Officers (ACO) in one section, to go ask questions, Shelter Chief Morgan was there and people could ask her questions and I saw her talk to three people, two at length, Morgan's boss Bob Salas was there.

"News" people taking pics and Carlos (ACO) gave an interview and that's about all that happened! And you could go look at the "ROWS" of dogs! Most of the people that were there were PAWS people and Fosters, and shelter workers.

Update 9-27-24:  Five months of public meetings produced data from an average of three citizens per meeting.  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden's report to City Council included

To give citizens an avenue to communicate their concerns, animal services held weekly open house hours for five months from February 2024 through June 2024. Visitors were invited to tour, ask the experts, share concerns and ideas for this come-and-go casual gathering of people motivated to solve San Angelo’s animal concerns. 

About two dozen people attended on 2/7/24 but no more than two individuals reported on any subsequent date.

The meetings were to run through August but stopped the end of June due to poor attendance.  Citizens now have to access Animal Services through their City Council representative to get any response.  I hope they keep doing that.  Maybe elected officials will figure out that something is wrong.

I would suggest veterinarians are included in the list of people motivated to solve the city's animal concerns.  They might be worthy of a special focus group meeting.  That is if someone really wants feedback/public input.  

Data says the weekly series of open houses was for show.  Three months in it was obviously not fulfilling its stated aim, yet there was no course correction.  

Council's lack of response continues.