That's the deal. You're just sitting here going.
Good job. Scammy County Redevelopment Agency regular meeting September 4th, 2025, 9:00 A a.m. Please turn your cell phone to vibrate silence or the off setting. The board of county commissioners allows any person to speak regarding an item on the agenda. The speaker is limited to two minutes unless otherwise determined by the chairman. Is there proof of publication? The CRA meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal, August 28, 2025. Thank you. Are there any speakers for public forum? Uh no speakers to my knowledge. Thank you. Technical and public service consent agenda. Uh recommendation
concerning community redevelopment agency meeting minutes August 7, 2025. Chair entertain. Move the technical and public service consent agenda. We have a motion. Second. Please vote. That passes unanimous. Thank you so much. Budget and finance consent agenda. Yes, we have three for your approval. First one, recommendation concerning residential improvement grant program funding and lean agreements. Second one is recommendation concerning cancellation of residential rehab grant program leans. Third one is recommendation concerning residential roof program funding and lean agreement. Mr. Chairman,
I move items one through three all uh subp parts. Second. Please vote. Passes unanimous. Thank you. You have anything else? Yes. Um uh we would like to um bring to the board the uh accepted to sewer connection um grant that was uh previously put on hold uh for nonhomesteaded um homeowners. I know
we've broached this pro uh this subject before and we would like to um have it reinstated. So, do we have a waiting list for um homeowners for the septic disorder? Uh, we don't have a waiting list, but we do want to get the get it get it out to the non uh homesteaded um homeowners so they will have a chance to use this grant. So my next question is what what type of um subsidy are we giving low-income people that
although we bring it to the road but they can't afford to hire a plumber. Okay. So the one um if they're low income home owner it's got to be low income um people that are homesteaded homeowners we do have a program through NED that will help with that with the uh low income. So what's the criteria? Is it 60 80 120? What's I think it's uh 80 80% medium income 80%. And how much money do we have in that low income pool for 80 for the for the uh for the low income for low income
for out through the NE? Yeah. Uh I would have to get with Garrett Garrett hundreds of thousands. Commissioner May if I if I may. But yeah, I got one more question Mr. Chairman if you don't mind. Okay. Uh, I guess I Garrett Clarence, if y'all are going to talk, maybe y'all want to come up to the table. We got hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I still know that people do have connections and they're not connected. I mean, what's the breakdown? Why aren't we being connected? So,
um, I I was talking with staff this morning. I think it has been nearly a year since we've heard from anyone interested in that. Um, and I do want to clarify with um with the NE program right now, we're utilizing some of our community development block grant uh rehab dollars for this. Um, and we right now ju just anytime there's federal money involved, there are uh environmental review
concerns. So, we currently have a broad tier one environmental review for a multi-phase um project off of Gulf Beach Highway uh that ECUA uh they came to us and um let us know what areas they were going to be working in. So, they do send out our information when they send out the letters for um homeowners to connect. Um, so we've in the past gotten a lot of calls for that. Um, but it has
been a considerable amount of time before we've um gotten any and that's fine, Gary. But we just need to look at the program then because I can tell you every time and I don't know when Commissioner Cole was at the neighborhood association, there were a ton of people in Brownsville that just couldn't afford it connector. So we almost had to start doing a community project of getting people to donate their time to connect them. Uh, so there were multiple people that reached out to me that could not afford it and I don't know if they met the criteria or what they didn't what happened, but we got hundreds of thousands of dollars and we still have people in neighborhoods that have
not connected uh to the public sewer. Then I mean we need to look at those numbers. How many people in those particular those CRAAS that are eligible that are not connected? Uh, and I would like to see that analysis. I mean, it'd be a challenge for me to support anything else until I can look at what those numbers are. Particularly, we got hundred hundreds of thousands of dollars and people are not connected. I mean, I just want to figure out why. I mean, and so it's just it's not Yeah. technical case work, but it's in in in town hall meetings, I know that it was a ton of people, and I probably could call a couple names who did not connect. Uh,
and I know that Michael Jackson and many of the others started trying to get plumbers to donate their services because those people were not eligible to get help. So, I'd like to try to figure out how we can. But go ahead, Mr. Chairman. No, I'm supportive of this just because, you know, at the ECU came out to Brownsville meeting about a year ago and when they put that septic to sewer in, and I I hope I'm not it may be different now, but my recollection is only 61 people had tapped in. Uh that that was ridiculously low. And um I do think that these communities, it's it's it's
beyond uh the the poorer communities that we have aren't connecting because the cost. We should help them because it's an environmental impact that affects everybody. And so I'm I'm very supportive of this. Yeah. So we just all the anybody that's eligible, let's get them on. I mean, if we got money, let's do an outreach uh and get these families on because I agree with the chairman. It's environmentally insensitive. Uh it's unsafe. But I do I would say this, Mr. camera. Um, it's sickening in Englewood for me, Brownsville, Ensley, uh, that we still have
people on septic tanks. Uh, there's at some point some responsibility for ECUA, uh, to come to the table and have that discussion because at the end of the day, it's a service uh, that's provided and when people flush your toilet and cut on the faucet, ECUA charging them each and every day. And we're taking our local option sales dollars to put infrastructure for ecua which you know it's unfair. It's an extra burden on us. I mean and so we should be talking to because we what do we do for the leak street? How much have we totally given ECUA for septic
to sewer conversions throughout all of our CRAAS. Garrett a lot over over millions of dollars sir. um that we have given. And even in the Lee Street project, there was over $3 million that was put into that project, which include sidewalks. And as of today, um there was 92 laterals added and only 21 connected. Now, I do know that Brownsville do have a high rate of rental development. I mean,
a lot of it's it used to be 80 homestead, 20% um rental, now it's flipped. So, it's the other way around. So, we I did look at some numbers that ECU sent to me, addresses, and I went and viewed those addresses to see if they was homesteaded or nonhomesteaded, and majority of them were nonhomesteaded. Right. Yes, sir. Well, there impact fees and tap fees that ECUA charges developers particularly when it's not homesteaded and a lot of those they're passing
those cost on to the county because we're putting in the infrastructure and the laterals. I my main concern I can be supportive um but I want to make sure that people who own their property get the assistance rather than us giving assistance to ECUA. I mean ECUA doesn't necessarily need our money. I mean really they should be bonding this in in developed neighborhoods that have been there for 100 years and put in the infrastructure uh for sewer connections. I mean because it's an investment for them. I mean it's not going to increase taxes for the county or our alarm,
but it's certainly going to increase revenue uh for the ECU every time someone taps in. So it'd be great to have that conversation with them. And I do agree with you in Brownsville. That's the problem that we're having that they're just people they can't afford five six $7,000 to tap in uh in the unscrupulous developers don't even care that the people are not connected. Um just back to partnering with ECUA. I I agree on the cost sharing. Is there a list of homeowners that have
not tapped in that maybe ECUA can partner with us and they can pay for a mailer to go out to those homeowners letting them know that we're willing to assist because like you said, they're going to be collecting money every time they flush the toilet. So, if they can help us get the word out and we can get that connection, that's a little bit off of us. We can do that. We can we can um go back and and partner with them. But we we have done mailers every time we do a um a sewer um project with ECUA. We also send mailers out as well letting them know about our
programs. But we can definitely um circle back and do it again. And maybe if they we could get like a QR code on it so they could just snap it and sign up to have somebody come out and look at it. Making it as easy as possible for them to get the help that they need. Okay. Sure. Do you know the percentage of CLA through I mean I think each of us have a CRA. I think Commissioner Barry may have one. What's the percentage of people who are not connected uh in these low income areas? I would say most of them are going to fall probably in your district, Commissioner May. Um I do know when
they I'm sure it will. Yes, sir. But when they did the sewer connection in Beach Haven, there was about 300 over 300 that were um available and over 200 have connected in the Beach Haven area. Say that again. There was over there was over 300 um sewer laterals put out in Beach Haven which is in commissioner um Cer's district and over 200 has already connected. Claire, why did that community tap in where we don't like Commissioner May put Brownsville was so low. I mean what what was
the difference? Medium income of the residents who live there. I mean people just can't afford $67,000 and some of them some of those connection were were not done through our program either. Some of them just connected with the one-year plan that they had to connect. Okay. Yes. And there has been some new development um in that area too where the where is vacant land and someone going in putting in a subdivision that contractor had already connected to um the ECU as well. So that's
some of those numbers reflect in that in that number as well. And Mike, one of the thing when you start doing particularly, it depends on how they're going to structure this and I mean I don't want to beat it. When you have these developers who are flipping, you got a lean, they don't want leans on their pro, they don't want leans on their property. And I mean, it becomes other challenges, particularly when you got um flippers and and developers who are just not there for the long term. And so to me, that's why it's so important to emphasize doing it for our homesteaded um citizens who've been there for a long time. I can just tell you, Mike, there's a lot of people
in your district and my district in Brownsville that have been there a hundred years and they're on a fixed income. They just can't afford it. And so, Claire, I mean, I'll be supportive of what innovative ideas you have. But I agree with Commissioner Hogberger. I mean, we need to do an assessment. I mean, quite frankly, what's the empirical number of how many homesteaded people, how many low-income people? We need to do a real assessment of where we should allocate these resources because I would hate to open it up and you know put it on the commercial side and all the money gets eaten up and we still got poor people still that hadn't got an opportunity
to connect. I mean so we should encourage them and as well as work with ECUA and I mean I think at some point we need to be talking to Ecua about putting in the infrastructure and let us help with the connectors. Okay, we'll do one of the things you brought up at a previous meeting is a lot of homes are not necessarily homesteaded, but they're owned by a trust. Is there a way to separate homes that are owned by a trust that maybe still have family members living in them versus homes that are owned by an LLC that is a rental property? Well, yes. So, with the Chris with Chris Jones
Property Appraiser um site, we can just pull up like just say for Lee Street, we can just pull up all of the addresses on Lee Street and then we can go through and decipher if it's if it's homesteaded or not and then whether it's owned by a trust or just an individual that just doesn't live in that community. Could you bring that back to the next CRA meeting? I mean, so I mean, we could have probably more intelligent conversation about estate, homesteaded, commercial, uh, in the areas that you're proposing uh, to do this grant. Okay. That probably would be very helpful. Sure.
