Time to move beyond the current crisis at Garland's Animal Shelter and immediately start planning and funding a new facility

The 53-year-old antiquated, small Garland Animal Shelter needs to be replaced soon.

The situation with the Garland Animal Shelter's rare distemper outbreak and the days of crisis that followed begs for a quicker solution to our community's need for a new animal shelter.

The outbreak followed on the heels of a major uproar on City Council over the care of our animals at the shelter and the role of people outside Garland in the dispute.

Were the two major events connected? The manager of our animal shelter believes not. Others tend to agree with him—that the two issues occurring so close together was coincidental.

Regardless, the two matters have significantly raised the profile of our 53-year-old, outdated, undersized, and inadequately designed (for today's needs) facility.

Thanks to the drama involved and all the media coverage, the ball is now rolling to push Garland in the direction of finally "doing something" about our old animal shelter.

Back in the 1960s when the small shelter was "cutting-edge", it was designed as the hub for reuniting runaway dogs and cats captured by our "dogcatcher" with their pet owners. That description hardly begins to describe all the demands on our animal shelter today.

Garland in 1965 had a population of about 60,000 compared to a population today of around 240,000—a fourfold increase.

And our dog and cat populations have grown tremendously as well—some believe much more rapidly. A study by the City of Garland Animal Services Department in July 2015 showed an estimated dog population of 47,206 and an estimated cat population of 51,605. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in 2016 Garland had 75,428 households. So, if every household in the city had either a cat or a dog, we would have 23,383 left over—enough for roughly 1 in 3 to have a second dog or cat. 

Pets today fill much-expanded roles in our lives than our pets did back then. A "service animal" was much less used back in 1965. Laws that require landlords to accept such pets—or face severe penalties—were not heard of then.

Besides being a place to reunite runaway pets with their owners, our shelter today has become a place where pet owners drop off their unwanted dogs and cats, where pet adoptions take place, and where citizens pick up traps for rats, squirrels, rabbits, and all sorts of other animals. It serves a myriad of other functions—including capturing, sterilizing, and releasing "feral cats" and other animals—that were far less visualized back in the mid-1960s.

As the "crisis du jour" roiled at Garland Animal Shelter this week, the city had to use this temporary facility to house dogs.

Where does the city go from here in the aftermath of the two back-to-back shelter issues?

Acknowledging a problem immediately is the first step in finding a cure. We've now doubled that acknowledgement in the past three months. Who among us doesn't believe we have a serious problem with our current animal shelter facility? 

The stage is now set for finding a solution to the nearly two-decades' old question, What are we going to do about our outdated and inadequate Garland animal shelter?

The answer already floating is to wait until the city finishes its bureaucratic processes and decides whether to hold a proposed bond election that includes a new animal shelter. Depending on the exact timetable, that could mean waiting until possibly 2020 or maybe later to get started with planning and construction, with probably a finish date of 2021 or later.

After all, as all know, nearly half of the monies approved in the 2004 bond issue are still sitting on ice. Surely that won't happen again, but there is a history here. Nothing is ever certain, despite best intentions.

Instead, many of us believe the city should start immediately to work on the issue. We've talked long enough. It's time now for action. We need a plan in place soon—before another crisis hits.

The process needs to be fully public and to involve our citizens as much and as often as possible.

The City Manager already made clear in his new budget priorities that the animal shelter is one of his top priorities; he made that announcement the very evening that the city publicly reported the canine-distemper outbreak.  

City Manager Bryan Bradford has the authority to move funds now to identify and get the planning processes going for the new shelter. As we learned during the controversy over the bulldozing of the old Armory in Central Park, he can approve up to $50,000 without Council approval. That should be adequate to get the ball rolling on at least site selection and preliminary architectural work.

Bond funds may be needed and available later, but we already know the city coffers will soon be filling with new monies from the dramatic increases in property values and the tax revenue that's going to generate for the city. Barring the unlikely event of a sudden and dramatic downturn in the Texas and U.S. housing markets, the new tax money will be available one way or the other, with or without a possible bond proposal that includes the shelter.

And for years citizens such as Lee Lutz and Terrie Kieper have maintained that in the past private monies were available for at least part of the new shelter but that the former mayor and several former members of City Council blocked their efforts to tap those funds. Citizens like these two dedicated, energetic, and talented community leaders—and any others involved with them in the quest in the past or want to be in the present—need to be empowered immediately to establish a citizens committee to bring forth public recommendations and proposals for what private funding is available now and how this can be obtained and used.  Others who have poured heart and soul into the animal-shelter issue need to be included, too. 

As I have said many times, I would like to see what citizens working together can do using a variety of resources and not just tax money—a true private-public participatory partnership!

Meanwhile, the issues of where should the shelter be situated, how large it should be, and what the design needs to be require attention as soon as possible. Uriel Villalpando, animal services manager at our city's present animal shelter, says he has all kinds of thoughts and ideas about how to answer those questions. Our crusading animal-loving citizens and their friends need to have a voice in these decisions, too.

The current location may have been a good idea 53 years ago, but it is definitely not the right place now for what is needed. Ditto for its size, purpose, and design. Let's move quickly beyond the past and into a brighter future!

I've seen and heard estimates ranging from $6 million to $40 million for the new animal shelter. We need to get the amount nailed down, without such wild variations being stated around the community. The exact amount needs to be determined now by knowledgeable citizens and experts—not waiting for a possible "bond committee" to be formed to study and prioritize all the needs of the city and decide what's leftover for the new shelter.

A price tag of $40 million is one thing; a sticker price of $6 million is an entirely different matter.  The larger may require some bond money. The smaller may be able to fly on its own. We need to know the difference now, not later.

Unlike streets and other major infrastructure needs, most of the issues surrounding building the new Garland animal shelter are easily resolvable now and may be within resources already readily available—if community leaders and citizens will simply pull together, use their ingenuity, open their hearts and minds to the idea, and just DO IT!

This photo of Garland's Animal Shelter gives an idea of how small it is.