[Music]
julio
trujillo trujillo
[Music]
all right welcome commissioner yes ma'am
yes sir thank you
good morning everybody you're now live
thank you adrian good morning it is 903
a.m on january 28th
we are going to call the to order the
uh board of directors meeting for the
animal service center of the messiah
valley
clint would you mind calling the role
yes sir we have
chair flores
madam sheriff flores
vice chair sanchez president
board mentor member benches dubai
board member julio
here
uh let's see i didn't get my list quite
done yet
member ganduran
[Music]
ex-official member jeannie quintero
present and
next official member eric
enriquez
all right vice chair looks like we have
quorum
okay and i'll note for the record also
uh from the county side
uh commissioner ellens uh is also
uh staying on the the board as well
along with myself
and so it does not look like he is
president or perceived
present um
so we'll just note that for the record
thank you um
i see chair float is uh joining in
uh you're still on mute madam chair
i'm so sorry thank you for taking over
manny uh
sure no problem um we were getting ready
to
uh item number two or section two
changes to the agenda approval
of the agenda but thank you are there
any changes
none from the center now i beg your
pardon
none from the center the ascb
oh is that you clint yeah sorry none
from me
madam chad this is commissioner sanchez
yes i would just like to note that uh
for the record that
mr enriquez and um
well i just saw commissioner allen's is
is connecting on as well so they should
uh
they look like they'll be they all just
want to show for the record that they
are
in attendance they are in attendance
so we do have a quorum though otherwise
we wouldn't have been
on this item correct correct
um do you know um whether
mr commissioner sanchez do you know
whether commissioner
uh speaking of quorums apropos uh
quorums uh whether
uh commissioner trujillo will be on the
board
she she's yes she is and she is present
oh wonderful
welcome uh commissioner trujillo
thank you ma'am thank you you're welcome
nice seeing you again um
thank you so um
okay so um the minutes did everyone have
an opportunity to review
the the minutes excuse me yes mr
mr sanchez oh i was just going to make a
motion that we approved the agenda
uh yes thank you is there a second to
that motion
a second and thank you uh counselor
uh abeytastuvi and um
can we have a roll call on that please
i'm going to do my best this is
this is clint thacker madam chair flores
yes vice chair sanchez yes
board member eventus duvet yes
board member trujillo
yes board member uh
[Music]
ellens
board member ellens you're on mute sir
commissioner allen's if you the easiest
way to unmute would be to press your i
believe your space bar
while you're talking that'll give you a
quick unmute
you just need to hold it down mister as
you talk
you hear me now yes sir yep okay
so what is your vote sir
yes thank you
all right madam chair passes motion
passes
uh thank you uh thank you commissioner
uh
sanchez uh the next item is
um reports and uh
presentations no excuse me yes
reports and presentations
i see that gilbert so uh coalition i'm
sure
yes uh you don't have approval of the
minutes yet
we just did approval of the of the
agenda
oh i'm so sorry sorry sorry
madam chair this is commissioner sanchez
i'll make a mistake
do we need to vote i mean we um
okay do i have a motion for that may i
have a motion for the approval of the
minutes
this commissioner sanchez i'll move
approval
thank you second athena uh moved by
commissioner sanchez and second by
councillor beta steube to approve the
minutes of the regular
ascmv board meeting held on december 17
2020 roll call please thank you
madam chair flores
yes vice chair sanchez yes
board member beta stevie yes
board member trudio
yes board member ellens
yes motion passes madam chair
thank you mr thaecker uh on to
uh reports and presentations that's item
four uh subsection a
uh coalition for pets and um
and people gene gilbert are you ready to
present
yes i am thank you proceed
it's good morning everyone
good morning i'm just waiting for the
powerpoint to come up
uh
okay this is today's uh presentation
by the coalition for pets and people the
organizations that are represented
uh in this month's report are listed
here
and as you know we alternate so
the organizations that aren't on this
list will be
in next month's presentation
and statistics with information on the
programs and services
of the organizations that are listed
here
are provided in the board members
packets
thank you next slide please
the coalition's work includes serving as
allies of the shelter
and supporting area animal welfare
organizations
and their missions this list shows some
of the ways that we've helped
also in the area of continuing education
attending a webinar that was sponsored
by
the animal protection of new mexico
with headquarters in albuquerque in the
webinar was
on humane education
thank you next slide please
uh this is barkhouse and uh barkhouse uh
pictured is inky on the left inky was
terrified when she
arrived at the shelter and uh so scared
that she would tightly wrap her
paws around attendance people that were
working with her
and she delivered eight puppies the day
after
barkhouse pulled her from the shelter
inky and her pups were part of the group
of
of mom dogs and 22 puppies that were
transported by
air in mid-december to denver where they
were welcomed by
colorado puppy rescue and all of these
weak
animals we can assume have found homes
now
pictured right is kelly barker founder
of uncaged paws
which was a founder of uncaged paws
which is now known as barkhouse
as noted uh by bark house's logo
in the lower right corner their mission
is to
fix chip and ship animals
in their care meaning that they spay and
neuter
microchip and transport or provide
rescue by
relocation okay next slide please
pictured left is cody anderson a student
pilot with
chief pilot dr lauren
chavez with the southwest aeronautics
mathematics and science academy
they flew inky who was referenced in the
previous slide and 22 puppies with their
with mom dogs on the first leg of the
flight with transfer in albuquerque
and then on to colorado in addition to
this flight
bark houses in partnership with dona ana
county
animal control sponsored a flight in
early december for 73
animal service center shelter dogs to
portland oregon
and this was a feature that was in the
las cruces bullet
which and i'm sure many of you saw that
in the
las cruces bulletin before we move to
the next slide i'd like to ask
jeannie quintero if she has anything
she'd like to add regarding county's
work
uh partnership with barkhouse we do
understand that they have three
moms and pups in their care now that uh
mom dogs that have recently delivered
puppies that came from the shelter
jeannie do you have anything you'd like
to add or an update
oh just to announce the birth this
morning
of six new puppies um they're doing well
and we are assisting with temporary
housing
for pregnant dogs um county dogs that
are coming from the shelter
or from rescue or or picked up
and uh we have been working with
barkhouse
pretty much to serve as a
hub for transport we hope to
formalize this relationship in a few
months
but right now we are we are happy to
help out we are happy to put our
hold facility to use and
we're just full of babies right now
thank you thank you genie and next slide
please
i'm almost home animal rescue is based
in el paso
and serves that area as well as las
cruces
their director diane avery works closely
with many
fosters and groups here in las cruces
effie pictured left was found just
before
christmas huddled and nearly frozen by a
hardware
store in chaparral with three big gashes
across her back and shoulder
excuse me
it was assumed that injuries were caused
by
um either dog or coyote attacks to
fen um dr hayden at
uh animal services center treated effie
and put drains
in in her while
i'm almost home animal rescue
secured a foster for effie the dog
pictured rye
was also rescued by i'm almost home
animal rescue
found as astray and anthony and was this
dog was acting very frantic going
to every car in the store parking lot
trying to find
someone to help it um
in 2020 i'm almost home
animal rescue networked over
a thousand dogs and in the first 15
days of 2021 they've transported
over 60 dogs and puppies to areas of the
country where they
note and this is him something
interesting for us to know
is that stray unwanted dogs
in other places seemingly don't exist
and where dogs are welcomed and needed
as companions
and part of the family
okay thank you next slide please
and las cruces dog park is located at
430 no
north hermosa south of marshad
center city parks and rec do a power
washing of the park
on a regular basis while dog park
members maintain the park with monthly
washdowns
cleanups on the right you see astro who
was a regular
visitor to the park in route with his
owner to the park
and in addition to the volunteer
services that dog parkers
provide they also advocate for community
animals that need help
like the dog pictured um left who was
this great dane mix who was a lost dog
uh the las cruces uh pet network
advocate uh
the animal advocates who are the primary
people that
um do the distribution work for the
network are
randy meyer and d dougal and they send
notices to a very large distribution
list
regarding animals in need like snoop
who's pictured left who was lost
and eventually reunited with his owner
the pet network also advocates for
sheltered dogs like big boy who's
pictured right
who was a long-term resident at the
shelter recently uh uh was
placed in a home and it's our
understanding a recent update that it
isn't working out
and so kevin armstrong uh the director
of
of the of the dog park actually is
advocating for
big boy and i think they're going to be
looking into getting training
perhaps through rough to ready uh the
dona ana county humane society's
behavior and training that they offer
free
for shelter a dog for dogs that have
been adopted from the shelter
so we're hoping for a good outcome for
big boy
the pet network before we move the pet
network logged
more than 80 email notices in 2020
to members on their distribution list
okay thank you next slide please
manager
forever homes animal rescue is basically
yes excuse me um commissioner
uh trujillo did you have a question
yes uh miss gilbert um yes
i'm big boy did they specify what
problems he had that
with them working out at the at the new
home
is he really hyper or did they say yes
my
yeah it's my understanding that too much
dog
you know too much energy so
needs probably need some some some
training i don't know
if it's still going to work with
training but um
like i said kevin armstrong is uh being
an advocate for the dog and helping
uh with the pers with the person here
and that's my understanding the person
who adopted the dog will still continue
to be a foster
anyway thank you
big boy um reminds me of my dog i'm
really hyper
so that's what it looks like thank you
uh forever homes animal rescue is based
in alamogordo and assists
animals in southern new mexico el paso
and juarez jamie jones is the las cruces
representative
and their year to date estimate totals
are 674 animals were helped
through their organization by rescue
transport and transfer
during 2020 133
dogs came from dona ana luna in otero
counties
with more than 50 dog animals dogs i
think largely dogs
from the shelter including the two
pictured here
145 dogs they helped
from juarez were rescued and helped
during 2020.