And I have a question probably for Horus. Um, and I think I know the answer, but I want to confirm. I'm assuming we are not issuing permits for septic tanks if they can tap into sewer. is that unfortunately um commissioner it's up to the homeowner if they desire to if ECUA pushes them to tap in they have to do it but if ECUA does not push them we are issuing lane approvals for septic tanks septic tanks are uh permitted by the health
department okay so that's not through us at all we don't have control over that that's D department of D took that over it's not the health department anymore. It's Department of Health. They've taken that over in January 2025. They're the one that issue the septitate permits now. Okay. Because I'm not a big fan of issuing septic tank permits if they can tap into sewer. Why? Why can't we make an ordinance to require that, Alison? You there actually is an ordinance that talks about mandatory uh sewer line connection areas in the county.
Um the extent to which any more of that may be preempted or not is certainly something I can look at but the permitting of an individual's septic tank is health department jurisdiction 100%. So even when they pull a permits or tim I don't know I mean we don't have anything in in the building code. At least we're permitting it because in Alabama it's just a free-for-all. Yes. There's
there's actually a state statute that if sewer is available that you have to hook the sewer and the and D now that issues the permits will not issue a a septic tank permit. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. We're good. Good. So we just bring that back to the next meeting. That'd be great. Okay. All right. All right. Anything else that we stand? Thank you.
Please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the stands nation. All right. So, this was one of my cals. Oh, yeah. Was the meeting properly advertised? I got ahead of myself. Mr. Chairman, this meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal on
August 28th, 2025 in the board's weekly meeting schedule. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. This was something that I brought up with the county administrator a while ago, and I think it's important that we discuss the animal shelter. John, where are you? Um, you're going to come up and talk a little bit about it. I think there he provided a back um a PowerPoint slide that we all have. So, if you'd give us the future of what you think we need to do for the animal shelter and we can ask some questions, I'd appreciate that. Sure. Good morning. Uh good morning, commissioners. Good
morning, um Mr. Marino, uh county attorney, Madame Clerk, it's good to present this to you. Um I am, uh John Robinson. I'm the director for the Department of Animal Welfare. I've been here since 2014. Um obviously um when I was recruited to come here the the conversation was about uh replacing the animal shelter back then and then we had some issues with the jail and uh the explosion over there took funding from that. And so we've learned to kind of adjust and live with the
shelter that that we have and make do with what we've got. But uh Commissioner or Chairman Kohler, I know you've been over there and visited. You've seen kind of our our our challenges. Um I think um Commissioner Barry has been to see us adopted from us and I appreciate his support over the years as well. Um and and again anybody's welcome to come visit and see what we're dealing with. It's a it's challenging from that standpoint. I appreciate Director Hogan and his team over at facilities. We kind of keep that thing together with band-aids and bailing wire and and uh and do what we need to do, but there are some challenges with that facility uh as it sits. Um and and we're probably
overdue for a new facility that meets the needs of what we have in this community. I think one of the challenges for us has always been um that even when this building was built, the facility that we're currently in, it wasn't really designed to do what this community needs as a as a as a structure. Uh the the dogs are crowded. There wasn't an admissions room. There was a lot of of challenges and animal movement and things like that. So, uh I think as we move forward, if this opportunity comes to us and we can build a new facility, I think looking at all those and making
that work is important. Um, from that perspective, uh, one of the things that I want to do is I don't want to, you know, I don't know how long I'm going to be with y'all. I plan to be here until I retire. Um, as long as Wes will keep me around, I'm happy to be here. Uh, I enjoy it. I moved to this community. I brought my entire family here and I love this community. It's been really good to me. Uh, one of the things that I want to do is when a new facility is is put up, um, it needs to be something that lasts. The director that follows me in there needs to say, "Oh, I can use this building. I can make it work and and and meet the challenges that that we have of the animals that
are coming in, that kind of thing. Um, so we really want to do that. Uh, the the building I inherited was not that way. Um, it was probably obsolete shortly after it was built. Um, it just didn't serve the function of what we want to do in this community for our animals. And and that makes it very difficult. It's not climate controlled. It's not um uh the housing, the movement through the facility is difficult. There wasn't there's not a separated area for animals coming into the building from the front. We've kind of created that after I got here. Um, so that they're not
you're not having the animals inter intertwined with new incoming animals versus animals that are set for adoption and going out. Uh, it was all going through one door. Obviously, that doesn't work. So, we really spent some time working with when we when y'all approved us to do the feasibility study back last year, we spent some time working with an architect that's specific to animal shelter design and development. Uh, I also had um Rob Hogan and Wesley Hall went with us to a conference in New Orleans a couple years back and they had a full day devoted to shelter design and
development because animal shelters are completely different than most other buildings that you would build. It has some hospital similarities, some jail similarities. There's a lot of things about animal shelters and the requirements for for the needs of the animals and and the public that are that are different than just a standard building that you would put up. So, they went through that and got to learn a lot. I hope they got to learn a lot in uh in that presentation, that dayong presentation. Um so, a couple of things that I just want to talk about real quick and I'll get through this and let y'all pepper me with questions either after or y'all can ask me as we go, whatever y'all are comfortable with. Um y'all know I'm real shy and I don't have a lot to
talk about. So, um but one of the first things obviously importance in our building is space, right? Um and it's not just about the animals. The animal part is important to us. Um we're looking at a um when we're developing this space, I'm trying to increase the capacity for dogs by about 60%. We currently have 105 can kennels in the shelter that are functional kennels. I have some other kennels that we utilize in the shelter. I think today we have 298 animals in our care. So you can imagine that we're squeezing things in and we're getting really creative with how how how
that works and how they're housed. Um, but we have 105 functional kennels that we can use on a on a daily basis for everyday care. I would like to get that up to 168. And that's part of the design that y'all seen. Um, the uh other thing with cats with cats in this new facility and the design that that and again what y'all see in the in the backup from the Bacon group from their feasibility study is just a mockup showing how the space how that space would kind of look. It's not a final design by any stretch of the imagination. and it's just put together for uh just to give you some idea of
the square footage and how that space would work. Um I've worked with facilities and and um over there and they've talked about maybe depending on where this shelter ends up being located, we might have to go to a two-story shelter and put the uh the office space and the basically the non-animal space vet, you know, where you're not doing animal work up on a second floor as opposed to to get the footprint to fit depending on where the we end up locating the facility. Um, but obviously having space for the animals, this building would significantly increase our cat space as well, so we could hold healthy cats and and stray cats and and all those things. Um,
so that's really important for us from the animal space, but there's also other needs for space in our building. Um, having staff in the building together. Our animal control uh, animal welfare officers are all housed at the COC currently, um, which makes for some communication gaps sometimes and and team building is a little more difficult over there. So having them in our our facility would be nice. Um uh Chief Pal's team over there has provided us with inmate crews that are fantastic for cleaning our kennels. Um but they eat lunch on a concrete bench in the rain and the snow outside. Um I know we don't get a lot of snow, but they're out there this year. Um so
uh um also in the heat. So we wanted to build a space for them in this facility that just has the ability to house them a little bit. And I do a uh and I'll talk a little bit more about this in the programs, but I do a re-entry training. Our team has put that together uh in the last year as well for re-entry for the inmates that are on our crew and we do training for them. Uh Horus and and Tim and and them over at the COC have allowed us to use uh office space or training space over there for that. Um but it is real difficult to coordinate it. Sometimes those rooms just aren't available and we try to be consistent with their training. So, uh, having that space in the
building as well, different training spaces are going to help for that. So, meetings, uh, same for our all staff meetings. We, we have all our all staff meetings. I've got 30 plus employees on our team. And when we do our all staff meetings, we have to use room 104 over there. And as y'all can imagine, it's very difficult sometimes to get into that that room. So, I wanted to have meeting space in this building as well. There's a lot of things that we don't do that I would like to do programwise and and uh presentation wise that that would be better if we had that meeting space in there as well. Uh so we we did put in the initial design some uh meeting space that we
could use. Um it should be on the ground floor. It should be where the chairs are removable. So if we want to do a dog event in there as well, we could bring them inside. If the weather, you know, if the weather's not great, we could do an event in that same room. It would be towards the end of the building. So we've really put a lot of thought into that. And obviously any space that we had like that um would be, you know, for somebody who couldn't get in room 104 or something at the COC or couldn't get down here, we would make that meeting space available when we're not using it as well to other departments and things like that. I think it's uh I think it's always interesting to help out from that perspective. We would like to do that. Um the other space needs that we needed
were veterary care. Um I have some programs that I want to initiate. I I want to I have a part-time vet on our um on our roster. I have not filled that position yet. that also has another part-time vette. Some of that is about space. Some of it's about finding veterinarians are are much more difficult than than than we we anticipate. But I want to be able to have enough space where they could work together um so that we could do some more of the programs and do more of the things that we need to do um for our community. And again, this this building is not just about space for animals and and just housing them. It's not a warehouse. It's about programs and it's about
