City, county consider options for animal control reform

Yuma County and the city of Yuma are grappling with how to handle animal control, but officials are divided on what can and should be done.

Currently, the Humane Society of Yuma is responsible for all animal control in the county. That includes catching loose and dangerous animals and housing them. Officials say it cannot continue to do all that is necessary on its current budget or in its current facility, which it has outgrown.

Humane society spokeswoman Elkie Wills said it collected 11,800 animals in 2006 - 60 percent of which were euthanized due to space limitations. Not all were animal control cases but, Wills said, those do account for much of the group's time and resources.

"We need ordinances in place," said Annette Lagunas, humane society director of operations. "We need support funding for the work that we do."

The humane society contracts with the cities of Yuma, Somerton, Wellton and San Luis, Ariz., as well as the county, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the Cocopah Tribe.

All those agencies provide the society with slightly more than $1 million a year to provide animal control, according to Wills.

"It started with rabies control. The (county) health department basically oversees that," Wills said, "to make sure the public’s health is not endangered. Of course, now it's extended to much more than that."

The 8,200-square-foot humane society facility has cages for 96 dogs and 60 cats. Wills said their goal is to get the money and space for a new facility more than twice that size. However, they are not able to build at this time due to the financial restrictions.

Wills even added that that wouldn't solve the whole problem. "There's never going to be a big enough building to keep all of the animals, because they’re constantly coming in."

City and county officials have proposed taking some of the burden off of the humane society. However, no consensus on how to do that has yet been reached.

A subcommittee on animal control made up of city and county representatives reported its recommendations to the Yuma City Council and the Yuma County Board of Supervisors at a joint meeting Monday.

It described four options:

-The Pima Model. In some Arizona counties, including Pima County, animal control duties are split among agencies. Pima's humane society provides kennels for the animals. The patrol and collection of the animals is handled by the county and city law enforcement agencies.

-A complete takeover of operations by the city, county or a separately created animal control district.

-Call for a bond item that would ask voters to approve $4 million to build a new animal control facility.

-Maintain the status quo. Leave animal control operations as they are, solely handled by the humane society.

David Garcia, Yuma County administrator, said the Pima Model was most of the subcommittee's recommendation.

"It was something that didn't involve major construction," said Garcia, a member of the subcommittee. "Animal control has two major components. One of them is the response and collection of loose animals and dangerous animals. The second part is the kennel operation. Collection can be done with just personnel and trucks. (A) kennel requires facilities."

However, not even all the subcommittee members favored that option. No clear consensus had been reached by the end of the meeting.

"I was under the impression that the Pima option was unacceptable," said District 5 Supervisor Greg Ferguson, who also sat on the committee. "Nobody wanted to do it. And that's the recommendation ... If it sounds like I'm frustrated, I am ... We need to get a handle on animal control."

The law enforcement community does not yet have the ability to completely take over animal control, however.

"I don't think presently that YPD can provide the level of services that you folks want," Yuma Police Chief Robby Robinson told officials at the meeting. "It's going to cost more for us to do it than for the humane society."

Some options for future action were discussed. The city is looking into the possibility of ordinances on enforced dog licensing and spay and neuter incentives, to cut down on the animal control problem. But no firm direction has been taken at this time. "I don't think you saw a consensus emerge from that discussion," Garcia said. "I think there were a lot of good ideas that came out, things that we can do. But there wasn’t any real consensus.”

What everyone did agree on was that something needed to be done.

"Just like stray dogs don't know where the city ends and the county begins, I don't see why we can't come up with something that does attack this as a package," said District 4 Supervisor Tony Reyes.

"We're at a point where we're looking at, is it a government function to take care of animal control in Yuma?" said City Administrator Mark Watson. "We don't know how many animals are in the county right now. We have to begin a ratio to get this under control."

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Sarah Reynolds can be reached at sreynolds@yumasun.com or 539-6847.