La Plata, MD – The Charles County Commissioners elected to wait and see what their Calvert County counterparts do before making a decision on how to move forward on the Tri-County Animal Shelter.
Commissioner Ken Robinson [D-District 1] asked for the item to be placed on the Tuesday, March 15 agenda. The commissioners met with Bill Stevens, director of emergency services and Chief of Animal Control Ed Tucker.
“I asked this to be placed on our agenda after meeting with our colleagues from St. Mary’s and Calvert,” Robinson said. “It has really turned into a lot more than that.
“I think it is obvious that the Tri-County Animal Shelter is at a crossroads,” he added. “Calvert is about to go their own way and that leaves Charles and St. Mary’s to decide what our next step will be.
“To spend $200,000 on a temporary air conditioning system or to replace an obsolete system doesn’t seem prudent,” Robinson stressed. “I’d like to personally see us spend some of that money on other areas, perhaps a full-time veterinarian and come up with a less costly temporary fix until they are housed in a new facility.
“Is there a way to make the dogs more comfortable while we determine if we can do more?” he asked Tucker.
“We can increase air flow to help keep the humidity level down with the concrete floors, as far as just a breeze,” Tucker noted. “In terms of air flow, yes, we can do that.”
“I’m wondering whether it would be worth asking Calvert if we can use theirs [facility] for the sake of cost and efficiency,” Charles County Administrator Michael Mallinoff suggested.
“Based on population explosions, when the Tri-County Animal Shelter was built the population of the entire region was less than that of Charles County today,” Robinson explained. “It’s becoming clear we should have a shelter here in Charles County whether it is for Charles County only or if St. Mary’s wishes to partner.”
“I’m not hearing an update,” Charles County Commissioner Vice President Debra Davis said. “I thought we were getting an update.”
“Well,” said Stevens, “on Feb. 2, the St. Mary’s County Commissioners decided not to fund the study. On Feb. 9, Calvert did the same thing. Because they would not fund the design and engineering study, we decided to look at other options. The estimate was over $400,000. We don’t agree with that. We’re going to do the proposed engineering design. The current building is obsolete. We did a study of the shelter to self-examine ourselves as an indoor-outdoor facility and discovered it is fairly uncommon to put air conditioning in outdoor kennels.”
“We have a memorandum of understanding with three counties and we’re going forward,” Charles County Commissioner President Peter Murphy said. “The other counties decided they did not want to do an assessment. At this point we need to wait to see what Calvert is going to do.
“They’re very close to making that decision,” he added. “Once that decision is made we can go forward. We can’t really address that right now until we understand what they’re going to do. Once we get that information we will regroup,” Murphy stated.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com