the dog pictured right i know recently
went to an aussie
australian shepherd rescue
and of course forever homes animal
rescue was
involved in the transport
both dogs in very uh urgent need
being pregnant and having other like the
heartworm positive dog pictured uh
right so it's important extremely
important work
that they do okay next slide please
safe haven animal sanctuary celebrates
their 25th anniversary this year and
they're commemorating that
with a special calendar uh
featuring uh some of their sanctuary
pets
jazz pictured right was recently adopted
in his own january dog
shaw's was successful in adopting over
20 animals during 2020 and as we know
it's been in
2020 was an extremely challenging year
next slide please
safe haven has many friends and allies
in the community
including your pet space which is a
boarding and day care facility for pets
here in las vegas
they let a pet food and supply drive at
their facility during the month of
december for safe haven and were very
successful as noted
by the suv packed vehicle pictured
that carried the large load of items to
the
sanctuary trisha quillen is safe haven
representative
is pictured right in the center holding
a check
donated by your pet space
and next slide please
this slide summarizes important
information
for snaps services including
client requirements for vouchers snap
has facilitated the sterilization of
nineteen 000 pets in our area since
2002 which is a remarkable
number statistics with breakdown of
categories
for 2020 and for january 21 are provided
in board members packets
total spay neuter voucher issued
for 2020 by snap numbered 1227.
next slide please
cat lacey owner of better life pet foods
presents a check to rachel snow
a representative of snap
cat is pictured far
left and rachel's the other gal the
large
check to support snap's important work
was made possible through
better live pet foods loyalty program
allowing customers to donate their
points which
translate into dollars accrued from
purchases to go to snap
or their other options of course listed
within the loyalty program
better life does a lot for
area animal welfare organizations
and just one more slide please
over 10 years ago a group of animal
lovers
created change a pet's life day
observed on january 24th to recognize
the hard work of shelter staff and
volunteers
to encourage the adoption of shelter
pets
and to raise awareness about the
challenges for animals living in
shelters
the coalition believes that this should
be observed every day
we invite you to join us a large group
of allies
and supporting the shelter and bringing
more resources for life
saving through rescue foster transport
excuse me adoption and a variety of
other advocacy
roles please call the numbers that are
listed
here uh for information about the
coalition
and i'd like to thank all of you for
your attention to this presentation
and i stand for any questions that you
might have or
comments now thank you
any questions
madam chairs commissioner sanchez yes
proceed i don't have a
there you go okay yes i i don't have a
question just so much as i just wanted
to
uh you know just say miss gilbert i
appreciate uh
you coming in every every month
providing updates and appreciate all the
the partner groups that we have that
work along with the ascmv to
um i think really help amplify uh the
message help
uh provide additional resources to
making sure we're finding homes
um for all of our animals here so thank
you so much ms gilbert
thank you for your positive uh comment
appreciate it i do have a quick question
if i could ask it please
and maybe it'll be addressed in um in
the any of the reports coming
up but i'm just curious you know i i was
served as a member of the task force
and i know that we've had uh the public
input
process at least i'm assuming that it
has been completed on the uh
city ordinances and so my question is
i'm just wondering when that might be
finalized and
and the reason i'm expressing a concern
excuse me is because you know we the
coalition we follow
the stats closely the animal shelter and
as allies you know we we want to keep
informed
and we're concerned that um city
uh community cats are by
a virtue of how the laws stand right now
are uh euthanized if they come to the
shelter
and so um i we know that's going to
change when the
ordinance goes into effect but anyway if
someone could answer that i'd appreciate
it
madam chair this is clint thacker i can
help you with that
thank you proceed mr thacker so just on
tuesday we had a meeting
uh regarding this
and we being city officials
and we were able to to pretty much track
down that yes the comments
you know were are great good information
coming from
individuals make comments so the plan is
is to make sure
legal uh has the ordinance
and then also to get the information
that was feedback
given back to uh the task force i
believe was what it was
so we you know look forward to that
moving forward i know that
uh mr enriquez said probably around
march
or so it could be going to
a council for review but
yeah it's moving forward we're glad to
hear it
thank you thank you for the question
um miss gilbert it was nice to be
updated
that wasn't part of that officials i
don't know which officials participated
in that
uh elected officials or staff
mr kathaker it was it was staff that
participated in
okay so um mr enriquez do you have
anything to add to what mr thacker just
presented
yes madam chair thank you uh just want
to add that yes
uh the the ordinance is being reviewed
by legal
as soon as we get that back what we'd
like to do is schedule a work session
so that we can um share with the
uh city council the significant changes
and then get the final direction and
we'll move move with the change in the
ordinance
mr indica do you think that that
resolution uh excuse me the
um the discussion uh work session will
be held
in february or march
depending on when we get the the
approval from legal if we can get it
real soon uh there's some openings
in the work sessions that we can get it
uh
probably late february or early march is
what we're interested in
so we can have the work session and
again discuss the significant changes
in the ordinance and then get directions
from city council
great thank you so much mr enriquez and
thank you again uh miss gilbert for
the question and thank you mr thacker
for providing
uh some on that yes
thank you oh mr um
alex is that you uh gene
i keep reading accounts
that because everybody has been
required to stay home seven days a week
that pet adoptions nationally
have increased as a result
needing companionship and things like
that has that been the case
as far as your organizations are
concerned
well i think it pretty much varies from
organization to
organization i feel like for example
hss m which i'm on the board of i
our adoption numbers are are down but
we've increased in other capacities and
in other work and so i think that's the
case with other organizations
we all have our own missions
and they they differ i think what's hurt
animal organizations in terms of
adoptions has been they have not been
able to showcase their animals
places like you have your your
organizations that will come to petsmart
and showcase them there and they haven't
been able to uh
do that so i think clint could speak to
that too i
i know in a previous um
animal services board meeting clint was
noting that
because the animals that i mean the
adoptions at the shelter they are by
appointment
people so they these are serious people
who are
very serious about adopting an animal
and they're making an appointment to
come to the shelter
so i don't know clint do you want to add
to that to mr ellen's question
i think you did a good job it depends on
the the place's
mission of what it is you know we have
seen an
uh not really an increase but a steady
stream of rescue opportunities
that are coming through so we're putting
a lot of animals continue to put a lot
of animals to rescues and you're going
to see that increase
in number when i do my presentation
as far as adoptions i would like to say
that adoptions are holding on strong we
had a great day yesterday with seven
dogs leaving
or seven total animals i think five of
them were dogs so
things are holding steady for sure
and if i can interject in this too just
to kind of recap
everyone on that december sixth lift
that we assisted barkhouse with
we sent out 74 dogs um
and young to adult and within a week the
vast
majority of them were adopted and all of
them were not placed in a shelter but
the ones who weren't adopted right away
were placed in foster care
so i think and i agree with gene and
clint that
it's mostly a regional need and what
you're looking at now we have sent all
those dogs to oregon
um they have a need there so i i think
again it just varies on geographical
location and what the needs of that
community are
thank you ms quintero any further
comments on
that question regarding adoptions if not
um
so no further questions thank you so
much miss miss gilbert
uh next item is the city county aco
excuse me city and county aco reports
mary lou are you here
yes i'm here can you hear me yes i can
hear you
we can hear okay let me go ahead and
start my
report and i will start it with
enough but you can see the whole the
whole
the whole screen or can you can you see
the whole screen
yes okay it's visible to me
probably everybody okay
so let me go ahead and start with our
december um
reporting for december and i kind of
implemented
our december numbers and then our year
to date
so if we go into our dispatch calls for
december we had
446 dispatch calls for the month
um which gave us a year to date of 6266.
our self-initiated calls were 117 which
gave us a year-to-date of 1285 and then
our assists were 23
which gave us a year-to-date of 262.
so our grand total for the month was
586.
um and our follow-ups um
which i hadn't put been putting in here
because um we during the first part of
the year we were keeping statistics a
little bit differently
so for the year to date that was a
thousand ninety eight so that gave us a
grand total of eight thousand
nine hundred and eleven um
calls that we've either responded to
or followed up on or assisted with for
the year
and reported and that is actually
supposed to be
for november december and i thought i
had switched that
um it's supposed to be for december um
and and i'm hoping i'm on the correct
correct um slide
so for for um the reported strays
so we reported um 267 stray animals for
the month and it should be for the month
of december so there is it says for
november but it's december
um so for reported for the year would be
3 257.