uh helping our community and things like that. So, I really want to make sure we get that um done. uh other parts of the space or proper animal movement throughout the facility. We need to be able to move them um without safely and throughout the facility uh avoid crosscontamination, things like that. So, the design of this building and using the uh an architect that's familiar with animal shelters um is really important to us because they understand animal movement. How do you bring an animal in from admissions who's probably never seen a veterinarian, never had uh medical care, things like that. um how do we get it to across and through the building without
crosscontaminating and and some of the things that we've done in here are are are um really uh unique to animal shelter animal shelter world. Chief Pal may know some of this through doing jail stuff but it's very similar um in that regard. Um, as y'all know to from the over the last several years, I've been working with the ASPCA. We have anou with them. Um, and we have gotten several grants, almost $200,000 worth of grants now for disaster response team and disaster equipment. We're just that stuff's out back at the shelter and it's piled in different corners and poor uh, division
manager Monfreda has his whole office is piled to the ceiling with with disaster equipment. So, having space to put that and have it have it ready for the team and ready to go is part of this plan as well. having space to do those kind of things. Um, we we are we have a full uh uh and Kevin could probably tell you more about it, how many members we have. I think it's 13 members on our AR team from our teams. Um, that can go out and respond to animal search and rescue to do disaster response, all that in in our community and outside our community. Um, but we have to have a place to put that equipment, whether it's the boats, the trailers, the the
uh the wet suits, there's all the dry suits. He's going to get me for saying the wrong thing. The dry suits and all those things. So, um, but we have a ton of disaster equipment and then our volunteer space in our building. We want to keep expanding our volunteer program and we don't have a lot of space to do again the meeting rooms to help do training, to do volunteer meetings, um, all those kind of things. So, all that space was considered for this. Um, I said I was going to spend about three minutes a slide. I feel like I've done 20 on that one. So, um, but the other issues are parking in our facility. Uh, when we talk about space, outside space is important,
too. I took some of these pictures that you see up here um on this slide. The one to the right with our animal control trucks in it. Obviously, we put animal control our our animal welfare officers in the building with us. We'll have to park our animal welfare trucks out there as well. Um so there there's going to need to be parking space for that. As you can see towards the back, there's two trailers back there in the far end of that picture. Both of those are our shelter trailers for disaster. And then there's more trailers back there too for the other disaster equipment. We've got boats. We've got a a a full command center and things like that. So, um we have that. But
then at the picture to the front by the dumpster, you can see them all parked out in the grass. That's a that's from an event, but that's pretty common occurrence for us to have people parked in the grass all around the building. Uh when we have a full staff there and we have volunteers. Um and I think it I think it interferes with people coming to adopt. Honestly, I think it interferes with people coming to visit because there's nowhere to park. So they see the parking lot's full and they just drive by and sometimes there's not necessarily anybody in the building, but we have a building full of volunteers, we have a building full of staff and and um there's there
all the parking is taken up. So u having parking considerations and all that's in the plan as well is important. And then just having the the pictures that you see on your screen now are from our lobby and from an event we did. And you can see people lined up outside the door in the in the front. Um now that was a great event. And I appreciate Cumulus Radio for for bringing all those people and we did a ton of adoptions that day. But still trying to manage that kind of crowd is is complicated. And then you look at the lobby, the picture on the bottom right is uh that same event with all those people are in there trying to trying to get an adoption done. It's really
crowded in that lobby. If you start bringing dogs in there on top of that, you're going to have issues with potential accidents and who's first and all those kind of things. So having a bigger lobby that gives us space. And part of the new design is that instead of having them come to a counter, we would actually go to them with a a mobile cart where we take the computer to them and do the adoptions um or whatever processing that they need. And then the picture on the bottom left is our our military volunteers that we have on a pretty regular basis, Saturdays in particular. Um they're all getting ready to go do stuff and that's great, but they do get crowded up in the
lobby and it makes it difficult sometimes to move around. So just having more space in our building for all those kind of things is important to us. in this design. So, I talked about programs a minute ago, but some of this is the real important part. I think this is the the the meat of this whole presentation and the important part. Our community needs more help from our our animals, our animal welfare department that we currently have difficulty providing. When I came in in 2014, they were doing lowcost spayneuter in the building, but they were doing it to the neglect of the animals actually in the building. the vet staff, they were adopting out animals that weren't
spayed or neutered yet or they were having them come back later and have them spayed and neutered and I made sure that everything was had their spay and neuter surgeries prior to adoption so they were ready to go. People would come in on a Friday and adopt an animal and they'd be told they could come back on Tuesday and get it. That didn't make a lot of sense to me. Um, so we have everything now is has their surgery performed beforehand. Um, but this community also needs lowcost spayneuter. Um and so doing away with that and partnering with u uh uh different organizations over the years has not been effective for us. We've tried to do it. It's just not been successful. Um again, some of
it's difficulty of getting veterinarians, some things like that. I will tell you I have a group that I'm working with now. uh they're sipping for stray, sipping for snipping or and uh she's been great for providing us with uh they have little wine parties and then they collect money and then they give they donate all that money to have dogs lowcost spay neuter done. Actually, they're doing it for free for people in low income situations. There's some other organizations that are that are doing that as well and we run people to that, but there's still not enough in our community. Um we're going to talk at the end about a little bit about ordinance changes and things like that.
You're going to have you're going to have people that ask y'all for us to put in an or a mandatory spayneuter ordinance. You can't do that if you can't provide assistance to people who don't have enough money to pay their to to pay their grocery bills and whatever. They need to figure out a way to have that spayneuter before you before you make it mandatory for them to do it. So, I want to put those programs in in this facility. Uh we expanded the veterary space. We worked with Dr. Lee, our veterinarian, to figure out what kind of space we would need to make that happen. So, uh that is included in the plan. Um, I'm going to continue I will continue every day that I walk in
the door to figure out more ways to get animals spayed neutered in our community, even in the current facility that we're at and things that we can do with partners to help. Um, but we'll keep doing that. Uh, we also are we already do some trapneuter release. Uh, if y'all um that's basically feral cats or community cats that that wouldn't be adoptable. We'll we'll trap them. We'll uh neuter them or spay them and then we'll put them back out where they came from. We're doing some we just started. We do target areas is what we do. we figure out areas that are of most concern for us where we get our most complaints and we're working on that. We're doing a Navy
Point is one of our areas right now that has a significant uh community cat issue. So, we're working through we're working in that area, but we try to rotate those around. Um so, uh Dr. Lee loves to do TT TNR surgeries and she would love to expand that program even further. So, this space would do that. There'd be some ways that people could drop cats off the night before. there's some holding space in there that that they could come by and we could work with our our uh officers, our night officers to to check them in and have them ready for the surgeries the next day. So, we would like to expand our TNR program. Um, if y'all aren't aware, we do a a pet food pantry
in our building now, and I would like to keep that program going in a new facility as well, have some space for them to do those kind of things. Uh our pet food pantry is to help people who can't afford uh feed for their animals and things instead of trying to surrender them and have or having to rehome their animals that they could that we could provide some food for them. Uh we work with a group called Jojo's Paws. They've been phenomenal uh for us. They've helped 2400 families last year um with with providing food. I have numbers of how many pounds of food and all that that I've provided for our annual report and I'll be happy to share that with you. But there's a ton of food
that we go through uh and help these people keep their animals at home instead of instead of having to to rehome them. Um we really again I talked about the meeting rooms. It's really important to me that we have more and more of our ability to do community outreach humane education programs. Um I have tried really hard to we go to people to do that, but I'd also like to have it where we could invite them to the building. We could do tours. We could talk about the things that we do and and help people understand better how to care for their animals and things like that. I want to keep expanding that program. We have a lot of volunteers that are uh volunteer
coordinators gotten together that their interest is is helping with um humane education programs. Sometimes they're they've gotten where they're not physically able to walk dogs or things like that, but they still want to help. And this is one of the programs they want to help with. So having something some space to do that would be good. Um as we discussed earlier, I have the re-entry program for our inmate team that that works for us and we've been really successful with that. I want to keep continuing that in this new facility and having the space to train there. It's make it even easier. Um, we do a lot of inter intake diversion and uh owner retention programs and I want to
continue that as well. That's basically just uh one of the things that's difficult. Y'all saw the pictures earlier of the lobby and the challenges that we have in the lobby with uh trying to talk and communicate with people. It can get loud in there and whatever. I'd like to have some space where you could separate. Um, when you're talking to somebody who's struggling with an animal, um, and and their ability to keep it. Um, I'd like to be able to sit down with them and if they're having behavior issues, can our staff talk to them about how to work on those behavior issues or there or there if they're having financial issues, we can sit down, talk with them about that as well. Um, some people aren't comfortable talking about that in that lobby full of people and in
