'As much as we all love animals, the department is not eligible for Measure X funding', Mitchoff says
The Contra Costa County
Board of Supervisors officially responded Tuesday to a civil grand jury report
from last year that said the county has a serious homeless animal problem
that's not being addressed.
Released Nov. 30, the
report concludes the county can improve the Contra Costa County Animal Services
Department by sharing resources with other municipalities and better
distributing resources by geography.
Currently, the county
department runs one centralized facility in Martinez. The only other public
facility is Antioch Animal Services.
"Public and private
animal shelters are experiencing pressure from the explosive growth in the
homeless animal and abandoned pet populations," the report says.
"Community outreach and education are high priorities for both Contra
Costa and Antioch Animal Services, the two public animal shelters within the
county."
"Wildlife retrieval
provided by the County Animal Services is one of its most valuable services,
especially in those areas of the county that border large open spaces. Recent
funding restrictions have severely undermined the ability of Animal Services to
retrieve live, wounded, or dead animals."
The grand jury recommended
that the county "engage a consulting firm for guidance on the possible
redistribution of animal services that could be achieved by a gradual process
of cost-sharing and shelter coordination."
It said the Contra Costa
County Sheriff's Office already uses a similar cooperation agreement among
county law enforcement agencies that could serve as a model.
The grand jury also
recommended both county shelters step up when it comes to community outreach to
confront the homeless animal problem, a situation many animal advocates told
the board Tuesday is even worse than described in the report.
At the same meeting, the
board approved a response to the report, agreeing with many of its findings.
"The county plans to
implement a new service agreement with the cities in Fiscal Year 2022-23,"
the written response says. "The county anticipates that under the new city
agreements, there will be a greater level of service throughout the
county."
The response addressed
other points, including that people in cities aren't aware of county-provided
services (the county agreed) and that funding reductions have hindered live
wildlife retrieval and rescue (the county partially disagreed, saying it's not
a locally mandated service and the state provides no funding for it).
The report also said the
county hasn't allocated Measure X money for the Animal Services Department,
something supervisors said Tuesday isn't within its purview. When voters in
2020 passed Measure X -- a half-cent sales tax -- nothing in the ballot measure
said anything about animal services, something members of the public protested
Tuesday.
"Measure X does not
allow for dollars to go to anything other than human services, such as health
and to public safety, childcare, those kind of things," board chairperson
Karen Mitchoff said during Tuesday's meeting. "As much as we all love
animals, the department is not eligible for Measure X funding."
"However, if you
participated in our board meeting two weeks ago, you know that direction was
given to our animal services director to come back sometime in April, around
budget time, relative to expansion of spay/neuter programs," Mitchoff
said.
In its grand jury
response, the county rejected some recommendations, saying there's not enough
funding for more outreach concerning available animal services and there's lack
of funding and "logistical complexities" making it too difficult to
embed animal service officers at some police stations.
Antioch residents voted in
1978 to establish its own shelter. Concern about overpopulation there led to a
2017 civil grand jury investigation concluding there were deficiencies in
shelter management, operations, and the facility itself. Improvements were made
in response, including the help of a private rescue facility.
But the latest report also
says the Antioch shelter has problems with non-Antioch residents abandoning
animals there due to a lack of more local facilities. The report also said the
cost of spaying and neutering cats and dogs, even at the county site,
contributes to pet abandonment.
Budget cuts forced the
county in 2020 to shut down its Pinole shelter, cut field officers from 16 to
10, reduce operating hours, stop dead animal retrieval on private property, and
refer all wild animal calls to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Danville San Ramon.com
by Tony Hicks / BCN Foundation
February 23, 2022
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