Council to Consider Plethora of Animal Shelter Requests

San Angelo's City Council will hear a laundry list of Animal Shelter requests on Tuesday.  Possible program changes total $767,493 and fall into three categories, public safety, shelter operations and outreach/crime preventions.  

The city's loose dog problem has been years in the making, partly driven by the shelter's returning unaltered dogs to irresponsible pet owners.  Despite the city having a juggernaut public information office, vendor Concho Valley PAWS has often served as the public face of the city shelter.

Staff presented the temporary facility to the Planning Committee in February.  There were no cost estimates for getting that site ready to house pets on a temporary basis.

PAWS also provides shelter volunteers.  They have shown up at Animal Shelter Advisory Committee meetings with numerous suggestions about shelter operations, including expanding hours so they can assist pets and not walk dogs during the height of the heat of our brutal summer days.

The last time Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden presented to Council there were "no new funds" available.  I imagine this wish list will not go over well.

Change is needed, specifically in the release of unaltered dogs to owner from the shelter.  This has been city practice for the last six years, resulting in the return of thousands of unaltered dogs (per city records).  Add choking off intake via a series of "managed" moves and citizens wanting to do the right thing in surrendering their pet have few options.  Some resort to dumping.  The implicit city policy is "let loose dogs roam unaltered."  

Staff has an intention in presenting all this at once to Council.  It may be to make the point that it is too expensive to do.  It may be to show the ways PAWS is saving the city money.  

It shows staff is unable to identify the highest priority problems and target specific interventions to address them.  Just serve it all up to Council and let them decide.  People making these salaries should be able to do better than that.

Update 5-21-24:  Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden tried to narrow down the scroll like list to items needed to get the temporary shelter facility completed for use during the long promised shelter renovations.  Construction Manager Al Torres told City Council the construction documents would be completed in 30 days and then the original project could be put out to bid.  That's late June 2024.

Morgan said it would take $120,000 to make ready the temporary shelter facility.   She added another $112,000 in staff costs to operate both facilities after encouragement from Assistant City Manager Michael Dane.  City Manager Daniel Valenzuela added the list of possible program changes is a better fit for a general fund budget workshop meeting.  The topic ended with no motion and staff responsible for bringing the item back with a funding source.

Update 7-16-24:  City staff indicated the budget for the temporary shelter is $232,000 and indicated Council already approved that amount. 

Update 8-9-24:  The City is yet to seek bids for those urgent Animal Shelter renovations (funding requested in early 2023).

Update 9-26-24:  Shelter renovation bid documents have not been put on the city's purchasing website.  It's hard to complete a project without bidding it out.