Animal Care in Lake Forest - Part 4 (Recommendations)

We’ve been examining the recent Grand Jury report on the Orange County Animal Shelter. In Part 2 we looked at Lake Forest in specific. In Part 3 we looked at the Physical Condition and the Ability to Serve. Today we’ll look at the Grand Jury’s recommendations and then get more specific for Lake Forest.

Click here to view the Grand Jury report.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Grand Jury issued four recommendations -

“The Orange County Board of Supervisors, County Executive Officer, and Director of Community Resources should place a high priority on the design and construction of new, adequately sized, staffed, and funded animal shelter facilities; and should pursue this long overdue project until such time that construction is completed.”

“The Orange County Board of Supervisors should investigate and analyze the advisability and feasibility of selecting two or three sites for construction of animal care shelters to provide services accessible to all parts of the County.”

“The Orange County Executive Officer should seriously evaluate designating a staff member with the assignment of facilitating the construction of a new Animal Shelter. This individual’s tasks should include negotiating with the contracting cities for their capital contributions, release of requests for proposals for building and site designs, coordination with the Board of Supervisors for the County to self-finance the project, and any other project-manager tasks needed for the successful creation of a new shelter or shelters.”

“The 18 contracting cities need to review their long-term commitment to be part of Orange County Animal Care as opposed to pursuing animal-care opportunities on their own or joining with neighboring cities that have shelters. The contracting cities need to demand that the County provide them a viable plan with cost and schedule estimates for a new facility or facilities to evaluate as part of their commitment review.”

FOLLOW-UP

In accordance with California Penal Code Sections 933 and 933.05, the 2014-15 Grand Jury requires responses from each agency affected by the recommendations presented in this section. The responses are to be submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court. Lake Forest must comment and I plan to agendize the Grand Jury report so that the public will be able to provide input.

LAKE FOREST

It seems logical that the best course of action for Lake Forest is to encourage the Supervisors to get going on a series of new animal shelters, one of which should be located in South County since there are a number of cities in South Orange County who already contract with the County for animal services (e.g., Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, RSM, SJC). All told, the 1,000 to 2,000 animals per year from these 4 cities would make for an excellent local shelter that could be built on existing county land so that the costs of building the shelter are reduced.

One likely spot for a South County animal shelter is Musick Jail, owned by the County and the home to about 1,000 prisoners some of whom could be enlisted to help in the care of the shelter. Programs involving Prisoners and Pets are popular all over the country and provide benefits for both groups.

To date the Supervisors have been adamant that they do not want to create a South County shelter, but with the recent changes, perhaps there is some hope.

If the Supervisors are recalcitrant, as they have been in the past, then Lake Forest could seek to join one of the existing local shelters, as we have in Mission Viejo and Irvine. Mission Viejo already contracts with Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo, and Irvine contracted with Costa Mesa in the past. Right now, Irvine is re-structuring their shelter, so they would be unlikely to take on a new partner. Nonetheless I have broached the subject with their Mayor. Mission Viejo does have some spare space, but probably not enough to accommodate the 500 animals a year that Lake Forest represents. Partnering with Mission Viejo would mean that the City would have to pony up some seed money to help Mission Viejo expand to accommodate the added numbers. This is not an impossible task, but would require the approval of the Mission Viejo City Council.

A third option is to form a joint venture with our fellow South County cities and have a regional animal shelter. Along with Lake Forest, RSM, and Laguna Hills have a population base of 170,000+ which exceeds the population base of most city-based shelters (e.g., Mission Viejo, Laguna Beach, Westminster, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Seal Beach, etc.). Joint venture animal shelters are not uncommon (e.g., San Clemente/Dana Point, Mission Viejo/Laguna Niguel/Aliso Viejo, Newport Beach/Corona Del Mar). So the prospects of being able to fund a multi-city regional shelter are good.

SUMMARY

Given the poor conditions at the OC animal shelter, there are 3 ways to improve conditions for people and their pets

1. Convince the Supervisors to build a South County shelter (unlikely given their past performance).

2. Partner with one of our neighbors (possible future option, but now is not necessarily the best time)

3. Work with other cities to build a multi-city regional shelter (within reach).

Next time we’ll look at the financial issues involved in operating a multi-city shelter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting quarter. The next meeting will be on August 15 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

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