New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Shared animal shelter plan still on table, but ‘not a lot of progress’
HAMDEN — The town still is considering a shared animal shelter with neighboring New Haven, but the administration is waiting to see whether it’s something the town can afford and the operations are benefocial for the animals.
“We have not had a lot of progress,” Mayor Lauren Garrett said of the town’s shelter plan. “There has been a budget that was given to Hamden that had a square footage amount that was really expensive, so we asked for some better numbers and have not received those yet.”
The Garrett administration announced last March the possibility of working with New Haven to expand and renovate New Haven’s Robin I. Kroogman Animal Shelter at 81 Fournier St.
Garrett said Monday that if that path ends up happening, Hamden’s animals would be handled only by Hamden employees. As for Hamden building its own shelter in town, she said “that’s not something that we’ve explored too much.”
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said Tuesday that both municipalities have been in discussion for quite some time but there are challenges involved in regionalization, including staffing, funding and operational procedures.
“Those challenges are worthwhile to overcome so that we can do more things together,” he said. “It’s always complex and we’re still engaging in those conversations.”
Asked about the price if the plan were to go forward, Elicker said he did not have an estimate at the moment but there would be capital costs for a space expansion and operational costs for additional staffing.
Hamden has rented space in North Haven’s facility for more than a decade — something Garrett said the town will continue to do until it can find a place for Hamden animals. The town allotted $400,000 in 2015 to build its own animal shelter. Despite several proposals, none of those projects has come to fruition.
Garrett said the administration will know this spring whether the budget is viable for the town to go forward with the shared shelter plan.
“We have to do what’s right by the taxpayers,” she said. “We don’t want to go with an option that would be very expensive.”
Elicker said he didn’t want to give a specific timeline “because these things always take longer than any of us would like.” But he assured “we’re in active conversations.”
If the plan doesn’t work out, Garrett said the town will find different spaces that are available, noting other possibilities have been explored but they needed “way too much work.”
“We’re keeping all options on the table at this point,” Garrett said.
Leonard Young of Gimme Shelter, an advocate group that has raised more than $34,000 for the creation of a Hamdenowned animal shelter, said Monday the group is looking for a blueprint, a timeline and a price tag.
If New Haven chooses to go forward with the shared shelter plan, Young said the city needs to put a request for proposal out so Hamden can have an idea of how much it would cost.
What concerns Young is that it’s a mayoral election season. He said if the plan is produced, it has to go through a public hearing process, but if that doesn’t
happen by November, the whole process might have to start again.
“There could be a campaign issue on what plan the town wants to go with so I would like to see things nailed down before then,” Young said. “So we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every two years. At some point, it’s like musical chairs. At some point, you have to sit down and start building a building.”
New Haven’s shelter is under investigation by the state Department of Agriculture after animals were found in poor condition and they were “not eating properly.” City Police Chief Karl Jacobson has said the Police Department has opened an internal affairs investigation into the incident.
The police chief said many aspects of the shelter are outdated including its staffing model, the layout of the building and its intake policies and procedures.
The shelter is undergoing changes such as more frequent veterinarian visits, an increase in lieutenant manager and two civilian animal control officers, an upgrade to the HVAC system and a renovation for soundproofing walls.
Elicker said a combination of city and state funding has been allotted for those.