Focus should be on spay and neuter

The city of Yuma is contemplating spending tax money amounting to $1.5 million to build a new facility to house stray animals. This is because the city council and mayor refuse to spend $32 a day per stray animal to be housed at the new, donation-built, county animal shelter. How short-sighted is this?

If 20 animals are surrendered every day at the cost of $32 per day (obviously the number of animals surrendered to the existing new shelter fluctuates, so the number 20 is an arbitrary number), the cost is $640 per week. Multiply that by seven (days in a week), the figure is $4,480; multiply that by 52 (weeks in a year) the price is $232,960.

At that rate it would take 6.438 years to equal the $1.5 million expenditure.

May I suggest using this money to further the spay and neuter clinic, which would make a positive impact on the pet overpopulation problem. Educating the public and increasing their awareness of this horrendous dilemma would be an excellent use of taxpayer money. This would be a practical and wise investment.

Perhaps the city council could use this same $1.5 million to offer free or reduced spay and neuter clinics to the general public. Perhaps this could be done at a variety of locations: Wellton, Somerton, San Luis, and Yuma, some of the places that were willing to chip in on the cost of the proposed city facility.

This $1.5 million could cover the cost of veterinarian fees that might be incurred by these clinics.

Instead of duplicating existing services, why not greatly reduce the problem by supporting the spay and neuter program?

Ellen M. Farr

Yuma