we picked up 52 stray cats and 88 stray
dogs so which would give us a total of
straight animals
additionally to that number
we had an owner surrender cat of
one cat which we hadn't been getting on
our surrender cats if you look back at
the previous stats that's pretty much
been in the zero but we did have one
owner surrender cat
um 11 owner surrendered dogs
17 sick or injured animals a welfare
hold
one cruelty abuse neglect
and then a shelter quarantine and you'll
get the reasons for the owner surrender
here in just a minute
and then this is our comparison chart
kind of like what the city was doing
they'll show you the comparisons
and then of course this is just an
explanation of the district so that'll
be good to leave in there for our new
commissioners
coming in and then
breaking it down into the districts so
district one we had zero cats
and four stray dogs picked up district 2
11 straight cats 12 stray dogs district
21 stray cats 16 stray dogs
district 4 12 stray cats 22 stray dogs
district 5 17 stray dogs district six
four stray dogs and district seven eight
stray cats and thirteen stray dogs
so our bike calls we had seven exposure
bites to humans one bite to another
animal
we didn't have any rabies submissions
this
this month and of one quarantined at the
animal services center we had
these three for a private prior case was
was that is
actually from the last time i don't know
why this got stuck in there
because there was another one that got
sent in and then some that were goa
so our owner releases and
um we've got so reason for owner release
now it's got 12
on there so i'm thinking this slide is
probably the older slide for some reason
because it's got the eight
aggressions and the cat was up because
the cat was sick and got hospitalized
and then the three that the dog
they just didn't want the dog anymore so
eight of them were aggressive and they
couldn't keep the dogs because they were
too aggressive
um so our court cases for december this
is correct
we did not have any court cases for
december
at all mary lou yes sir
the three dogs that were turned in
because the owners wanted to get rid of
them
were they senior dogs
they didn't give an age um they were
just um
they just say they just did not want the
dog anymore they didn't give an
age or anything why um i'm not sure what
was going on with it
um they didn't give any further
information on that
did anybody observe the temperament of
the dogs once they
came into the shelter
i'm not sure if the shelter did or not
it wasn't reported back to us
on that
so going on to the court excuse me miss
ward mr thacker do you have any
information regarding
mr uh alan's question
i do not off the top of my head
something i'd have to look into
okay thank you proceed miss ward
okay because going on maybe if you if
you go on facebook and you get
you get a lot of stories about dogs
being turned in they generally
supposedly get very depressed
right yeah i have not heard
we have our office has not heard any any
more about that
thank you miss word mr jimenez did you
officer jimenez
do you have a comment
no ma'am i sure don't i'm not on that
one okay
great i just want to get your name up on
the screen thank you
proceed miss ward okay
so as i was saying we had zero cases for
december
for court which is kind of unusual for
us
because we're usually in court a lot or
at least in the
virtual court these days a lot but we
didn't have anything that showed up for
the month of december
for animal control officers that is and
nothing for our
additional information on the court
cases and then a snap reports this is
what we got from the snap office
um so i turned added that in there um we
had 30 dogs
reported spayer neutered 18 cats
29 microchips and 30 rabies vaccinations
which are gave us our year to date
which was 61 dogs or cat dogs spayed or
neutered
114 cats spayed or neutered 141
microchips and 133
rabies vaccinations completed by the
snap with our free
the county's free spay and neuter
program
and for that i'll stand for any
questions
are there any questions for miss ward
i don't see any hands up i have a
question
regarding um the spaying and neutering
and just that last slide that you
put up do private
privately run veterinarian or
veterinarian services
um do they report anything to the county
or
to the city to the animal uh shelter
yes cmv do you know or mr thacker that's
probably a question for you
chair are you can you rephrase the
question again were you asking about
if we get county no no if um
if veterinarians a private uh
you know a private practice uh sends
their stats to you to the center
or to the county somehow is that any of
that captured any of those stats
captured
so you're asking if the local
veterinarians are reporting their
sterilization numbers to the center
correct
yes we do not get any of that
information no
oh okay would it be helpful to have that
kind of information so far as what our
populations are doing how are
animal populations i believe
miss quintero is waving her hand
friendly yes
yes i i saw that but i didn't see her
little blue hand over yeah i
have my even though i have two eyes
they both go in the same direction i
mean who knew
what you know we have the snap contract
and
what we get at the end of every month is
a list of all the dogs or cats who have
been spayed or neutered through the
voucher process
uh we also know who the vets are but
these are only reported as to the
individuals who have gotten a voucher
through snap so we have some idea what's
happening out there
but if a private individual brings their
animal to a vet to be spayed and
neutered we would never get that
reporting
only the reporting that comes through
the contract on the snap vouchers i see
okay i see so if the animal is a snap
recipient then you do get that yes we do
because then the doctor lets you know
that they perform the procedure
that's correct thank you ms quintero so
we do have
some reporting in that regard it'd be
good to distinguish
miss ward i do have a question or a
request
um as you may know we have a new member
on the board and that's
mayor trujillo from um from las cruces
who is also a commissioner for the
county of dona ana
you uh do you have a map of the
districts
so that we can um and so that we can see
where they are because you did you did
have stats for the districts but
but there wasn't a map matching the
district so
do you have that available or could you
just maybe
tell us which district uh she would fall
into
yes and and i well i have the map
when i sent out the explanation of the
geo districts
that's the the one that i sent with the
statistics
so i'm not sure where um
commissioner trujillo where she falls
under that
on the the districts um so like district
1 in anthony
okay so in anthony looking at that at
the geo districts that would be district
five which cover the anthony barino area
um because some of these districts as we
covered before
um they they mesh together so they
overlap
um because when our we get our
statistics and we get dispatched
we go through the same geo districts
that the 911 call center does and the
the sheriff's department
so that's how our stats come in and so
that's how we keep them so when we try
to break them up it's really hard to
break them up by commissioner district
um because they overlap a lot so a lot
of times our statistics might be
like if i try to go into like our
district three which is oregon
white sands missile range each may some
butterfield
um and then we go into the commissioner
districts they might overlap each other
so um that's why we try to just break it
up by the geo districts
it's a little bit easier that way and
and we don't want to um
count statistics twice um but that's the
district five if she looks at our
district five
stats that would count the barino and
anthony area on those stats for her
thank you thank you that's very helpful
miss ward you're welcome
any other questions i i do have my
screen where i can see
raised hands and i don't see any
thank you again uh ms ward thank you
you're welcome
uh the next presenter is uh officer uh
gino jimenez for the city of las cruces
good morning madam chair
good morning let me pull it up
and we will start
come on there we go
there we go is it starting from the
beginning
good morning madam chair members of the
board my name is gino jimenez i am the
animal control supervisor for the city
of las cruces
i am going to present to you our
december 2020 numbers
for the month of december 2020 we
responded to 403
stray calls 227 of those were goa
meaning the officer did not have contact
with that animal
we were able to apprehend a total of 173
animals 148 of those were
impounded at the animal sarah center 85
were
dogs 63 were cats
we were also able to successfully field
our to
28 dogs back to our animals back to
their owners
11 of those which we were unsuccessful
in our field are tailing went back went
to
the animal service center and those are
included in our impound numbers
so we and we also had a total of
38 39 identifiable animals
so here is our reported straight calls
in a three-year comparison
again this finished off the year so for
december we had 403
straight animal calls for the year that
gave us 5056
reported straight calls and you can tell
that those numbers are significantly
lower
than 2019 and 2018.
next slide is a three-year comparison of
our field rto rate
um again for did we finished off the
year in december we had 28
so that gave us a total of 378 for the
year
which is a little bit lower than 2019
and
um tremendously lower than 20
18. this is one number that we've always
wished that we could
always increase but if you look at
across the board we're still pretty
consistent our numbers are consistent
month to month
so here are the reasons we were unable
to field rto animals
seven microchips were not registered or
updated
two there was no answer on the phone or
at the residence
uh juan we were unable to contact the
chip company
and one was a welfare hold meaning
that that dog was going even though it
had information of who the dog owner is
because of the circumstances of the
conditions that that dog was
in um it had to go to the animal
services
center for the benefit of the animal
finally this is a number that we were
happy with this last month
we had zero owner-released animals uh
zero animals came from the citizens to
us
to the center as we all know during
covet
um we've always been trying to only
impound animals
that are a threat to public safety or
safety to the animal
or to the owners or also any animal that
is sick or injured
and last month this is our first zero so
that was a good one for us
so here is the the next slide is a
screenshot of the map
and let me
bring up the map itself
madam chair uh can you see my map yes
yes i can i think we all can gino okay
so call volume wise uh december was a
pretty slow no
a month for us so you'll see that
there's not as much activity as it has
been in previous months
um if there is any particular area that
anybody on the board would like me to
zoom in on i can do so at this time
mr jimenez officer jimenez
would you please explain please i'm just
asking people
uh for our new member uh mayor trujillo
um just could you please
explain what those dots mean and
um and then maybe amplify it as you've
shown us before
if you could just you know we we
understand
i mean those of us who have been on
board at least a year now
but for um for uh i just
i just like everybody to be on literally
on the same page
madam chair absolutely um board member
to heal
what you see here let me zoom out just a
little bit
what you see here is the different
color-coded um
districts council districts councilman
districts
so if we zoom in a little bit
you will see that there are three
different markers
there are the orange markers which
represent cats
the blue markers which represent dogs
and let me find a red marker
maybe there's not any um
you've had
um the red marker here represents
another and
other could be anything from a skunk to
a javelina
to a squirrel a rat anything other than
a dog or a cat
so you'll see that my map is marked with
the different
council districts and if you click on it
it will give you exactly who the
councilman is
now and this is similar to what mary lou
was saying earlier
um we are dispatched
by police beats which are different
than council districts fortunately i was
able to
work with the gis department and we
worked this out to only get
council districts so if our reporting is
different
so all i did was take the address and
inputted it into that council district
and i'll slowly pan around so that if
there's any questions
an area of interest becomes a concern
just let me know and i'll zoom in on it
are there any questions
yes madam chair i believe myself and uh
mayor pro tem
have their hands raised okay do you know
uh
which well since you're on the screen
and i can see you proceed
uh uh counselor aveda snoopy
thank you uh madam chair and thank you
geno
for this um i'm gonna ask about the cat
issues i know
my district has been um
having some of those kind of hot spot
areas i know you were talking about
i think it was around corbett um we had
had some issues and then i'm
noticing we have a couple of the cats
around espina again
and so i'm just are we staying
consistent with the same areas that
we're having these issues with the cats
yes ma'am and uh excuse me madam chair
councilman uh bethesda let me zoom in on
that area
and you'll know that from last month in
the month of november i should say
uh to december that number has