the crowd and that kind of thing. So, having a little bit of space where we can separate and have those conversations, I think, is important. um for years and I've talked to a couple of our local judges about this. I've wanted to initiate a first offender program for people who get a citation for minor uh ordinance violations where they could do very similar to a traffic school. They could come in and do a uh spend eight hours with us or a few hours on the weekend and do just an education process about the proper way to keep your animals, proper way to care for them and and uh and and then we can make that ticket go away, tear it up or however that works. You know, maybe
the judge will wave the fine. But I've talked to a couple judges, they'd be interested in doing that as well. Um, and this having those meeting rooms that we talked about would give us the space to do that. Um, and I think that's an important program for us from two perspectives. It's it's not about we most of the people we deal with, it's just because they don't know any better. It's not because they're bad people or they're trying to do so when we write that citation a lot of times if we had more time to educate and our officers have been phenomenal about that in the field. I'm real proud of what you know that's part of what I asked them to do is let's do education first before we start writing citations. But I'd still like to have that opportunity to do a first offender
program for those that that that haven't had that opportunity um or or don't take learning well as my mom likes to say. So um but but I thought it would be good from that perspective. Um we talked about volunteer foster space. This this design and layout of this new shelter um provides a lot of that as well. Provides space for volunteers to take a little break when they need to. So instead of well I've worked this long and now I don't have anywhere to sit down and take a rest. We can they're going to you know so they go home instead of staying having lunch at our facility. This gives them the space to do that as well. Um fosters uh this gives them an opportunity to come
in see the vet staff without again coming into that front area that's chaos and and and and that lobby can be really crowded. A lot of times it's hard for somebody to come in with their foster dogs and and and wait for their meeting and and and again crosscontamination as well. people come in, they found a dog on the street or they brought their dog in that's never seen a vet and they're hanging out with our foster dog that's sitting there and it comes it becomes issues. So, this gives us different ways again animal movement and where we put them is real important in this new facility. And lastly, uh the disaster response team in this as well. Just having the space to
train and and uh places to keep their equipment is really important, but that's a big program for us. We want to keep growing it. Uh ASPCA has already uh approved another uh grant for us. So, uh Mr. Monfreda is going to keep buying stuff. So, I got to keep finding places to put it. So, uh, one other important thing for us is the health and safety. One of the designs, if y'all if you look through the designs, and I'll be happy to sit with any of y'all, um, and and talk. Sorry, I use y'all a lot. U, I'm I'm true southern. Uh, but I'll be happy to sit with y'all anytime and talk
about the design of this. But one of the things that was really important to us in this design was the pod system. It's very similar to what they use over at the jail. I was kind of jealous when Chief Pow took me on the tour because he basically built my animal shelter for people. Um but um the pods for us are very similar, right? The dogs would go into a certain pod and that's what they that's where they would be held until they were moved forward for into the adoptions. There's a back area and a front area, a not ready area, so to speak, and then the ones that are ready for adoption would go up to an adoption pod. But the pods are so beneficial to us because you have the
ability to to I they're isolated. They're all on separate air. They're all your crosscontamination is dramatically reduced. Um it's also there's I want to have 12 kennels to a pod. So those kennels that way if if you've ever been to the shelter and we'll talk about animal movement in a minute. I'll talk about adoptions, but if you ever been to the shelter, we have currently 72 kennels up front, uh not climate controlled, and you walk into that area and it's pure chaos. I see a lot of families come in and they want to look at the dogs and then they walk to the back and then they immediately walk back out because it's loud, it's overwhelming, it's just a lot. Having these pods,
they're all kind of behind glass. They can look at the dogs um and and see the dogs in the in their rooms and in their in that kind of environment without having to to to endure the loudness and and and the odors. Not that I mean, our staff does a phenomenal job, particularly the MA crew, keeping our our odors down in the facility, but it's still to to somebody who's not there every day, it still has an odor to it. It's got we've got 30 years of smells built up in that building. So, um but uh the pods are really important. The pods also have separate cleaning equipment. They have all those things in the pod are are separate so that it's all isolated to those 10
or 12 animals that would be placed in that and they're not exposed to any of the other animals throughout the facility. Um we have an admissions area that's separated. It has intake rooms so that the staff can safely perform vaccinations currently when they're doing vaccinations on intake. And we have a a saying around the building that we want all our vaccinations done before that fourth paw hits the floor. Um because again most of the animals I would say the majority of the animals that come to our facility have never seen a vet. Not they won't be current on their vaccinations. Um so we want to make sure we can get that started as quickly as possible. Well,
it's really difficult when you're doing that in a room full of other dogs that are bouncing and jumping and barking and and causing that dog stress. So this design has rooms that they can take that dog into individually or cat. I tend to talk about dogs more than cats. I apologize. Um, but the uh this gives them the opportunity to perform those vaccinations and any other thing if they need to call Dr. Lee or somebody from her team to come look at something because it might be urgent or emerging as a medical issue right away, they have a room where they can do that examination again away from the stress of the other animals. So, all that was thought into
as well when we put that put that together. Um, that obviously is going to reduce risk to staff, the public, and then the other animals in the facility. Um, security is a big thought in this as well. security from the the from animals, but also individuals. I don't I I know y'all can't imagine, but we some people aren't happy with the things we do. We take their animals away or or things like that, and we've had to deal with some. They usually just bring them to my office and then I have to deal with it, which is fine. But, um there's a there's a lot of times that that just having the a little more security in our building would be beneficial. We also get people that we,
if you've been to the shelter lately, we have a front zone, which is where our adoptable dogs are, and then we have a back area, which is where bite dogs, dangerous dogs, uh, legal cases, things like that. We have a lot of people that can just get, you know, that's secured technically right now by a couple of chains, uh, run across some some post and and that's not really going to keep people out. And the risk there is that somebody could get injured by one of those animals. I mean, they're back there for a reason. Um, so that's an issue. We've also been broken into a couple of times if y'all weren't aware and that's been an issue as well. Um, so up in the security,
the other security issue is we talk about parking. Uh, I go up to the shelter a lot on on emergency issues late at night. Um, and a lot of times I'll have to go through the gate and I have to get and it's our officers do this as well. They pick up an injured animal to pick up something on a bike case or something in the middle of the night. Um, they have to go to the gate, get out of their truck, unlock the gate, walk through the gate, and and you never know who's there or who would approach. We've done that a lot. I've had I've had multiple people kind of sneak up on me or or and I'm usually pretty aware of my surroundings, but and and never anything violent, but it can be
you never know when that could change. So, those are issues, too. And all that kind of addressed. Again, security for our staff is really important to me. And then the animals in our building as well. Um, obviously with the pods we talked about a minute ago, dangerous animals can be separated and secured. And instead of having two zones, you have each individual pod can be a zone. So if we only have 10 10 bite dogs, we can have one area for bite dogs and the other ones can be opened up to anything where now currently we have to keep everybody out of those back rooms um because of the the uh because of the potential for the dangerous dogs or exposure to to uh cruelty cases,
things like that. So this just gives us more ability. Um the design of this building also is climate controlled throughout. That's been a huge issue for us. um animals that they that we pick up now almost all have exclusively lived in somebody's home. They're not usually street dogs or backyard dogs or or things like that. And so they're they're they're not accustomed to the heat. Um in the summer, if you come by the shelter on a 100 degree day, it'll be 105 110 degrees out there in the shelter. Um y'all did approve fans. uh Commissioner May and Commissioner Barry I think
were on there when we approved the big fans for for out there and they have been phenomenal in helping the shelter but climate control would be significantly better. Our vet staff deals with heat heat related illnesses and in and issues uh every year in the summer. Um and again we had snow this past year that wasn't a picnic for us either. Those dogs were not happy about uh the snow and the challenges for that because a lot of their kennels are outdoor in this facility. even though you'd have two sides to their kennels, all of it would be uh under roof, out of the weather
um climate control. Um the last slide related to shelters is the uh animal movement and care. One of the things that we did um do with this design is it's a fear-free design of our shelter. We are uh very fearfree oriented. If you're not familiar with FearFree, it is you're trying to obviously getting picked up and brought to the shelter is not the best thing for an animal. Obviously, we want them to stay in home. We want them to have a home. Um but when they're at the shelter, we try to do everything to reduce any kind of stress and fear that they may have. Um some of that is
uh through enrichment programs through the way the housing is done. Um there's a lot of things that we are not capable of doing even though we are a fear-free shelter and our all our staff goes through fear-free training. Um there's a lot of things that just the facility doesn't allow us to do that we could do better. Um things like but things that we do now like cats don't like to be down on the ground. It causes them a lot of stress and and stressing cats is is the number one reason they get illnesses and things like that. It compromises their immune system. So housing them up higher above they cats are much happier in those roles. the way we move them around,
