By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City staff members say they want to move toward a kinder, gentler version of dealing with the city’s lost, abandoned and feral dogs and cats, but at least one city councilman is balking at the perceived change.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. again voiced his opinion that the city’s primary responsibility is “animal control” for the safety of its citizens, making his remarks during a discussion of a planned new animal services facility that is one of the capital improvement projects the city is planning for next year.
The councilman spoke during a special city council workshop on the capital improvement projects on Tuesday. The discussion began during an overview of planned spending on city facilities for the coming fiscal year.
Interim Assistant City Finance Director Roxy Soto told the council, “The city council approved to advertise for RFQs (request for qualifications) for architectural and engineering services for the design and construction of this (animal services) facility. City staff is drafting the scope (of work) and will be posting toward the end of the month.
Soto said $3 million has been budgeted for the project in Fiscal Year 2024-2025, an amount based on an estimate provided by Shelter Planners of America.
At this point, Lopez asked, “The architect and design for this animal facility, are we changing our title from animal control to animal services facility now? Instead of building an animal control building for the safety of the citizens, we’re building an animal shelter?”
Scot Carcasi, the city’s operations and compliance auditor, took the podium to answer Lopez’s question.
“This item is what we brought to council (previously), and we have approval from you all to get an architectural design. The $3 million is a guesstimate, so we won’t know until we actually get the architectural design back and then figure out how we want to proceed,” Carcasi said.
“So it’s going to be the same type of architectural design with a care center, a veterinary office or will it be different, just for detaining animals?” Lopez asked.
“It’s based on what council approved, which is what we presented, which takes our animal control system up to the next level that we need, so it would include; I guess the short answer to your question is yes, it would include everything that we presented,” Carcasi replied.
“So we’re basically going to be a veterinary facility, day care center, adoption center, everything else, all in one, instead of the veterinarians taking care of that business for us and the adoption (groups) taking care of the dogs?” Lopez pressed.
“Which is what we presented, that we feel we need a small clinic to offer basic veterinary care, for animals brought in that are injured. We pick up injured animals throughout the city, and currently we are taking those to vet clinics at a much higher cost than if we had our own mini veterinary clinic inside the facility where we could take care of these animals ourselves,”Carcasi said.
He added, “The humane thing to do is treat animals that are injured. Our goal is not to allow them to suffer more. Some animals that come in are beyond saving, but some just need bandaging, basic wound care, and we currently have to take them to a vet because we don’t have any facilities to do that.”
Carcasi said the mini clinic inside the facility will also allow the city to occasionally contract with veterinarians to offer low- or no-cost spay and neuter clinics to local pet owners.
“In the long run, we will solve our animal problem before they even get to the facility,” Carcasi said.
Lopez said in his opinion that would be taking business away from local veterinarians.
“We’re animal control, sir. We’re for the safety of the citizens. We’re not babysitters. We’re not an adoption agency. We’re just animal control,” Lopez said.
Carcasi reiterated the plan for the facility presented to council was a “shift of our mindset” from a purely animal control viewpoint to an animal services viewpoint.
“I would agree to a holding cell and a small clinic, but everything else, I wouldn’t agree to,” Lopez said.
“We’ll be bringing this back,” Carcasi assured Lopez.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
Past Animal Control stories:
NEWS – Council hears update on new animal facility – 830Times
NEWS – AARC members address council on animal control – 830Times