significantly dropped
so i zoomed in on that area and you can
see that we've only impounded five
last month where as in november i think
it was up to 23
or 17 i think something like that um so
it seems that we have taken um
gotten a little bit more control over
that area over the last month
okay um and then with that is
that perhaps is it a person that has
kind of collected the
the cats and we're just trying to
get those back because i know there was
neighbors around the area that were very
concerned a couple of those animals they
said look
they were in distress well
initially what happened on that case
ma'am is that um
right right before covet hit um
the neighbor came up the the complainant
or where we were picking up the majority
of the cats came up
and said that his neighbor was feeding
cats
which is totally a violation of the
ordinance right now it's considered
harboring
and there are no feral cat colony
permits going out
we have no registered feral cat colonies
within the entire city
um so he made a complaint that somebody
was feeding the cats and they were
coming into his property
and defecating and urinating it on his
lawn
um all he wanted at that time was for us
to
ask them to stop we did so we educated
the person that was feeding the cats and
they agreed to stop
however another individual from an
outside of the neighborhood
continued to feed the cat so we really
never
the cats never really went away um
the original complainant called back and
said hey i can't handle this anymore
my wife has respiratory issues and
these cats defecating and urinating in
my yard are aggravating
her health concerns
or issues and at that time he asked for
a trap and we did
uh loan out a trap to him and we started
trapping the cats
however um then kovit hit
and we stopped our trapping we stopped
loaning out
our traps and he has since uh
purchased one of his own and we will
still pick up uh traps
cats trapped in privately owned traps
and that's that's where we stand on that
that uh
case okay thank you and then
with obviously all these um
cats right here on orbit they all seem
to be within one residence
um is that something that we were
you said that there was about 23 in the
other area now this month there's only
about five so we've
i'm assuming we're we've had contact
with the owner to
come into compliance with that well this
was the
these were the known these were just
straight cats
okay so they weren't owned okay
do did we find out why they were
congregating in that area then
because the neighbor across the street
was feeding them the neighbor okay
okay and thank you i think that is
all my comments for now
share for us and thank you uh councillor
veda stewie
um mayor pro tem
thank you thank you madam chair um
thanks gino for the presentation um
always appreciative and i'm really
always very
um um impressed with this
rgi our gps system here
um i think um to piggyback on counselors
to
ebates duvi's um
questions i think my district found the
cats
because i have had an increase of
calls not a day goes by that i'm not
hearing from
a constituent in in two areas the
mesquite historic district
and now kilmer um and and i see them
on juniper there's at least three or
four um
a gray brown cat
that that's frequenting the the
the juniper area as well and so
i i
i appreciate counselor madam chair's um
comments about you know when we will see
what we'll see because right now we're
not registering the cat colonies
um and we're i think probably
because gino is familiar and has been
around
and has the history is aware of where
many of them
are but this issue really needs to come
to council
quickly i think we're getting quite a
bit of of
of um negative press about that sunset
right clause if you will and
all the various things that come with
that
um so i'm so my question is are you
seeing an increase in those areas
i know i'm sending quite a bit of emails
back to you
all um and you're going out there and
trying to
find out and educate as much as you can
but it's
it's a huge new sense
madam chair mayor pro tem candidate um
yes we
as a matter of fact are seeing a
tremendous increase in complaints about
cats
and i believe this is because
during the pandemic we have really um
one of the services that we had this cut
so that we would not expose ourselves to
potential covet
citizens or vice versa so that we
aren't exposing the citizens to us that
who we don't know may be uh positive as
well
that service was our traps um so we have
we have stopped our trap program
however we will still pick up traps from
privately owned
individuals uh we will still pick up
cats
from privately owned traps it's that
word
this i'm getting tongue-tied it's all
right
that's a hard thing to say several times
so
[Laughter]
say that three or four times fast
but so because um our traps aren't so
readily available there are people out
there that can't
or to purchase their own traps and they
were pers
pretty dependent on our programs
so therefore we're not helping them out
right now and we'll see that
there's an increase in stray cat calls
it is the reason that we also stopped it
too is because the uh
center asked us to stop taking in
or to reduce the number of animals uh to
the center as we possibly could
and again we could understand that
aspect as well because
again we want to limit the amount of
exposure to everybody as we possibly can
um so you're right that this this needs
to go to council as quickly as possible
so that it can be resolved either one
way or the other whether we go through
with community cats or we go back
to how it was and we stop uh and we
start addressing these complaints
uh head on again so
so gino when you say addressing those
complaints head on again
what would that consist of because i
guess i'm trying to find a
i so i understand about the safety and i
i have a meeting um today with our city
manager
so i understand i want to protect you i
want to protect the public
but i do think that you can issue out
traps
um leave them at the door
you know pick them up at the door where
you reduce
um the the face to face with the
resident
completely um and and
and i think we were there we we need to
do something different
um um because i i
i'm not even certain that the
registering of a cat colony
um i i think
it is is is is um
helpful and maybe it is maybe it isn't i
don't even know if we have the
the documentation right because we all
agreed that we should have been
documenting
um and sort of managing that information
so
that we had something right to really
see is this working
right is this really working so i guess
my question is to you
what were you doing before like when you
just exactly what your comment was what
were you doing before and did you feel
that it works because i'm hearing from a
lot of constituents
that um
the acos are saying and i quote someone
higher
up wants these cats to
um you know wants it this way
and and i've heard it from several
constituents
um and so i know that the acos are
saying something like that and
um you know i don't want to be hyper
critical because we're all trying to
work
and and to reduce this but i
i just want to make sure that the
communication is going
up and down and that we're doing what we
can um
to me not doing anything is not a good
strategy
right we have to do something and um
and right now before i mean because
between now march
april is a long time and i'm getting in
and i have
i'm fine about getting the calls i
address them but i keep
getting the same response back from
deputy chief
um carrie danes and others right and
it's because of the sunset
claws and all the other things that are
happening um
and i i we just can't be okay with that
anymore i think we need to push a little
harder and do some things differently um
um from the city's perspective
i'm madam chair mayor pro tem gander and
i agree with you
um i think covid
changed a lot for everybody yeah um
it changed all a lot of our practices a
lot of our services were cut i think
and who did it affect it affected the
community it affected the citizens that
were
that were dependent and that relied on
the services that they were accustomed
to
20 years ago 25 years ago they were used
to getting a trap from us
and they were used to taking the
nuisance cats
out of their yard by animal control um
but because of kovar we stopped that and
we did it for two parts like i said
um number one exposure citizens to
officer officer to citizen
and also because it was a request from
the center to not bring in as many
animals
as we had in the past to also reduce
their exposure from staff to citizens
citizens staff
i we are tossing up right now tossing
the ball up in the air saying should we
go back to
what our services were in 2018
or 2019 and give the citizens back that
services that that they
pay for um if we do then it's going to
put the center in a bind because their
numbers are going to
skyrocket according to what we impounded
in 19 and 20. um so there's got to be
a balance there somewhere that we still
enforce and we still pick up the animals
that we are
obligated to pick up and then the
balance with the center being able to
manage those numbers
and that um um
the amount of contact that they may have
with the citizens
sure i i understand you know i
understand everybody's plight and
everybody's hands that are
are tied um i
i feel like we just have to get to the
table and and maybe
what my recommendation will be is to um
to call a task force meeting um
you know through the city and and get
and get really tight
i mean we've been talking about this
this is not new stuff we've been talking
about it
um but i i don't talk to the other
counselors about i knew councilor
vazquez because he has said it publicly
and people have come to public comment
to you know last year
it was a problem in his district i don't
know if it continues to be
but i know at least hearing council
rebate this duvet here at the center
at the center's on board meeting that
it's a problem there and it's
it's a huge problem in my district now
and
and i feel like um we need to do
something quickly
um and and you know i i read all the
documents all the scientific literature
we've gone over it um i know
that we have several people in several
different
camps recommending different things um
i know jean is very concerned about
euthanasia
but what we're hearing from clint is is
that they euthanize
animals that are sick um
you know and and there's and has done
you know quite a bit
to try to um you know to remedy the
situation
um but also so there there has to be all
these tools
euthanasia being one of them right we're
all in agreement i think that that's
what it is is
as as disheartening as that might be
for all of us for me i i don't want to
sound like i'm
heartless because i'm not um but it's
going to take a number of things and a
number of resources from the city of las
cruces
as well um and so i i'm happy
that's what i'm recommending is that the
task force get
me um we we schedule something
next month so that we can we
we can start we can continue the
discussions
um and and and do some more immediate
stuff and in the meanwhile i know
um um assistant city manager enriquez is
on and i like for him
to weigh in on this have a conversation
um we need to do something
um because this is this is um
again every day i'm receiving phone
calls
emails pictures and you're
in turn receiving all of those gino as
well
so i don't want to belabor it i just
know we need to do something quickly
if i could insert something um
uh counselor gundara i'd like to say
that
if you're talking about the task force
i've
the coalition has proposed a
resource committee be established for
community cats we know that catch and
kill does not work
the research shows that that will not
control numbers
and like you were referencing yes we do
know that euthanasia
is necessary and is part of the toolkit
but it is truly a toolkit a
multi-approach
and i know i myself i'm a colony manager
i and i've been taking care of community
cats
going into for four years now so i do
know it firsthand
and i do know that the tnr works
and uh there are advocates out there
like myself
who are willing to lend resources
to help and to hopefully make this
as humane as possible and i i urge
the city um counselors to adopt
the um ordinances we've proposed and as
the task force
has worked on it because it does include
help for community cats anyway thank you
thank you thank you ms gilbert
mayor pro tem were you uh done with your
uh
comments i was madam chair thank you so
much
oh thank you thank you very much um
does anybody else have any comments on
this particular issue
um my participants bar isn't up
it just goes down madam chair i have one
follow up
yes uh counselor beta stewie thank you
and you know this is uh coming from not
quite new anymore but it is a newer
issue for me
um with this but the community cats and
one of the items i think for
um the groups to to recognize and the
biggest problem that i've seen with my
my constituents and it's very
heartbreaking i have
a very aged area and i have um seniors
um that are at their wits ends with the
property damage that the cats have been
doing to their home and they're not the
owners of these cats they don't want to
own a colony
they are um they're trying to figure out
and what
what to um with this situation and being
humane but the fact of the matter is
they're
they're kind of these bystanders for
this issue and
that's something that we need to
consider and i think everybody knows
that i am
absolutely an animal lover advocate i