the way we handle them, all that's done through fear free. Well, this shelter design that that uh using one of our um architects that's familiar with animal shelter design is all based on fear-free design. And so they make sure it it makes doors close quieter, the the you know the the sounds are reduced, all those kind of things that things that cause stress are down. Um, everybody uh when I initially went with the Bacon group and did this feasibility study, they came back to me and talked about building a shelter uh similar number of kennels to what
we have now. And I told them that wouldn't work for us. I didn't think y'all would appreciate me coming to you and saying, "I we need to spend this much money. We're going to need a shelter about the same size. I figured y'all run me out of the building." Um, but part of their reasoning for that is that they anticipate adoptions increase dramatically because you change the environment. Um, it's much more conducive to adoptions. Our building is not at all. It's it's one of the biggest challenges. And if you've seen any of my uh news interviews that I've done over the years, it's the last few years. I tell people all the time, I I need you to talk to the staff and tell
them what kind of dog you're looking for and let them go find it for you and bring it out because if you walk through those doors and down through the adoption area, the loudness, the barking, the the dogs are all happy to see somebody and they look just wild. And so the stress from that, it usually the dogs are are going to cause people to walk away. Cats, to give you an example, we did this with cats a few years ago. Cats were only kept in kennels when I first got there. When we did the remodel, um if you remember the remodel that we did, uh we opened up some cat free roaming rooms in the building. And those free roaming rooms,
the adoptions tripled shortly after we did that because people could interact with the animals. They weren't scared. They weren't scratching at them. Um and that's the same thing that we want to do with dogs. I don't want a dog uh um uh open space, but I want I want it to be calmer. I want them to be where they can interact with the dogs easier so we have a lot of space for that. So, I anticipate adoption should increase dramatically just because they the the families that have never been in before won't be overwhelmed. Um I've talked about it a lot, but the movement of the animals through the shelter is important in this design. Um I'm not going to go into that over and
over again. And y'all can ask me questions about if you have anything, but the movement of animals, how they get from from admissions day to adoption day or or to the medical room or any of that kind of stuff is all there. Um and and it's all where they won't crosscontaminate, things like that. Uh playards, uh there's a playyard design for every pod. Um if y'all saw our video a few weeks ago, we we had dogs playing for life here. It's a group that does playgroups for our animals. Really helps. It's one of those enrichment things. It's one of those fear-free things that helps their mental state while they're in our in our care. Um the play there's a playyard per pod. So
same you're not going to crosscontaminate because you're moving those dogs from the playyard to the pod area. Um each pod has its own equipment, all the workstations. Um again to prevent uh they can do everything they need to with the animals and and it's contained to that pod. Um and then the the big advantage with the pods is our ability to translate transition any of them to isolation at any time. We could stop and and and shut down one pod without having to shut down. Right now, if I have an issue at the shelter in the front 72 kennels, I have an issue in the front 72 kennels.
In this design, I have an issue in 12 kennels. It makes it a lot easier to keep things moving, reduces treatment and all that. Um, that is my presentation from from that perspective. Um, obviously we need to discuss, you know, other things, but any questions that y'all have for me, I'm happy to to hear. Um, board, is there any questions at this point for John? Commissioner Strober, do you have a question? Yeah. One question is I met a lady, I guess it was in Belleview, off a Stony Road. Anyone remember what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. She
she collected animals, strays I guess, and she took those those animals to I think Mississippi. Mississippi because of the expense of um spaying them or neutering them here. What is what is the cost? Um well, so we don't provide that service at all. So it's local veterinarians currently that do it. Um and so it's it's a challenge in our community. You're exactly right. There are people that are taking animals to Mississippi. They're taking them over to uh um there's a couple other
places and and and we've worked with some of those as well. There's one outside of Foley that we worked with for a while when our vet had had some issues. Um and and we had to send some of our own animals to get surgery and it and it was cheaper. But there's nothing in our community. And I think that's part of the programs that we want to have here. Our community needs a lowcost spayneuter uh facility. We can't we can't uh I don't know that we can even as a as an organization provide full care and and all those kind of things, but having some option for people is is huge for us.
I don't know that we could do all the surgeries that need to be done um even if we hired two vets or three vets. But I think we have to address that some kind of way. I tried to do it through partnerships. I told my team not too long back that uh I think anything that we do and this is not a a reflection on any of the partners that I've worked with on this program, but they've just it's not something that's within our control. And I think for us things like lowcost spayneuter, things like trap neuter release, I think we have to have some uh even I told Jojo's pause with the pet pantry thing. If for some reason they could they pulled out of our organization, we
would still do a pet pantry because I think it's important to this community. And I think that's the same thing with lowcost spayneuter. I think we have to have a a hand in it and and and some skin in the game to make it work because I I I can't uh I can't control what other organizations do and how they how they do that. I'm going to come before y'all with some money coming back from from uh one of our partner organizations that couldn't they just couldn't perform those surgeries when we partnered with them for lowcost spayneuter. So I I think we can do it that way. I think that's what needs to happen is it needs to be brought at least some level inhouse. I still want all the partners
to keep doing it too because we have a huge need in this community, but I think we have to do some of it as well. Yeah. I thought that you guys did that there. I didn't know you you meant No, sir. We were doing it when I again when I got here in 2014, we were doing it and then I um I I shut it down because they weren't doing the animals in the building itself. They weren't doing the animals we were putting up for adoption, which made no sense to me. Um, so we partnered with uh Humane Society and then they couldn't keep a vet on staff and we've partnered with some other organizations, but but again I think the I think we're going to have to bring it back in house some kind of way. Uh, and and y'all approved a part-time vet and a vette and I'm hoping to launch that sometime in the
first of next year. What's low cost sound like to you? What's that going to be? Because I we have a puppy and we have we have an appointment a future appointment. Sure. And it's 500 bucks. Yeah. Well, and and I think that's, you know, and I think it varies dependent on the group. I I can't sit here and quote prices. I haven't talked. We haven't got that far down into it to what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. But I think the uh it's expensive and and that's part of my concern for our community is is if you're struggling financially and and you tell them they have to get their pet spay neuter, most people they need their pets spay and neutered. They don't need puppies.
And I sure don't need their puppies. No offense. Uh, I I work every day to come in one day and go, "Oh, I don't have a job anymore because nobody's being cruel to animals and there's no animals to put in this building." I literally try to put myself out of a job every day. And I'm not been very successful at that goal. But it's really important to me that that we figure out solutions for that. And again, I can't give you the dollar numbers that of what it would be, but we could talk about it and and and try I could tell you what some of the other organizations do that that are partners in that. Okay, one more question. How old do you got to be to to volunteer there? Uh we
uh we'll take volunteers at 12 years old and up. So happy to have it. Sometimes with a parent, we'll go a little younger. We we we I have a great foster volunteer coordinator and uh he can and sometimes we'll sit and interview and if there's a parent that wants to come with them and they're a little bit younger, we can we can work that out as well. Depends on the maturity level of the of the kid. I'm not I'm not open to just having kids running a muck through the building as you can imagine, but if they're smart and they're and they're mature, then a lot of times we'll have them in there and and put them to work. We can use the help everywhere. Sure. John, I got
a few questions and I got a few answers. Yeah. As you can tell, I'm a little passionate about this project. Yeah, I know. I've been over there and you do great work. You said there was 105 kennels and you want 168. And I think you currently have more dogs than you have kennels now, right? Correct. We almost always have more dogs than we have kennels. Now, sometimes those scenarios, so I there I have some uh peers that don't believe in in partnering up dogs. They believe that every dog should have its own kennel uh for s. I believe the opposite. Um and and again, everybody has
different opinions on how things should be done, but but our team is really good at matching dogs together and putting them together if we can. And we'll double up dogs. I think it's better for them, honestly. Uh they've got somebody to play with. They've got somebody to hang out with and and those kind of things. So, we'll double up kennels. If we got a litter of puppies, obviously, we're going to keep them together for a while um while they're going through that. sometimes a mom with puppies, you know. So, so you may have several dogs in one kennel for for a temporary period of time. Usually that's puppies. I don't usually try to get more than two or three dogs in a kennel unless it's a whole bunch of Chihuahua and that way we know where they are. They don't I
what I where I was going with that question is how did you get to 168 being the right number? Um I don't we talked so again I I think it a lot of it has to do with the feasibility study um that the Bacon group performed for us. They came up with a number of kennels. They felt like that they used uh statistics um to to develop that plan. Uh they had come back again they had come back with a smaller number of kennels with the assumption that you'll move animals through faster. Obviously our length of stay is our biggest goal, right? We want to shorten our length of stay on whatever we
do. So, um, they're they in anticipate that your length of stay will be dramatically reduced. And there's some some math in there in the I don't know if he put it in the backup, but I'll be glad to provide it to you. But that's kind of how he came up with uh the kennel number. I bumped it up a little bit because I wasn't comfortable with co going as close to what they had as we were. Um, I don't want I I would never come up here and ask y'all to build a 400 kennel. Listen, if you build a 400 kennel facility, they'll probably fill it up. I'm not going to tell you that it won't get filled up. The problem is then you have to double staff, triple staff, things like that. We've got
