Residents bark about animal shelter woes

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Evans, John-08-NICTD

Updated: January 8, 2012 10:35AM

VALPARAISO — About 100 people crowded into meeting room of the Porter County Administrative Center on Tuesday to talk about the future of the County Animal Shelter.

They shared their views on what it means for the shelter to be a no-kill facility; discussed a partnership in the works with Opportunity Enterprises to clean the shelter and provide companionship for the animals; and shared a passion for improving what everyone agreed has become an embarrassment for the county and a terrible place for the animals that stay there.

They also got to meet Jon Thomas, the shelter’s interim director, and received a pledge from county officials to move forward from any politicking that has stalled progress at the troubled facility thus far.

“The commissioners take full responsibility for the problems at the shelter right now,” said Porter County Board of Commissioners President John Evans, R-North, adding that he became a liaison to the shelter two weeks ago.

“This meeting is all about solutions and problem solving, not about finger-pointing.”

The Porter County Council called for the meeting, held with the commissioners and the recently formed Porter County Animal Shelter Advisory Board, to discuss how to turn the shelter around.

Evans presented a point-by-point list of problems at the shelter, and how they are being solved or worked on.

Installing concrete in the runs will prevent future parvovirus outbreak in the dogs.

Thefts — three in three years — will stop now that adoptions are check, debit or credit card only.

A steady stream of people addressed the officials, including Gale Carmona, vice president of the Westville-based Independent Cat Society. The not-for-profit, no-kill facility runs on $270,000 a year and takes care of 250 cats, she said.

“I see no reason why this shelter, with so much more money, can’t do the same thing,” she said of the county shelter, which has a $365,000 budget, garnering applause from the crowd.

While some speakers were concerned that dogs could injure Opportunity Enterprises clients working at the shelter, Lorrie Woycik, coordinator of Porter County Special Olympics, said the animals at the shelter and the clients from OE “would be a wonderful bonding.”

“The negative to me would be to make sure that the people in charge know about animals and know about shelters and running them as a business. That would be the disaster to me,” she said.

Interim shelter director Jon Thomas, a Valparaiso native who worked for 19 years in the insurance industry, said he’s been at the shelter for nine days straight. In that time, he’s already started to streamline procedures for the animals and cleaned the shelter.

“I don’t think I can do this job. I know it,” he said to applause.