have
cats myself i truly value their
companionship and all that they bring
and want to see these things but i'm
very very concerned especially if we
adopt these types of
resolutions what happens with these
seniors and what happens with the
property damage we may still have people
that own these colonies
but when we have this others are they
going to pay for damages
that might happen what types of
assistance are we bringing to these
other families and that's something that
if we have these task force
if the animal activists want to be able
to do this type of thing
how are we going to address that problem
especially for these vulnerable
communities that have
limited incomes that have
health issues and frankly don't have
necessarily the mobility to be able to
um uh chase the cats get the cats or or
manage that sort of situation so it's
just something to think about in the
future
but as we're at the beginning of with
some of these conversations
i just want to make sure that we're
thinking of that aspect as well
thank you and thank you uh councillor
beta stevie
anybody else want to comment on this
issue
i believe clint has his hand up oh
thank you uh yes mr thacker
uh just really quick i'd like to give
kudos to the county because
ms quintero contacted me about some
options that the county could do
the actual officers going out with these
cats
and i put her in touch with some people
at best friend's animal society
they have they were sent the county sent
i'm sorry
best friend sent the county uh
education material in english and
spanish and they also were able to raise
funds
via facebook to get the cat deterrents
sent and these are actually going to the
officers and the officers are going to
be giving this information
and the deterrence out to these
individuals i mean this is
is a program that if we're all going to
work together
and have the same vision that we
definitely can get can get some
some headway on it and get relief to
these individuals that are having
problems with cats
believe me i i'm no stranger to
individual or problem with cats i
have it at my house and everybody does
but i know that
these animals um are there because they
were abandoned by
us and that this is now a compute
community issue
not just a one-on-one and community
being the cities as well
so i just wanted to let you know that
there's other things going on here than
um just complaints there's also
successes as well
[Music]
uh mr thacker with all due respect uh
what what are the outcomes of the
distribution of information
i mean you you seem to say that
the district distribution of um
written information and education the
community
is wonderful but what is the consequence
what is the outcome of that
do we have not only not only the
education material the written material
that talks about feral cats and what
they're attracted to and what they're
not attracted to
um you know some natural deterrence to
keep them off
uh out of your area but also the actual
deterrence
the the physical deterrence the
ultrasonics the scarecrow sprinkler all
these are supplied
uh for free and yes on a limited basis
but we can get the the biggest issues uh
taken care of
well i i think um you know i'm i'm
really
seriously taken aback
by the fact that uh the resolution is
now being drafted by
uh legal um and it's true that we did
i participated in that task force uh
over a period of
what two years maybe more
and we meet we met regularly
on i think once a month on friday after
late friday afternoons
and then this past year prior to dalahan
resigning excuse me retiring um
the meetings sort of were kind of yes
kind of no
and then um finally there were no
meetings
so um and we did get a copy of
maybe i think i'd have to go back and
look at it and then of course we have to
compare it to what the resolution is
going to say
but um i mean these meetings lasted
and i don't know if david dalahan set
them up purposely for late afternoon on
friday so that they wouldn't go on until
midnight but
some of these meetings were quite
lengthy and very
thorough uh all sides were presented
uh people who were experts in the in the
field of birds and the impact of cats on
birds
all of that uh was visited and revisited
and
and and talked about and discussed the
pros the cons the
you know the the ones who are anti this
or anti that were
but i think that all of us all of us i
believe
shared a common goal of being humane
and humane humaneness
doesn't only extend to the life of the
feral cat
but those in the community who are
affected and as
uh counselor aveda stooby pointed out
an elderly community uh
is a direly effect that any anyone who
doesn't have the capacity
either financially to trap their own cat
or to be able to
um go out there and and implement all
these features that may
scare off the cats i that that's a
humane issue
um and as as uh
officer jimenez pointed out um
there's been uh you know i i do see
well we don't get a lot of feral cats
into the center anymore but i do
and and that's based on direction by um
director
thacker but um
but i do see in our daily reports we get
them in the morning and we get them
in the evening they do put down feral
cats so some cats are coming in very few
but some cats do get turned into the
center
and then they're put down you know
they're pts
so um i i would
i would like to see that resolution and
uh mayor pro tem gandara
uh since you're meeting with city
manager ifo pili
would you please um would you please ask
him to
have at least a draft of the resolution
sent to us as a board
um to look at it and yes i agree with
you
mayor potem gandara that we really need
to have a
task force uh meeting again um you know
uh specifically on the resolution the
final or proposed excuse me
the or maybe the final draft which is
still a proposed resolution
for the board to look at um
and if mr enriquez if if you
um can facilitate that
uh you know we really need to discuss it
as a board
and we need to discuss it as a task
coalition
um so those are two different meetings
board members can attend all
well no we have to be careful about that
uh because of the open meetings
but um i suppose if they're noticed
you know uh appropriately will be okay
so that sector but um this is very
concerning to me in so many ways
um and and i applaud gene gilbert
for her wonderful work um i know that
she
breaks down in tears at times and during
her presentations
and i think we all do i think we all
love
our little critters um
and sometimes well let's just stop there
let me stop there i won't go any further
but um anyway i want to thank you
all for your efforts and your comments
and if we could um
we'll we'll communicate um later
mayor pro tem gandara on this issue
um and then um we'll move forward
yes madam chair can i make one comment
absolutely i i want to make sure because
we've had um sort of institutional
knowledge leave our
our the city but please remember it
should not get stuck in legal because
legal was a part of those meetings up
until very
recent so everything that was
and you know you remember having um
why am i escaping her name marcy
marcy yes oh that's right marcy's there
and so so it shouldn't it shouldn't take
a long time because legal was there sort
of
helping us navigate um and
and then having both the acos dona
county and
city there they're well aware of the
ordinances
um the state law all those things so
i i just want to make sure that um that
that's known
up front and that it shouldn't get tied
up
um in in that and i know legal gets a
bad rap
because many times people say it's there
when it's not there
um so i just want to make sure that this
is
something that um that is
is being done um quickly
and that it gets to us is because it's
it's been a while now
thank you and thank you again
uh mayor potem yes it's been quite a
while
and uh and a lot of this is definitely
due to covet without a doubt
some of it and i'm only speaking on
behalf of the city
a lot of it has to do with the turmoil
of the turnover
of city managers um it's been
i mean between covid and um all you know
the
city manager situation which is now
i believe and i pray that it is under
control we have an excellent city
manager
without par without any reservation i
say that
and um and then we have mr
uh enriquez who is also an excellent
uh without par asset to our board so
i think that we're going to be able to
move um
in a in a way that is equitable
to all concern the task force the uh
this board
and uh did i say task board task force
and this board and all concerned
so madam chair i believe um mr rodriguez
has his hand up
oh thank you thank you uh yes mr
invictus chris
madam chair and board thank you uh yes
i'm sending emails to legal right now as
we speak to
get some response and they're sending
some of the red lines and draft and
things so
i assure you i will be working on that
personally
to get that back up to speed and working
with uh
animal control and mr thacker
to to come to some resolutions and we'll
come back with some uh steps and some
guidance
uh so that we can move forward with this
so yes this will this will be
uh on the front burner and uh we'll
expedite as soon as we can
so thank you for your comments and the
information and
you rest assured we'll get something
done
you're you're muted madam
oh man i have to remember what i said
now okay thank you mr
dukas so um i asked that uh mayor pro
tem
and mr uh thacker correct me if i'm
wrong in this process
uh you know about what i'm uh proposing
about to ask and um i would like
uh mr indicus thank you so much for
being
immediate communication with legal and
yes uh
counselor excuse me mayor pro tem ganda
absolutely correct legal gets the bad
rap
we're told that things are in process
and then we find out they're not
so this is a question of really getting
accountability
measured accountability and um
and i would like mr invigos and mr
thacker if the board
were to receive the update uh and
and certainly before our next meeting
because our next meeting is late
february and so we need to do that
asap and if it's true that the
resolution
um is going to be in a forthcoming work
session
in february um probably
the city council meeting like uh a month
after that really it's like three weeks
after that that it will come before
council for a full vote so
looking at the logistics and the
timeline we need to be
updated all along
and in the meantime to mayor pro tem
and mr indicus we definitely need to
call a meeting of the task force
asap mr thacker everybody
if i'm out of line if it's incorrect if
it's not appropriate if it's not
indicated if it's
uh somehow uh illegal in terms of
what we're doing please educate me
otherwise we should proceed madam
sheriff clint thacker here the
i know that in the past david dalahan's
office would take
matters and schedule those meetings it
was always the last friday i think at 3
30 p.m
yes so the board would have
sorry the manager's office if they'd
like to take that on again and do the
scheduling
that would be great great and
um madam chair i just sent an email to
myself you clint and and um
mr andre to get those going again um
if i can be of assistance amber was
excellent
at miss dominguez was excellent and and
she has the email list
and can get that together i suggested to
meet sooner rather than later because
it would be a whole month yes and maybe
we need a more
emergent like a meeting and then another
one
and the last month and that's what i'm
asking for
so thank you perfect thank you so much
mayor protem for doing that
so hopefully we we can have a meeting as
soon as uh
probably uh next friday said since that
was what everybody was used to
uh late afternoon um i wish it could be
tomorrow but that's not
enough time it's not fair but next
friday
is is the best would be the best time so
uh and we would all have to prioritize
this over um
you know doing a tgif type thing not
that we
can anyway our tgif is ordering a pizza
and watching an old movie on tv at least
that's my tgif
so um anyway thank you all so much
for your um for your input on this it's
definitely urgent uh
madam chair madam chair this is eric
henricus again yes i will work on that
i will get i will get all the
information from legal and then we'll
schedule a task force meeting on
on next friday a week from tomorrow
great
thank you so much uh mr invakus
thank you so much yes ma'am
okay um
we were with gino right we're still in
um on item four this this all came out
of the aco
report so uh mr jimenez
officer jimenez are you done with your
report
i believe so madam chair um we were
actually right here
talking about the map and i think we had
answered
i had answered all the questions
concerning the map
my next slide would have been questions
and we did that
i think we did that i think we did more
than that thank you so much mr jimenez
and thank you so much miss ward mary lou
and geno
for your wonderful presentations and for
your dedication
in this work move on to uh
clint uh thacker item four 4c
shelter statistics proceed mr thacker
okay sorry about that i always start my
presentation before i
unmute myself and start my camera and
then i get confused
welcome to my world my apologies
today's directory report uh me clint
thacker executive director
we have a low count here at the animal
shelter 332
currently it's been a good relief to
have that low number and we're able to
get
other things done especially
the intake has been great 417 total
and that's 271 dogs and 145 cats
coming to the shelter so you can see
it's quite a bit lower than the intake
of 2019.