to figure out ways to keep animals from coming in. We've got to figure out ways to help do lowcost spayneuter. We've got to figure out ways to help people retain their pets. We've got to figure out ways to get them home. And again, our animal welfare officers have been phenomenal about some of that stuff in the field. We do a lot of uh uh ride home uh free ride home where they pick up a dog, they scan it for a microchip or they find its tag and we take it back to the house for them. So, it's not coming into the facility. We don't need those animals in our facility. as full as it is and and those are challenges for us. So, okay. So, 168 kennels would meet the
demand of the future and we have the staffing for 160 we have the staffing for that amount. Yeah, I believe I believe so. So, one of the things about this design and development um and as long as Chief Pal keeps sending me a couple of crews over um then then we have the ability to keep those animals clean. This is going to be easier to clean than the facility we're in. Um there's a lot of new technology. there's a lot of new ways that of the uh the floor. It's just a lot easier for it to be cleaned as compared to what we've got now. Um so so even though you're increasing the number
of kennels, um you probably will reduce the the amount of cleaning time per kennel significantly just with the way it's designed and developed. Okay. I thought we had a location identified potentially. Don't So you're gonna take it? Oh, so we we've I've worked with facilities and and and uh um Miss Bowers on on some of the spaces that we could that we could look at. Um there's been some challenges from that perspective. Uh some of the things that we thought were going to be available
to us have fallen through. Um so we don't have a location. Is that what you're saying? I would turn that to somebody else. I would say we have some options. We've not settled on a particular location. We do have a couple options that we are looking at. Okay. So, the feasibility study, we have an option that would fit this feasibility. Okay. Well, that's news to me. I I will say this, too, just to to chime in on that. Um, the feasibility study recommends a pro a property of around 5 to seven acres. And part of the conversation that we had with facilities and
their new architect was of if we put some of the office space, some of the non-animal working space upstairs, could we could we shrink that footprint a lot? And they felt like that also in the five to seven acres was included a retention pond. And depending on where you put it, there may already be a pond available. I think the one of the last locations we had discussed, there's a pond already available. So you wouldn't have to give up that space for for pond development. Okay. Do we get any contributions from the city? We do not. And no one else except the county is the only sole
source for our That's correct. Um and that's been a conversation. Um, and and I I I think it needs to continue to be a conversation at some point. Share with me what the conversation was. Huh? What was the conversation? Well, we've just talked about through I've talked through a couple of county administrators of of the we pull a lot of animals out of Pensacola proper. Um, and we house those animals. We we do calls within those animals. Years ago, there was an agreement um before I got here, there was aou between the two um that has there was apparently a handshake deal
that made that go away. Um, so now we're we're standing here with with not a deal, but we do take a lot of animals out of the city and and and house them and and and write citations and have officers doing work inside the city limits as well. So I think there probably should be some contribution from them, but do what do other municipalities normally support the county in these animal shelters? I don't know. Do they t typically there's an agreement between um and I'll say the same thing a few years ago the uh when Perito was talking about becoming its own city. That was
one of the things I reached out to and the cost of of again doing business in any of those is something that has been the burden of the county. But I've got a lot of peers that they're they're contracted with the county contracts with the city or other municipalities within their within their county area um to to get those funds. They charge them for kennel space. They charge them for animal welfare officer work um and and they have some kind of contractual agreement with them. Yeah, I think that shared burden if we're doing the work. Memphis, where I came from, was actually
the opposite. The Memphis Animal Shelter supported the county, uh, the unincorporated areas of the county. So, it was opposite. It was backwards. But, but everywhere else I've been, I've seen it where the county supported the I have two more questions. Commissioner Coler, can I just ask you one question? You What I I'll let you interrupt me, but go ahead. That's fine. It wasn't It wasn't important what you were saying. What What What percentage of of animals do we get from the city? That's a good question, and I'll tell you why. We we developed the software when we put it together.
I can tell you how many animals I pull out of your districts. Uh I can tell you that and there's a I've got a report that I've been working on and and again I'll pick on division manager Mont Freda. He helped me build it and and we've been meaning to send it at the start of every month and and I get it seems like crazy stuff's going on the first of every month and it gets behind and then I'm like whatever. But uh but it it tells me how many animals came out of your district, things like that. But it does not do Pensacola proper and he's working on a program now to figure out that. He's working with our software company to figure out how we can do specific to city as
well. Mr. Chairman, because I agree with you, but before we do a request, I think we need to know how Oh, yeah. how come I didn't know. I was just an honest question. I I didn't know if that was normal for municipalities to contribute to an animal shelter. I'm not trying to punk the city. I just don't know. No. Yes, sir. It very much is. Again, you're providing service. Some cities carry their there in some communities the county has theirs and they operate in uh unincorporated parts and then the city itself has its own animal like Tallahassee is kind of set up like that. Um
so the city has its own animal control or animal animal welfare unit. Um can you look and and and provide the board some data on how that works in other municipalities and what the cost share ratio is because I I have an interest in it now. Yeah, I would be happy to do that. Again, the Madame Attorney and and uh Mr. Marino had asked me to work on some of that. We started working on that a few months ago. And so, uh, I I think there's, uh, I I think we already have some pieces coming together, so I'll pull it together for you. Okay. The the next question I had, and and I think I know the answer, but I just want to clarify. If we were to build this new shelter,
I know you only have one vet and you Yeah, I think you told me you need another vet. Is that correct? So, y'all actually approved in the last budget year, uh, y'all approved a second part-time vet, not a full-time vet, but a part-time vet and another vet tech. I have not Did we get a hire? Not yet. I have not filled that position. There's been a couple of hiccups along the way. Uh, we're we're got a a target for that. Um, and so that's part of uh what we want to do. Part of it is is is working with our our current vet and how that space works. You again, it's pretty pretty
jammed in there. So, how we get a second vet in there? Can we get them to do some of those lowcost uh spayneuter surgeries on the weekend, some of the TNR stuff? So, there's a little bit of coordination to it. And then again, vets aren't readily available. Every vet in town is looking for vets to work in their at their organization as well. And shelter vets, I a few years ago, there was a uh I think it was two years ago, there was a stat that for every seven shelters that needed a vet, there was one vet available. So, as you can imagine, it's really hard to find one, and looking for one part-time is even more difficult. Um, I've reached out to a few people and I think
again I'm not going to give up on that, but but I want to have the whole program in place. I I like to have the whole thing done before we come out. But yes, I and and probably down the road it would probably need to transition to a full-time vet if we're successful in what we want to do. Okay. And then I have one other question because I know several of us on the board have supported the Humane Society. What is our relationship with these other organizations and them taking on pets or do we have a good harmonious relationship these folks? I I'm really proud of, you know, they all have their challenges, right? And so I'm really proud of the Humane Society and the relationship
we built. Uh I am working currently with another organization in Florida for a grant. And part of that grant is for to fund a position for a live outcome coordinator, somebody that would help us. We lost our ability to transport animals up to out of state that we used to use a a few years ago. Um which really hampered I mean we were sending about 600 to 700 animals a year. uh out of the out of the to Pennsylvania out of our facility, but due to some law changes in the receiving end, we had to drop that. But this would be somebody that would seek that. Um and I really think I have
I'm in the top five on the the potential getting the grant. So I feel pretty good, pretty confident about we'll be able to do that. And part of that has partnered with the Humane Society. But one of the things that's been great for us is the Humane Society has really focused on us and uh our local humane society and pulling animals from us. and they've been a really great partner uh from that standpoint. Uh we've got a lot we've got a few rescue organizations here that we work with. I know there's some more here that are the same as we are. They're packed to the gills. There's nowhere to put any more animals and their their adoptions are low as well and so those are
challenging things for us. So, um but but the Humane Society and some of the local rescues have been great for us and and we appreciate their their assistance in moving animals. We're always looking for ways to keep animals moving out of the facility. Okay, my last question. And and the cost was more than what I was told that it was going to be. Quite a bit more. I thought it's right under $34 million. Yep. How Wes or John, how how are we going to deal with this? We're looking at
our design just like you me mentioned a minute ago. Maybe an upstairs instead of a width. And then the property that we put it on already has a pond. the construction go cost goes down as well. So we were the last meeting I was in, we were talking about 28 27 million as opposed to 35 million or 34 million. So those are things that are in in our control to some extent and we will continue to work in that direction. I think it's challenging too uh you know you brought up earlier like how many kennels do you have? Is 168 enough? And and you know there's all those factors that
you that you come into um uh Kevin Monfreda, Dr. Lee and I sat with the bacon group and I've sat with the facilities team and we've we've literally tried to cut all the fat out of the design. Um, and and there's there's some things in there that are unique to it, but I I feel like they're all important. Um, I'd be happy to discuss any of those with you, but I feel like they're all important uh aspects of what we've added to the facility. Um, and and why it will benefit this community. And I think that that's the biggest part. Uh, look, I I I bought my lottery ticket
