$965,000 for animal shelters

County comes to agreement, proposes immediate fixes

By GREGORY ROBERTS
P-I REPORTER

Putting an end to their squabbling over the King County animal control program, the County Council and County Executive Ron Sims jointly outlined an agreement Thursday to spend nearly $1 million on immediate improvements and to plan the transformation of the much-criticized operation into a national model of excellence.

"It's a responsibility to provide humane care and give every healthy or treatable animal a home," Council Vice Chairman Dow Constantine, D-Seattle, said at a news conference announcing the agreement.

The joint announcement represents an easing of the tensions that were heightened by a council consultant's March report that was harshly critical of Sims, who oversees the county's animal control and care services.

Under the agreement, the county will replace all cat cages and add dog runs at or near the main animal shelter in Kent to reduce overcrowding and the risk of infectious disease. Spending also will go to expand veterinary services, review agency operations, add to the shelter staff, assess building and equipment needs and hire workers to enhance placement of animals for adoption, coordinate volunteer activity and improve public outreach.

Of the $965,000 in spending, about $570,000 would come from an animal benefit fund built up over 20 years from donations by people licensing their pets, adopting animals or simply making charitable contributions. The rest will come from the county's capital budget.

Sims, Constantine and Council Chairwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, said a group comprising representatives of the executive, the council, the sheriff, the prosecutor and Public Health -- Seattle & King County will meet over the next four months and present the council with a plan for 2009-11. The plan will include recommendations for how to deliver services and measure their effectiveness, for what animal-care facilities the county needs and whether the county should reorganize its animal-care bureaucracy or possibly join with outside agencies to provide the services.

"I'm very encouraged," animal-care activist Claire Davis said after the news conference, which she attended. "I think today is a very good day for animals in King County."

Davis is president of a local anti-euthanasia organization and also is a member of a council-appointed citizens advisory committee that in September issued a report damning the county animal-care operation. County animal control director Al Dams has said his agency has either effected or is acting on about two-thirds of the committee's 47 recommendations for reform, including improvements to kennel maintenance and recordkeeping and expansion of veterinary care and volunteer activity.

But when the consultant last month also slammed the system, council members publicly expressed their anger and frustration with Sims' failure to correct problems.

Sims reacted angrily to the report, too, flatly denying its accusations of mistreatment of animals and vowing to counterattack.

"Will we bite back? No question," he said late last month.

Sims took the report's criticisms personally. His staff sought to portray the consultant -- national anti-euthanasia activist Nathan Winograd of California -- as a sort of animal-control guerrilla executing a carefully crafted battle strategy.

The ferocity of Sims' response startled some council members.

"The subject of animal care in King County has become a very emotional issue," Patterson said at the outset of the news conference. "It also, unfortunately, has become an issue that has divided King County government."

But that breach has been repaired, the council members and Sims said.

"Once we got through the rhetoric, we've discovered that we share the same vision," Patterson said. "What we've decided, collectively, is we want a model animal care and control program."

And Sims said, "We know we can do a heck of a lot better."

It's clear, Sims said, the county needs a new shelter. Beyond that, he and the council members said, the county will strive for a "no-kill" program, in which only incurably ill or vicious animals will be euthanized.

The council has tightened its focus on animal care partly in response to the well publicized abuse of a pit bull puppy in Federal Way in 2006. The animal, suffering from chemical burns over much of its body, was euthanized by a veterinarian.

King County established its animal care and control agency in 1972. It operates shelters in Kent and Bellevue and provides services in unincorporated King County and by contract to most suburban cities.

Seattle runs its own program.