we had some returns in 2020 in december
of 2020
we had five behavior problems come
through
and then two adopter lifestyle changes
what those two means is behavior
problems could be anything from
uh you know having problems potty
training to being like
a big boy was of too much dog
and then lifestyle changes could be
anything from a divorce
to having a kid or a child now in the
home
so several different scenarios again we
always
offer for behavior problems we offer the
training that's available
and we also offer tips we have flyers
that we can give
so we do try our best to keep these
animals
into these homes and the individuals
that really want
animals uh that honestly they love the
animal they want to be in the home but
there are these issues then they'll give
it a try
and try to get these through the
different means that we give them
so seven is pretty good
so our outcomes for 2020 uh remember we
were the numbers just the numbers were
causing
us to have a little bit of concern like
we could see 335 adoptions in 2019
compared to 209
so we we're worried about that number so
we change it to a percentage because we
have less animals coming in right
so actually that 209 is a better
percentage
of the animals leaving the center than
we had in 2019
so that's good half of our outtake was
adoptions
reclaims we had 63 15 percent of our
outcomes
where we redeemed reclaimed means
redeemed by the owner
rescued we still have a fabulous number
of
38 percent going out uh rescued 158 is
the number
community cats that will return 17
so 10 and again that's even higher
than 2019 was and then euthanasia
is all the way down to 12.5 percent and
i can
contribute that to the incredible team
we have working
incredibly hard with our rescues and we
were able to reach that 90 percent
benchmark
that qualifies us no kill so in december
2020 we
qualified as a no kill shelter for that
month so that was big then that
i can't say enough for uh the staff pm
the rescues
everybody working really hard that's
always our benchmark that we're trying
to hit
and as you can see it's 10 higher than
it was in yes uh
in december 2019
wow so these are our reasons for
euthanasia this is always a concern
for us we keep an eye on this as well as
the board does as well
so again our number one reason uh are
those feral cats that are coming in
we've had a long discussion about those
today
but they continue to come in um medical
general or the next
on the next ones and then severe
injuries uh
aggressive dog these are animals that we
feel that are not safe to go back out to
the community
and then more injuries you know hit by
car things that we just
don't have the capacity to care for or
that would be best for the animal to be
euthanized
as well and then it goes down from there
uh into the ones category for that
[Music]
so our total visitors in december was
and that compared to the 2948
so this next or um we continue to see
this number we need to do a graph
similar to the ones we're going to see
before
of where that number actually is what
what value does it have is it going up
is it going down
um and again it's so low for those who
are
watching seeing for the first time 570
is so low compared to the 2 900 below
because
with kovid we had to shut our lobby down
to just being open where people can come
in
so they have to call ahead they have to
get an appointment and only two people
are allowed at a time
before we were counting everybody in the
party that would just come and look at
our adoptable animals
so that's why the big difference in that
number
so this is a news slide uh new
information put together i think it
tells a story a little bit better before
we were just getting a number of our web
page views
and we didn't know if that number was
high or low or there's a trend so as you
can see we started tracking in august of
and it goes up and down quite a bit but
we're seeing kind of that
mean norm that was right through here in
that
40 44 000 area of animal or i'm sorry
webpage views so we like that they're
getting hit pretty hard
and again for those seeing for the first
time a web page view
is not a web page hit where it's that
many
that many times being opened web page
view
is the number of times pages are viewed
on our website so
somebody comes in to the website that
just hitting or arriving at the home
page is one view
and if they want to look at an adoptable
dog that's that's another view
and if they click back and look at
another dog that's another view
so it's counting the number of pages
being being looked at but 46
534 is our highest yet and
in the month of december and i'm pretty
sure that contributed to our high
adoption rate
and also our live release rate that was
high
facebook views we did the same thing we
just tried to do a trend showing you
where it's at and it's holding pretty
steady
in that 2500 area
for an average
and then these are our pets of the week
or um we have ria
corvid and then antler corvid
this is actually the first one we've
done with it's a couple but corvid
is kind of a high stress little pooch
and we found that rhea really calms them
down
so we want them to go out together so
they rely on each other
so those are animals of the week
any questions
any questions anybody for mr thacker
there is my bar i don't see any answer
yes a beta scooby counselor beta stewie
thank you madam chair and thank you
clint um for those stats
um i have to ask because uh december
is also since you have the holidays and
i know there is
um a trend to have you know a gift as a
pet
um do we have any of the stats
about what types if we do see an
increase of returns you know either
eight weeks to four months out if we see
any little spikes after
you know the responsibility of
an animal the novelty and all that sort
of stuff
um kind of works off if we see any of uh
spikes within
those returns um right after the
holidays
i i think with the way that we were
doing it we might see those spikes
um you know with people before kova just
coming in and
adopting i think now we're doing it with
the
adoption or with the appointment method
it gives us more time to
talk with the individual the potential
adopter
we don't necessarily track if an animal
was adopted on this month
then how long it takes to if it returns
that would be interesting to know and to
see so maybe we'll
try tracking that when it comes down you
know april or sometime if these animals
that were returned
were adopted back in december but we'll
definitely keep an eye on that
okay and i know that when we were
working with the
what was the advertisement company and
we had talked about that about
responsible if we were going to have any
sort of
messages or things about just uh
responsible ownership you know a pet is
for a lifetime type of
deal at least maybe even after since
we've probably had
uh you know that increase in adoptions
we did it was wilson binkley as our
advertising agency and we did some
facebook spots
um during the pandemic that
were just specifically stating um
you know the animals are for life their
commitment
type of thing but we have since shifted
and
getting ready for kitten season focus
more on leave the litter alone
we have that great radio spot with
captain captain kitten i think it was or
captain kitt
something like that but uh that's the
shift that we've done
okay great thank you so much and thank
you madam chair
and thank you aveda uh councillor beta
stevie thank you mr becker
any other questions for mr thacker
um yes mayor murillo
i see your hand up yes ma'am
um for miss um madam chair um for mr
tucker um i have a question i know that
i
you know i represent the constituents
inside the city limits and outside the
city limits
of anthony um i know our animal control
officer
had suggest asked me if i knew about
some of the cats that are picked up you
know um mr salazar picks up and takes
them to the shelter
right and then they're back in
population and i wanted to see if you
can be able to
um explain to me um
why does that happen then you know so i
can have a a
more understanding absolutely
so the county allows us to do what's
called a trap neuter return program a
tnr
you hear that quite a bit in these
meetings we had a great discussion about
it with community community cats and
community cats
is a general term used to describe cats
that have no owners that are
that are they don't have to be feral or
wild they just don't have an owner
and with the treadmill return program
what we do is we bring these
these cats that come in and we if
they're healthy
and able to return back they have to
qualify for the program
then they are sterilized so they're not
going to cause any of the spraying
issues or the marking
and they're not mating not reproducing
they're given vaccines so they're
healthy the rabies vaccine
and the feline vaccines and then the tip
of their ear
is cut off just so and that tells
anybody that the animal has been through
the system it is sterilized and
is vaccinated and then that animal is
released back out in the area
that it was in and i i know that that
sounds odd to take
this quote-unquote problem that people
didn't want and to put it back
out what you're actually doing is your
the area can withstand a certain number
of
animals let's say it's ten and if we
take
the the way the the old way would be
take that take
five out and euthanize them
well five more are going to
automatically come in and and
be in that area because that area can
sustain 10 animals it has food water and
shelter for for that many animals
but if we take it and we we trap those
five
we sterilize them vaccinate them and
then
ear tip them and put them back out then
five more unsterilized animals are not
going to come in
the five has been has been held by those
animals that are healthy
and they're not going to be not going to
produce so the trick is
is we can get all the animals in the
area or as many as possible all the cats
in the area
the sterilized then we're able to have a
much healthy
uh i call it a herd or a much
healthy area of of animals and
they do a lot less things like they're
not mating you know they're not
screaming at night they're not marking
territory
all those things so that's the and that
also what it does is it allows
the center or the animal shelter not to
have to be euthanizing these cats
um that are there because they got
dumped there i mean it's not their fault
so we're having the compassion side
for that so that's the program does that
answer your question
yes sir
uh yes mr ellens
oh when you showed the statistics
earlier
there was a very high rate of synthesia
for
feral cats back the bar went all the way
to the ceiling practically
how does that fit in with what you just
described in terms of the tea
trn program well those cats that are
being sterile
are being euthanized or city cats
because there's no current
program in the city for trap new to
return tnr
[Music]
so those animals are held here at the
center for
the three-day period and then they're
euthanized
so the tnr program is a county program
is that correct well yeah the county
allows
the ordinance allows us to do it the
program in the county yes
what is the um this is addressed i guess
to the city council members
what is the plan for the city to uh
allow a tnr the arguments
that we've been talking about is
includes the tnr program in the
ordinance
the proposed ordinance yeah
let's be clear there was the tnr there
was a sunset clause to it
um so i don't want people to think that
we weren't doing tnr we were
so i mean there was a sunset clause so
it's
it went out of effect it's going yes
yes that's correct i don't know it
happens
i don't know that
is there a planter
you're muted you're muted mister you're
a plant
is it resurrection is it fair to say
we're in a transition
period right now waiting on
city legal to look at the ordinance
which mr enriquez has said that they're
giving more
urgency to that right now
yes commissioner ellen's the
conversation or the dialogue we had
earlier
had to do with the fact that that
as we were moving through re-examining
our ordinances
that was one of the considerations and
while that happened the sun
set clock the sunset happened
and so you know we went through the
process of public comment and getting
all the
information from the public um i think
the dialogue is is that i don't think it
should get stuck in legal because we had
legal representation at that time those
task force meetings so
it should be rather quick that we
present it to council