yesterday. I was going to help y'all out with this, but I didn't win either. So, um, but it's a it's a huge, uh, it's a huge undertaking, but I what I would caution you as you as you review it and you review the dollars and is is two things. I would highly encourage you to use a architect that has animal welfare in in mind um when when we put out if we go out for bid for this and that kind of thing to to find that because they're going to help you and they'll help you figure out ways to reduce cost but they'll know where you don't need to cut so that it's not a detriment to the
animals in your care and things like that. Um, and then I think the other the other part is let let's not cut it down so much that we end up building something like we've got now where we can't where we can't use it 20 years from now because literally the day I walked in that building I knew it was going to be a challenge of of just making it work. And we figured out ways and wrote, you know, written 6,000 SOPs and changed them and tweaked them to make it as as the best we can for what we have to do. But but don't hinder yourself by by by that. This is your one chance to build
another shelter, another animal shelter, and make sure it's going to last. And Wes, this question is probably for yours, Stefan. Are we going to bond this? Is how would we finance this? We've been looking at LOST reserves. Is that where we would take it from? Okay. And is there a timeline to present it to the board for if if the board would approve it or disapprove it? We can start procurement on the design almost immediately. Okay. All right. I Commissioner Barry. Yeah. As
we as we start to look at it, I mean, we do we're going to have to reduce the cost. Um, and you know, I don't think any of the board is going to want to uh affect the animal welfare portion of it or you know, the kennel space and and those things, but um and and I know what you had on the screen was just uh you know, just some artist renderings and just some ideas, but you know, it is a you know, it has a utility as as an animal services building and and you know,
the other community aspects of it are are are valuable and those are um you know they're they're best case scenario uh options. But you know as we start looking at the footprint and we have to match what we can afford to the footprint you know it's um you know it's not it's not going to be a community center. It's I mean it's it's it's going to be purposed and you know the utility is going to be for your you know for your department for your services and you know if we if you know if
we have some square footage that's going to be you know that's going to be cut. I don't I don't you know at least for my vote on the board it's going to be not on the you know you had some slides up there where they're showing where they would be doing procedures and those things are important that Kendall layout you know as a lay person that that all makes sense to me. I'm good with that. Um, but if there's uh some administrative square feet, you know, some administrative square feet and some meeting square footage and those kind of things, uh, you know, we do have some, you know, we have some other buildings that we've built over the last, you know, 12 or 13 years. Commissioner
May and I have been on the board and, um, you know, sometimes the ideas of what this extra space is going to be used for doesn't actually come to fruition and we end up with just, you know, meeting space that doesn't, you know, that doesn't get utilized. I have, you know, some of that in, you know, in my district. I suspect Commissioner May has some of that in his district. Um, you know, that you just, it's a passion of yours and and and your people and you have a lot of volunteers and you have an act. It seems like you have a very active uh uh board that supports
animal shelter, which is, you know, fantastic. Similar to, you know, I think the library, you know, library folks, you're very passionate about their thing. You have people that are very passionate about yours. But I don't know that it's going to turn into a um you know uh a hub of the of of the community necessarily and you know I I don't want to be in a case where we just you know where we build it in that in that hope that that it turns into that. So you know as we as you know we can't afford I mean $30 million is not I don't think that's really on the table. So
we've got to work down from that sum. So, as we start looking at carving some square footage out, I would be supportive of the, you know, the non uh, you know, kind of the non-anim animal services parts of it that, you know, we may have to carve out and um maybe get into the, you know, hopefully into the low low 20s, but we'll but we can see. Thank you, John. Thanks, Commissioner Barry. Yeah, the price tag was a little shocking to me as well. Commissioner May, did you just turn off your light? Okay. Commissioner um Hoffer, I Yes, I would agree
with Commissioner Barry on um everything that he said regarding the price and the expectations. One of my questions is you've compared it to a gel and much like if we build a bigger jail, we're going to fill a bigger jail. It's not going to deter people from committing crimes that end up in jail. So, with the animal shelter and animal control in general, I think the goal needs to be fewer animals going to the shelter. So the spay and neuter is a great way to start that and you had mentioned there was going to be some changes to ordinances. Can you kind of go over how you're
going to reduce the population in the shelter itself? Yeah, I think uh again spayneuter is a big a big part of that program of figuring out ways for people to retain their animals. Um is a big focus of ours for the last couple of years. We've done we've done a lot of that. Um uh there there's some managed intake that we do now um that that uh obviously we're having to prioritize what comes into the facility just cuz we don't have the space for it. Um and and particularly when you get in that back those back 32 kennels that we have when they're full and and their bite dogs
and their case holds and things like that, it impacts the rest of the facility where you're going to put everything else. And that's what's nice about these pods. Um u again reducing the length of stay is a big factor for us. We think the increase in adoptions should be dramatic in this. Uh as I said a minute ago, one of the things that we were looking for is to get that grant to add a live uh outcome coordinator to our team. Um I think that will reap huge benefits. We're seeing that in some of the other shelters across the country that have tried that technique and that person's literal only job is I've got people on my team that do that now, but they only do it
part-time because the the just the uh day-to-day work prevents them from really focusing on that. So having some one individual that can that's their 40 hours a week job is to to call other shelters to work on transport options out to to work on all those things um rescue organizations things like that getting that placement and you know we do we treat every animal one animal at a time. We try to figure out how that works and and so that would be our way of trying to reduce that that that footprint of how many animals are in the facility. Uh and again just keeping them at home
is the big big thing. So, what percentage of the animals are either up for adoption or will be up for adoption versus are on hold because they're aggressive or you're waiting for the owner to come get them? It really varies. Um, current currently, uh, under the county ordinance, uh, everything is is there for 72 hours. If we think it has an owner, it's there for 5 days. Um, so if it has a collar, if it has, you know, painted toenails or or a microchip, um, we we're going to hold it for at least 5 days to give that owner an opportunity to come back.
But most of those redemptions happen in the first 24 to 48 hours. Um, so that 5-day hold can become burdensome uh to that because even after that 5-day hold, it's probably not spay hadn't had spay or neuter surgery. So now we got to get on that schedule. So so our length of stay can can just drag out. That's part of one of the ordinance changes that I'd like to see is go into a 72-hour um stray hole or hold regardless of the of the situation. If we know who the owner is, we do send a 10-day letter currently. So, that animal could be there 10 days. And then again,
dangerous dog. I'll give you an example. We we had two dangerous dog uh cases this week. There were both significant injuries uh to to individuals. We deemed them dangerous for euthanasia. There's four dogs involved between these two cases. Um, those went to an appeal to our magistrate. The So, we had to hold them for another 12 days till we got the magistrate hearings done. Then we had to appeal to the magistrate and then they're going to appeal his decision as well, apparently, which is another I have to wait another 30 days on each one of those. So, those dogs literally are there 45,
50 days. I've got four very aggressive dogs that are holding up four kennel spaces. So, now you're down to 101. And then and then there's other you know bite dogs are there for 10 days mandatory hold by the health department. Um so you just have a lot of challenges from that. Currently we are I would say probably 70 to 75% of our population is avail of dogs is available for adoption though. Um and most of them are there for that reason. But again if you hit a hoarding case or if you hit a big cruelty case we did a dog fighting case not too long back. It's taken up eight 10 kennels and
those those kennels out of 30 that runs out pretty quick. Um, which is the other advantage to having the pods because I could literally move stuff into a pod situation and and and not have to hold other other kennels up, not hold those whole 32 up or things like that. So, when they're aggressive and the dog owner is appealing it and like they've bit somebody and and we know it's a bad situation, are we charging that homeowner for that dog stay and the burden on the county? Yes, ma'am. Um, we we do have a uh there has there's a $15 a day boarding fee in those situations. I I will be real honest
and and uh tell you that a lot of times we they lose their appeals and all that stuff and then we never see a dime of that. It comes in a judge's order, but uh they usually end up going to a lean on their property and and a lot of times it's a rental so they don't really have real property so it becomes a it just becomes a loss. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. Sure. John, we're still in no kill shelter by the numbers right? No sir, we're not. Um it we are operating currently at probably about uh 70 75% live release rate and I'm just guessing off top of my head but part of that
is is I I said this years ago um that we're going to end up in this situation. We operated in and uh for a couple years at a no kill status. Um, but this transition over the last few years where we have to take in more and more aggressive animals and more dangerous animals and and and injured animals, we prioritize those in our call volume. Um, so we're not picking up a lot a lot of times the strays, we're not picking up the uh highly adoptable things like that. So the animals that are coming through our facility, we we just lean towards more of an aggression. Again, I'm
not euthanizing anything that's not uh aggressive or medically necessary. Um, but our percentage is significantly higher. Wow. Okay. I didn't realize I thought when it first came on the board we were no kill stre in a year just out of curiosity. Uh, I think we're close to I don't have that number in front of me. I'll send it to you, but I we're several hundred. Okay. So, um, a and again, I I don't ever I think I've stood at this podium a thousand times and said I don't the no call the no kill thing is not a term I use a lot. Uh, no kill mandates that you euthanize less than 10%
