Update on the OC Animal Shelter

On Thursday the “Design Advisory Board” (DAB) for Orange County Animal Care (OCAC) met, and in addition to the Committee members, the public was able to attend. The DAB has been meeting to plan the new $35,000,000 animal shelter in Tustin. Lake Forest is one of only two cities in South Orange County who will use the shelter. In total, 14 cities have contracted with OCAC.

COSTS

The agreement between the cities and the county calls for the cities to contribute between $25 and $30 million and the county to provide the extra $5 million to build the shelter. As far as I know this is the only time cities have been asked to build a county shelter. Elsewhere counties build their own shelters, and charge the cities when they use it. Apparently OC has invented a new way of doing things. The cities will fund the project, but have no equity in the building. Not only do we have no equity for our $30 million contribution, the gains the county gets by vacating the existing shelter are not being factored into the agreement.

Compare this to the County Jail where the County will spent $100,000,000 to build an add-on to Musick Jail. The cities will use the jail, but the cities are being asked to contribute $ 0 to the building of the County Jail.

DESIGN BUILD

The County is using a “design build” strategy in order to get the project built on schedule. This means that “horizontal building is going on even while vertical building is still being discussed”. Further, it means that “multiple pieces are moving at the same time”.

But everyone admits that a “design build” strategy has inherent problems, one of which is cost containment. Trying to do both (design and build) at the same time does not provide sufficient time to discover all the costs. For example, the team believed that the costs of the land would be $0, but as it turns out, the City of Tustin requires $1.7 million in improvements in order for OCAC to take the land for free. Memo to the County - There is no free lunch!

Everyone acknowledge the inherent problems. “Changes occur under which we have no control” is the explanation from the County.

As if the “design build” philosophy wasn’t problematic enough, the County Rep Shane Silsby apologized for what might appear to be a lack of attention to this project. The County is currently engage in 6 major civic projects (including Musick Jail), so resources are spread thinly. That being said, I got the impression that they were on top of the project and trying to do their best to reconcile the interests of the various players – the Board of Supervisors, the cities, the architects, the Shelter consultants, the OCAC staff, the rescue groups, and the general public, particularly the animal activists. I equally got the impression that in their fervor to do this as quickly as possible, not all the issues were being adequately addressed. For example, at one point Mr. Silsby talked about “room for expansion”. My understanding is that throughout the U.S. shelter size has been decreasing. Even here in OC with one of the worst shelters and services in the U.S., admissions are declining. Why of Earth would the County be talking about “expansion” and why would we be paying for it?

THE REALITY OF WHAT WE’LL GET

The original idea of building a “world class” shelter has been abandoned. The idea of building a “state of the art” shelter has also been abandoned. But the County Representative believes we will have a modern shelter where “state of the art practices” will be used. Perhaps, better said, the new shelter will be designed so that “state of the art” practices could be implemented, but there is no indication that there are any changes in leadership or management which will ensure that the actual practices change. This is a critical factor and one that is completely ignored in the rush to build the new shelter. The analogy oft used is “putting lipstick on a pig”. “Won’t it be great to have a new shelter?”, but anyone who read the 5 Grand Jury investigations knows that the criticisms are as much about the terrible physical setting as they are about poor leadership, poor management, poor training, poor procedures, etc. Of course the DAB is concerned with construction, so there was no discussion of this issue.

The new shelter is going to have an industrial look. It is remarkably uninspiring, in my opinion. Of course it will look better than the barbed wire enclosure currently being used. But no one was touting the “street appeal”.

WHAT WE WON’T GET

We won’t be getting multiple shelters. No other County of our size has a single shelter. Many counties smaller than us have multiple shelters. Why? Because counties are big, and it’s better to have smaller more local shelters. Why? Because more local shelters get more volunteers (which helps keep costs down) and have much higher adoption rates (which lowers killing and increases revenue). In addition, more local shelters make it easier on the citizens to use the shelter.

Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at some of the issues discussed.

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 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in November at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.