and they vote on it um and i'll have to
tell you
uh the the task force and um
people in at the advocacy world need to
do some work with the counselors
because i'm not sure that that's going
to pass
yes yeah i agree with you uh cassandra
but i do believe that there are the
resources in the community and if we
would establish
a resource team resource
committee and i said i speak uh from
experience i've been a colony manager
nearly four years now and i can tell you
it works
my cats have been tnr the population has
stayed stable
there have been you know some new some
newcomers
but it's it's been handled they've been
either tn art or
placed in a home you know various uh
things so
i speak from experience that tnr works
and we can make it happen uh
here i uh catch and kill is not the
answer as
uh clint explained how uh those
populations can remain stable um
if it's if it's done done done right
with a
colony uh managers thank you
thank you miss gilbert
mayor trujillo do you have another
comment or question
i see your hand up
i'm sorry i didn't lower it down sorry
no no i don't have a question
okay thank you okay are there any other
is there anything else that we should i
think we're done with this
issue at this point and we should move
on
or is anything urgent someone wants to
say
no okay uh next item is
uh well we're still on the same item
uh item four reports presentation
subsection
d committee reports uh first one
is finance um
counselor aveda stevie do you have a
report
is there a report this month
thank you chair actually it is going to
become from our new chair
which is uh mr enriquez um per
our um jpa um the
official member from the city does
become the chair so with him
now in process he is now going to give
the report
great
okay um madam chair and uh counselor
stevie i was not
uh prepared or aware of that
uh title or responsibility but i believe
we have
josh uh available josh you can
present the financial uh presentation
or do you have anything
yes sir thank you
good morning madam chair members of the
board my name is josh saffel
and on behalf of the finance department
of the city of las cruces i would like
to present the
unaudited financials as of december 31st
2020. looking here we have the statement
of net positions
we see in the general fund cash of 822
thousand hundred and eighty eight
dollars
uh receivables of ninety three thousand
four hundred and ninety one dollars
which gave us total assets of nine
hundred and sixteen thousand four
hundred and seventy nine dollars
we have liabilities of sixty four
thousand eight hundred and ninety
dollars
and revenue collected in advance of
fifty five thousand five hundred one
so this left in the uh general fund and
unassigned fund balance
of seven hundred and ninety six thousand
eighty eight dollars
looking at our capital projects fund we
had cash of twenty nine thousand seven
hundred and ninety eight dollars
and a restricted fund balance in the
same amount of twenty nine thousand
seven hundred and ninety eight
uh for capital assets we had capital
assets net of
accumulated depreciation of two hundred
and two thousand eight hundred and
seventy four dollars
and the same amount two hundred and two
thousand eight hundred seventy four
dollars
as an unassigned fund balance in the
capital asset fund
looking at our changes in net position
in the general fund we had total
revenues of one million
eight hundred thirty one thousand nine
hundred and eighteen dollars
and total expenditures of one million
two hundred and seven thousand
five hundred and seventy eight dollars
so we had a total
positive change to fund balance of six
hundred twenty four thousand dollars
uh six hundred twenty four three hundred
six hundred twenty four thousand three
hundred forty dollars
uh in the capital projects fund uh there
was expenditure of one thousand seven
hundred and sixty seven dollars
which led to an uh negative net change
in fund balance for capital projects
fund
of that amount of 1767.
and in the capital assets fund no
revenue but there was
expenditure which was the depreciation
expense
of 21 115 so there was a negative net
change
to the fund balance in that fund of 21
115 dollars
looking at our budget to actual the
revenue of 1.8 million
was 53.8 percent of the budget
and the expenditure of 1.2 million was
35.9
of the budget considering that we're
halfway through the year here at the end
of december our budget parameter will be
about 50
so we're still doing pretty well with
revenues being well above that
and our expenditures being lower than
that was also very good
looking at the revenues and expenditures
throughout the month we see
um just sort of an interesting trend
where we'll have revenues greater than
expenses one month
then the next month the expenses come up
and so this month we had revenues
greater than the expenses which was
i'm good
looking at our total expenditures one
million two hundred and seven thousand
five hundred seventy eight dollars
of that seventy six percent of those
expenditures were from personnel
fourteen percent were from services six
percent supplies
and three percent insurance one percent
was repairs and maintenance
there were other expenditures but um
statistically speaking it came out to
zero percent of the
of the total
and that will conclude my presentation i
stand for any questions
any questions
i don't see any hands up uh josh
mr sapple and i don't have any questions
thank you very much for your
presentation thank you thank you
thank you josh
this is the executive report um
i'm the committee chair um and
i met with uh our executive committee i
believe it was just
uh clint and i i i don't um mr
sanchez had a conflict and i don't
recall it mr allen's
and i misplaced my notes my very careful
taking notes carefully taking notes
[Music]
so what i do recall is that
we discussed
[Music]
we discussed the uh joint powers
agreement
and uh i've discussed uh moving forward
with a uh either a mutual or unilateral
uh dissolution
of the uh agreement and with the city
manager and of course with mr thacker
um and um
we're moving forward with that i don't
know at what pace
um and i'll have
to either uh keep in touch with mr uh
thacker and of course our city manager
there was another uh concern that we
discussed and i don't remember clint
i think that you um are going to cover
the um well
can you um can you mr
uh thacker uh
do you recall the meeting we had and i'm
so sorry i just don't have my notes but
i do
you're gonna make you're gonna make me
remember what we talked about i see
um i know we discussed uh things we're
going to talk about today and that is
the resolution 2021-2 is an
adoption fee schedule change yeah we
discussed that at length
in that community we also talked about
the new
building and the progress it's going yes
uh so a quick well maybe i'll leave that
for
facilities it's more of a facilities
thing but that's i'll just say it's
moving forward
and then
for the sake of time i think that's
probably it yes for the sake of time
because it's already
11 o'clock so um it's been a very good
meeting
and i i don't know uh usually they run
an hour and a half sometimes this long
but um there was a lot but anyway yes
the only um and i want to say that for
the new building
uh there will be uh public art and the
the city art board is working to
uh get the art piece uh there's a
certain allocation of funds
um i believe it's four percent
anyway there's a certain allocation of
funds for for city
um uh art
for city art and one percent i believe
how much less than one percent
yeah it's yeah it's it's a small but i
think uh
for the new shelter it comes out to
about um oh i i don't know
it comes out to a chunk of change enough
so that the city art board can
um put out uh whatever
uh there's certain calls they're called
calls cafe uh
calls so um and that that's coming along
beautifully um the
um and and and both the and this is the
as we all know or should know um
the new center uh is a result of a
geo bond uh general obligation bond
um and and everything i think will be
completed
by september of 2022
um or it should be i believe because
there's a certain requirement that
things get done by a certain time when
there's a
bond um and as far as the
um well when we come to the resolution
um as to fees uh you'll go thoroughly
through that
correct mr thacker yes ma'am chair
yes okay well then we'll just reserve
anything and then
um but yes okay thank you thank you
um so that's it on the executive report
next item
is uh section excuse me item 4d
subsection 3. mayor putin gandara
do you have a report this month i do
[Music]
thank you madam chair yes we did meet
and um we got an update um from clint
about the facility
um and trying to look through my notes
because i did take notes
um i believe the windows are
all been um as you recall there were
issues with
the windows and we have them all
replaced so all is well
um and um
we talked about the population there at
the center
um and that
as you know and you've heard it remains
um at
a low
we did talk about the geo bond and the
updating as you know
count um counselor flores and madam
chair you
we got an update uh city council on the
geo bond
um at that point clint i wasn't sure you
hadn't met yet
with the um
the individual responsible for it and i
didn't know if you had any updates
related to that
i do and also to go back just really
quick the we still have one window that
we're working on getting replaced
so our work that's in the final stages
uh and then to address the go bond we
had the sac meeting
um as you know those are confidential we
had we had some great
uh uh general contractors put some bids
in
um the and talks have gone forward
uh to finalize that so we are in
negotiations
is what they said i could tell you for
that
um and we hope to award quickly for that
and get things started
so that is moving forward we're very
excited for it
thank you that's so excited when do you
think they'll start
did they give you a bit of a deadline in
terms of
once all that is put together when they
might
break ground uh no well they did in the
bid
but as you know there's so much ground
work that has to be done here
at a relocation of lines that right
it'll be a little while before the
actual
start of the building but you'll see
construction
like dirt moving fairly quickly after
the award
that's great um i do want to alert the
public
and to refer them to our dashboard you
will be able to see
weekly sort of where they're at with the
process in terms of
of when the sac meets when the decision
is made when they've offered it
to the um the engineers or to the
company that will be doing the work when
the groundbreaking will happen
so those of you that are interested in
wanting timely information
please go to our website at lost
cruises.org
um and you can enter in geo bonds and
the
um it'll give you a list of
things that you can refer to moving
forward
and so that's it everything seems to be
um go doing well in our facility
um um i know that clan updated us
and um like the the
um the vacancies and where
we are at with those and i think and
i hope that those of you that follow the
animal services center
on social media they have been
advertising
like our volunteer coordinator and other
other other positions that are available
at this point and clint seems to be um
feeling good about that's a lot of those
positions
people were moving around into higher
level positions
um better paying positions and so he
feels that he had a
right a hand in in um you know
educating providing supervision
mentoring that kind of thing to
his to his um his staff
or former employees enough that they
they've reached
you know um i think their goals there
and wanted you know something different
and and more good paying jobs so i don't
think he's concerned of the number of
vacancies there
it just happens through attrition and
all are
are seeking better job opportunities i
mean with that madam charles
i don't know if glenn has anything else
to add to that
i do just really quickly um we have our
facilities committee in the early of the
month and then the board meeting at the
end so things happen between then and
then
uh just a quick update we had our
medical surgery laundry
just totally go kaput i mean it it
went out totally so we were able to
quickly purchase
a brand new washer and dryer for our
medical area
so we're grateful for that we're
grateful for
building supply that gave us a great
discount we also
were able to get some warranties on it