of the animals that come through your facility. I mean, when I started here, they euthanized 90% of the animals that were coming through our facility. Um, and they took in 16 17,000 a year, so it was a ton of animals. We're not doing anywhere near those kind of numbers still. Um, I don't believe in unnecessary euthanasia. I again, we try to to to place animals in in whatever situation or get them back home, things like that. Um, but so but from a no kill, those numbers are really hard to meet when you're taking it. I'm not going to adopt out a dog that's just to make my 90% that's going
to bite the family that goes home to or something that's really sick. I'm not going to to let it suffer. I when I was with ASPCA, we used to do a lot of uh shelter um raids and I raids probably not the right term, but we used to go in and do inspections and and sometimes there whatever. And there were some of these nokill shelters that had dogs dying in their kennels because they they weren't going to euthanize them. It didn't it made no sense to me. It was it was that, you know, we have the opportunity to help that animal um along if we need to. And so I I don't
want to get into a situation where mandated to meet a 90% number. I think it's I think it's just unreasonable. So our youth in Asia is higher than than I would like it to be. Again, I I would love to save every one of them. I don't know any way you could do that. and what we get in our facility currently either you know whether it's hit by a car medically issue medical issues or just pure aggression um it it can be can be problematic. No, I understand sometimes that's the most humane thing Commissioner Robert and and I appreciate that. I know that's the darker side of animal control, but it's also very humane to make sure that they're not suffering. So,
thank you for that. Um, as far as expectation to the general public, I know prior to being a commissioner, I had called animal services several times. Um, and they wouldn't come out if the dog was in an immediate danger, even if it was running around in traffic. Or we actually had an employee that took a dog up to animal services and they said, "No, we can't take it. You're stuck with it." And she was literally in a a work t-shirt in a work van. So, obviously, it was not her dog. Um, what is the expectation of the public when they call and there's a dog roaming free, but it's not necessarily in immediate danger? Uh, we still take the call. We put the call in and then we try
to follow up on it. But again, we're prioritizing is it is it is it injured? Is it does it have a is it a risk to the public? Is it aggressive? Things like that. So, so we're trying to prioritize all our calls. And so when we put those priorities in, obviously our officers are going to if somebody's if if you got a a bite case or we have a lot of law enforcement assist, um if you're if you're doing that, we have a lot of EMS assist as well where we have to go in and the and the owners um needs medical care but the dogs won't let them near them. I mean, we go into a lot of of strange situations for our animal welfare officers. Um so it falls down farther on the priority list. And
I'll be honest, a lot of times by the time we our officers roll through to get that to get there, um that animal has already gone home and you know and or it's not in that area anymore. Sometimes sometimes they are we pick them up, bring them in. Uh we do some people will hold them in their in their yard or some people will have them on hand and we'll try to pick those up. Um again, we really have to manage how many can we fit in the facility? What where do we hit our issue of uh capacity for care? Those kind of things. That's the biggest challenge for us currently is is how do we do our capacity for care. Um, and how do we make sure that we can provide for the animals?
It doesn't make any sense to pick an animal up and bring it into a worse situation than it was before or to or to just euthanize it because you don't have the room. I don't I don't necessarily particularly if it's one that might go home. Um, so there's some challenges from that perspective. um if they're bring we try to encourage people not to pick up animals off the street and it's not just because we don't want them at the shelter or whatever. But the other issue you get into is you're putting yourself at risk when you pick up an unknown animal and put in your vehicle. you whether it's uh illnesses that you could expose yourself, your family or your animals to
or whether that dog there was an issue in um there was a incident in I think it was Texas last year where uh somebody picked up a a stray dog off the street, put it in their car and then it bit them in the back of the head and they ended up crashing and and and died. And so I don't, you know, let our the professionals handle it when we get out there. And again, sometimes that dog may be there a little while before we get to it, but but we're going to do our best to get to all the calls, but sometimes it they're working 11 we're going to work over 11,000 calls this year um in this last fiscal year. That's a lot of calls for the the 12 13, you know, one of those officers, they got
13 officers, one of those is a beach officer. Um and so that's a lot of calls that you're working um per per officer and and and trying to get all those things done. So it it's a lot. So, if someone brings an animal there that they found on the street, what is the policy as far as what happens to that animal next? It really depends. Um, a lot of times, first of all, is it their pet or is it something that they found? Obviously, found where we're going to try to take it unless we're just had a situation a couple weeks ago where we had just hit two different hoarding cases. We had dogs piled up in and in and crates in the garage and uh you know,
the heat, that kind of thing. Um, and so we asked them to hold on to it. We again I prefer that they don't bring them to the shelter. Let you know notify us that you have you have it or have seen it. We'll try to figure out how to deal with it. Uh we try not to turn them away but I'm not going to tell you that we don't because it's sometimes there's just nowhere no room at the end. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Well that was a lot to Good brief John. Um I guess the wayhead west is a timeline. Obviously there's concerns on the board with the price tag. I think I think we need to
get to a a a number that the board hopefully can live with. So, you got a little bit of homework, but I don't Is there any further questions from the board for Miss John? Okay. I will say on my on my last slide um that doesn't have anything to do with the shelter. We are going to bring before y'all in a in a few weeks uh uh the county ordinance, the animal ordinance we're going to do a repeal and replace. So, I wanted y'all to be aware of that. If you have any questions or if you want to meet before that, I'll be happy to sit down with you. Some of it is just language that's significantly outdated. It hasn't been updated in a long time. So, some of it's just language
that's significantly outdated. Some of it state statute has changed and we need to match that. Uh dangerous dog being one of those, but there's some other things that we need to update. So, uh I I'll be sure to brief y'all before I bring it before the board, but uh we will be we'll be working on that very soon. Okay. Thank you, John. I appreciate you briefing and thank you for all your staff what they do. It's a very important job for the county. Thank you. All right, board. If there's no further questions, there's anything we want to discuss before we meet tonight for public forum. Uh, yeah, Mr. Chairman, um, this Baptist Hospital thing has lingered on
with the city. Uh, I'd like to get this thing on the agenda and vote it up or vote it down. Um, I do have a recommendation that I I'll be bringing forth. I mean, obviously the appetite of this board was not to give the amount of money that the um mayor requested, but I do think that there is a solution that'll bring health care, uh food, um and affordable housing that the county can participate in. So, I'd like to be able to add that to the agenda. Is this a discussion item or you are we asking to uh vote on money tonight? I mean, I would prefer to vote it up or down. We've
had a discussion. I mean, it's been it's been in three. Do we meet public notification for that? It is not illegal to do an add-on uh that involves an expenditure of public funds. But if we are talking about an expenditure of funds in the nature of half million to $2 million which has been involved in some of the previous conversations, I would say that it has definitely been frowned upon by this board to do an add-on of that nature without it being in the published agenda.
I'm open to that, Mr. Chairman, but I don't know when it's been added on. We got three new members, so uh so I don't know when it was frowned upon. I mean in general by this particular board. Uh but I'm if if the motion needs to be made uh to give staff some direction on what to do with the solution, I'm I'm open to that and to bring it back for a vote for the dollars if if that satisfies our our legal department if that's what she's she's indicating. I know the recommendation by the ethics commission is 48 hours and we haven't honored that. That's what
I was told. Well, I mean and and that's fine and I can live with that, but this has been talked about at four different meetings. This is nothing new. Uh that's this this has been a discussion item. It's been an agenda item. Uh in Canada, I don't care how people vote. I mean, I'm tired of the conversations. We can vote it up. We can vote it down. People can vote their conscious. We're going to bring some forward that we think that's something that's um a a great compromise. Uh this is a major project uh in my district. Uh Baptist Hospital is a significant
project. Uh the state has already participated, the city has already participated. Uh, so I don't see this as something that has not been talked about, but if that's your desire, Mr. Chairman, and that's what you're getting advice from from legal, I still want to add it um to the agenda and we can bring it back for ratification or a vote on dollars if that's what you're saying. Uh, but I do I think in this situation that would be the the right thing to do so we stay out of trouble. Um, Allison, give us guidance. It's up to the board to determine by a majority vote
whether or not to allow it onto the agenda this evening at the beginning of your meeting. That is one of the things that the board does is it votes on whether or not to allow an item to be on the agenda or to vote it off of the agenda. The board can do that. It is definitely frowned upon. The board has previously tried to not allow add-ons or what last minute additions that involve significant expenditures. Commissioner Hopper, do you have a comment? I I do. We like Commissioner
May said, we've discussed this at three or four meetings. It's been one of the outside of OFA, one of the hotter topics since I've been on the board. Um, and I've received quite a few emails. I received a text message yesterday from somebody I don't even know with a picture of one of the other medical facilities that says, "Please don't let this happen to Baptist," which I feel like is a good point. So, I know that I've received quite a few requests from my constituents asking us pretty much either donate or tell them you're not going to donate to the project. So, for transparency purposes, I would like to vote it up or vote it down and let the community know where we stand.
And I feel like we've discussed it at length. So, it's it's not a surprise project to the community and we've had significant input at this point. So, I would second Commissioner May's request for that to go on the Well, we don't vote at the cow, but uh so we can't do that administratively. So, what bring it up at agenda tonight, Commissioner May, and we'll either vote it up or down. Fair enough. Fair enough to me. Okay, this convenes. We'll meet at 4:30 this evening, folks. Thank you.