Building Plans for New Animal Shelter
By: Julie Musgrave
Updated: February 26, 2009
Plans for a new animal shelter are still up in the air, but tonight, the West Texas Humane Society sponsored a special meeting hoping to urge the city to make some progress.
Plans for a new animal shelter have been months in the making with several changes from the original discussion.
Tonight -- dozens of folks filled the meeting room at Groves Library to see if they could hear what they wanted most -- some answers.
The biggest issue -- location. It's been a back and forth between MacKenzie park and Mcallister park. However, tonight it appears Mcallister park is no longer an option because of traffic concerns. Right now, there's about $3-million dollars budgeted and the facility the city's hoping to build is going to be about 6 and a half million.
They're facing a lot of budgetary concerns -- like the Archaelogical Survey they'll have to do on the land before they build. Just that will cost about $4500. So they're looking into building in phases as a way to appease the public, and get it done soon.
Tom Adams: "We'll probably look at a phased approach, building what we can now with the money that's available, and then in the future as more funds become available, we can finish the project."
Todd Klein: "People are very passionate, particularly in this room. A lot of animal lovers that want a.) an animal shelter done, sooner rather than later. And b.) they want to know exactly what's going on because they have ideas that they'd like to contribute."
Councilman Klein says a decision on where the new shelter will be should be made a week from today on March 5th. We'll of course keep you updated on what the end result will be.
