County not funding new home for humane society

$10M facility on Technology Drive to open by next fall

County council won’t give $500,000 over five years to help build the new, $10-million Peterborough Humane Society facility after all.

“The county is not responsible for handouts,” said Rodger Bonneau, mayor of Ashpodel-Nor-wood Township, during the brief discussion of the matter at a council meeting Friday.

No one argued against that point, on which Bonneau was firm: “I think the word should get out: The county does not have deep pockets.”

Councillors were asked in November to consider setting aside $500,000 for the project when they sit down to discuss the 2019 budget early in the new year.

But on Friday, county councillors voted along with a new staff recommendation that they not give money to the humane society, but refer the request instead to the eight individual townships in the county.

County treasurer Trena DeBruijn wrote the report that recommended against giving money to the humane society.

She reminded councillors Friday that the county has a “no-grant policy.” The police is occasionally disregarded in “exceptional circumstances,” Warden J. Murray Jones said.

In her report to councillors, DeBruijn writes that the county isn’t responsible for animal control services.

The townships are responsible for animal control, she writes, and three townships — Selwyn, Trent Lakes and North Kawartha — use the Peterborough Humane Society’s services.

The rest of the townships — Asphodel-Norwood, Otonabee-South Monaghan, Havelock-Belmont-Methuen, Douro-Dummer and Cavan Monaghan — have an employee or a contractor do animal control, states the report, but do use the Peterbor----

ough Humane Society for services such as housing stray pets.

Each of the townships collects a fee for dog licenses, DeBruijn’s report notes, and each of them budgets for animal control services every year (while the county does not).

The report also reminds councillors that the county has already promised $500,000 to help build the new Canadian Canoe Museum (to be paid over eight years, from 2019 to 2026).

Joe Taylor, reeve of Otonabee-South Monaghan Township, mentioned that commitment to the canoe museum and said he doesn’t think the county should offer a similar grant to the Humane Society.

“I don’t think we should consider funding this,” he said.

The new humane society will go on a 20-acre site at 1999 Technology Dr.

It is expected to open next summer or fall, and will replace the 62-year-old facility that’s currently open on Lansdowne St. E.

At a previous county council meeting on Nov. 21, Peterborough Humane Society executive director Shawn Morey told councillors they’ve already raised $6 million toward a $10 million goal.

That includes $1.5 million from the city (to be paid over five years, from 2017 to 2021) and $2 million from the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA).

He said the new facility will include an animal care and education centre, a low-cost spay/neuter clinic and a first-of-its-kind dog rehabilitation centre, funded by the OSPCA.