The future of the White County animal shelter more uncertain today after a relocation effort seemed to gain more traction at last week’s White County Budget Committee meeting.
Friends of White County Animals Vice President Amanda Goff said the animal shelter currently resides on landfill property that was recently sold to a third-party company. Goff said the move has become a more urgent topic of conversation since the county no longer owns the land where the facility is located.
“It would definitely affect the operations because, where are we going to house these dogs during the interim of the move?” Goff said. “It would affect the operations due to the fact that we would have more overhead budget because there may be some financing needed for property or building.”
Goff said the community previously believed a five-year lease agreement was in place, which would leave approximately two and a half years remaining for the shelter to stay on the property. Goff said a recent commissioner meeting suggested the agreement could actually be for 99 years, but no one has yet produced a physical contract to verify the terms.
“We’ve requested this from the current county executive, if we can see a contract to see exactly how long we are able to stay at this location,” Goff said. “If it’s only the five years and we only have two and a half years we need to move a little more swiftly so we need to be coming up with these ideas and these plans.”
Goff said Waste Management now owns the property and may have offered roughly $500,000 to purchase the land back if a 99-year lease is indeed in place. Goff said those funds could potentially be used to find a new property and construct a new building for the shelter.
“If it was more centrally located that might be better for a lot of people, but financially if it doesn’t make sense, we could possibly add on to the building that we have. You know if we had an unlimited funding in an ideal world we would have the state-of-the-art shelter, but that’s just maybe not realistic right now,” Goff said.
Goff said the shelter currently needs several physical improvements, including concreting side kennels that are currently gravel. Goff said a contractor has already offered to donate the labor and supplies necessary to update the facility if the shelter remains at its current site.
“We’ve talked about getting a concrete pad, like a holding area for dogs that are going through intake exams,” Goff said. “This would actually benefit our group and other groups in the community because we have helped with vet care in the past and if we could help with intake and doing physical exams to check for things like parvo and other dog diseases, we can help reduce exposure to the other dogs at the shelter, avoid shutdowns and kind of keep things running smoothly.”
Goff said a relocation would be costly and cumbersome. Goff said the Friend of White County Animals would be willing to assist in any way possible.
“Do I think that more dogs could, you know, get adopted and get more exposure if they were more centrally located?” Goff said. “Probably, but does it make more sense financially if we’re able to stay there, build onto the building and make it more efficient? I don’t know.”
Goff said the next step for the county is to locate the contract and develop plans for various scenarios based on the remaining lease term.