as well extended warranties which really
help out when we're using machines at
that level
and also our purchasing is moving
forward with the large washer and dryer
commercial washer and dryer for the
center
that we have budgeted for so we're
moving forward on that as well
that's all thank you thank you just as a
curiosity
mr thacker and thank you madam
excuse me uh mayor potem um cassandra
how much did those uh did you say there
were two sets of washer dryers
there is yeah we have one regular set
washer and dryer for the medical area
and then we have our
really large uh commercial units
okay and and uh can you just share with
us what the price of the
the uh those washer dryer commercial
units cost
uh we budgeted forty thousand dollars
for
for those yeah and forty thousand was
actually spent
well we haven't bought them yet well i
thought they you're in the process of
buying yeah we're in the pro we've gone
through um
city purchasing to make sure that
there's no other we put a request
or bid out and nobody else responded to
that
and then bernice is in the process of
getting
the purchase and the arrangements made
to send in through
a requisition great
if i recall it's around 40 000 a little
bit less
yeah i just wanted you to share that
because when i first came on the board
and heard that there was this
for me it's an astronomical amount i
mean
so it was like what forty thousand what
do we do
and so thank you so much for sharing
that um madam chair
i'm sorry to interrupt i found my notes
and i wanted to add a couple of other
things um clint mentioned that his
building supervisor is doing an
excellent job
um paul reeves they call him pablo
because i think they have
three other pauls
two other pauls um but one of the things
that and i'm not sure if this is what
you were talking about
um but um clint you explained that there
needs to
be some additional power run and that it
was going to cost a little
more like i have her six to seven
thousand dollars
is that accurate and you are unable to
do that
at this point but um we'll consider it
in the new fiscal year
that was to run power to our lot area
where animals are
and yeah that's just not in the budget
right now especially since those
areas kind of where they're going to be
going through is going to be taken out
when the new center comes
so yeah oh and then you spoke of
am i correct it's like six to seven
thousand
yeah it cost yeah i think it was uh over
seven thousand dollars to run power over
there
so clint the power into that lot there
why is it important
that's where we our intake area is so
right now we're heating with propane
so we would just be able to use electric
heat to keep the animals hot and in the
summer or
yeah hot and in the summertime we'd have
cooling opportunities there
so and it's also nice to have extra
light when we're dealing there in the
later evening
right um and so i know six to seven
thousand isn't a lot of money
um wondering if um mr enriquez
and the county um you know i i don't
wanna
i wanna encourage the county because um
the city put forth quite a bit of
additional funding
to um the center and i knew there were
some talks
um going to take place with the county
to see that they matched that
not sure where that's at but if that
happened some of these things
could actually happen that i think are
really important given
we're in the winter it's cold um and
then when the
the summer months come spring and summer
it's warm
and we need to make sure that our
animals and not only our animals but our
staff
is taken care of that they're in the
best conditions that they can
to work and to provide
the environment i think necessary for
our animals so
i wanna i wanna say that um to
commissioner ellen sanchez and trujillo
um hope that there could be some
conversations continued conversations
with that um and then lastly we talked
about the shed
with the stucco that's looking um that
it's looking pretty bad
and you're looking into um storage
containers
getting coats um um
from from that um
and um um clinton
i i know that people are aware of that
storage container how it's looking
i mean excuse me that's that aerial um
shed that's looking pretty bad um
and that i want to assure folks that are
that you're looking into it and making
sure that
um you know we're accountable to to that
and
and has a plan of of action of replacing
those
yeah actually we have we oh good
what happens within 30 days we're able
to get a quote
a local place that has storage
facilities i wanted to stay here as
close as possible
um it was 68 or 6 800
for a new unit the size that we needed
and um i emailed mike just this morning
our
our budget guy mike puccini
and um i think i saw a response from i
haven't been able to see it yet that if
that is something that we can
get under our current budget because we
are
as as you saw in the financial
presentation
we do have a little bit of a wiggle room
to work with because we are
under spent quite a bit so it's just
yeah something that we do it's on our
minds and we're looking at and also to
update you on the washer and dryer
bernice just sent me a text thank you
bernice that they have been ordered
and it was just under 30 thousand
dollars
wow great happy news
that you got a good deal on it and
they're in yeah
[Music]
and then finally as i mentioned with the
vacancies and
as clint put it in exodus of employees
and i've explained i think why that has
happened and
clint's not too worried there's a number
of vacant positions that are
that are um that are human resources
and and just sort of stuck and it's
taken a considerable amount of time and
this is to my
fellow city councillors um there needs
to be some encouraging and some
dialogue with our city manager that that
process
continues to be very delayed
i think the words are quote unquote
a hellish process so um this shouldn't
happen
we have i've given those those positions
is it going will it be a year now i
i don't know what eight months
yeah i mean you're you're speaking of
the veterinarian and the grant writer
positions that were awarded to
us and yeah and it's it's been a long
time and they've had it that whole time
there has been some recent uh within the
last probably four weeks some good
progress made especially on the grant
writer position
hr was mistaken thinking we needed a
special
special grant position a grant writer
position and we're like no exactly the
same as the city will work best for us
work really well
so they were able to move forward on
that bernice had some information for me
this morning
i was promising we can move quickly on
it
the veterinarian position however is
continues to be
an issue it's gone out to um a
consultant to find out the proper pay
range because the city does not have
a veterinarian position to compare to it
like we do the grant writer
but that was good to hear i think about
two weeks ago they said that it went out
to
the consultant for that price comparison
so again um i don't want to be hyper
critical but
all these you know these positions are
dependent on
us doing all the forward thinking things
we want to do
and and if we want to get you know
that sixty seven hundred dollars from
again if we wanna do all these extra
things
we need the grant writer so it's like a
catch-22
so i hope that my colleague on city
council
will encourage um our city manager
and really really push um for that to
happen because
i'm okay with a couple of months but
eight months or however long it's been
is to me unacceptable and i feel like i
have to call it out today
um so thank you
thank you uh thank you mayor pro tem
i agree with you i do believe
um that now that we have ifo
pili on board as our city manager he
came on
in september um
and i think that things will move
rapidly they have been in other
respects so uh but i agree with you um
the three of us on city council should
um
should approach mr pealey individually
um or collectively there's no problem
there there's no
oma violation um
making that request that joint request
thank you
madam chair yes mr thakur
uh bernice just texted me and said that
the grant writer's
position should or hopefully could be
posted today
oh true that's good that sounds good and
then the other position the veterinarian
is also in the makings or that's more
difficult
yeah more difficult we're waiting on the
the consultant side of that
to figure that out and all of our just
just really quick update we had we did
have a mass exodus of employees
uh spay neuter coordinator our um
our rescue coordinator and our volunteer
coordinator
all left within a few weeks of each
other and like
my counselor gono said all to great
jobs the pertaining to more to their
degree and also better pay so we have no
hard feelings
it was great i was very happy to see
them make the move
so those jobs all got quickly posted
thanks to bernice and hr
they're in the final week of recruitment
and we'll start that process
all of our positions at the front and
also
in the animal caregiver side are have
gone through interviews and so they're
going to be filled within these
within the first weeks of february
offers have already gone out for the
office
office side so things that we're
looking forward having new people
sounds good yeah and yes it does sound
like um
your the staff you did that moved on
very good good for them good for them
we actually had three move into animal
control officer positions
so that's fabulous that's two at the
city and then one in anthony
so we're very happy for them and that's
only advantageous for us because
they know everything about it yep
right right and oh and i do have one
question though and i i think
that it does concern facilities or maybe
operations
um are we getting a a better hold on the
reporting by the acos
i i you know we do get those daily twice
daily reports and there's still some
glitches
you know as to the identification of the
animal there was a glitch there when
someone
uh said that the animal had no
um i don't know that you know they say
yes and then they say no i
you know inconsistent reporting on the
one animal by the same officer at the
same time
yeah we still have some of some issues
going on but thanks to
jeannie and also gino that as soon as we
we state this is an issue we get the
officer's side of the story
and we see how they're able to make
mistakes so we go back and
we just process of education and the
reasons why and
asking for information to be done so i
feel confident that we'll be able to
work through those and get some solid
reporting
okay yeah like the dob sometimes is
given
as date that the person excuse me that
the critter is uh
collected so okay thank you thank you so
much
okay thank you again uh mayor pro tem
for your report
and um and director zacker
um yes mr andres has his hand up oh i'm
so sorry
yes mr antiques forgive me oh thank you
very
uh no no problem uh i just wanted to to
say that
uh your comments uh and the message is
well received
and i will also talk to mr peely about
that and
and believe me our our uh our efforts
here on the third floor now is to make
sure that we get the proper resources
were needed so
we'll we'll move on that so
the notes are being taken and the
message is well received and that's what
we're here for so we're gonna we're
gonna move on those things so thank you
and thank you mr enriquez it's certainly
certainly a pleasure
to have you on board thank you so much
thank you thank you okay so now we can
move on to item 5
action items election of officers
board officers presumably madam chair
yes sir
um the rotation kicks in this year
and the new chairman is uh has to be
selected as someone from the county
right and in that instance i nominate
commissioner sanchez
to be the inc
okay commissioner sanchez do you accept
the nomination
yes wonderful
i second that nomination
are there any other nominations
speak now for forever hold your peace
madam chair i'm i'm a little kid
yes i'm sorry i'm a little confused
about this because
we have chair vice chair is it mr
sanchez vice chair and that it
sort of just automatically or or
moves i don't know about the automatic
um but yes he is vice chair and
um so but i don't i don't know this
i've only been on the board a year and
um
and i don't recall if there was any
discussion regarding that
um so good thing he's accepted because
if it was
he said no sorry you're out of luck this
is automatic
uh yes mr ellens
hello you're on mute mr commissioner
i don't i don't i don't believe there's
an automatic uh
promotional provision okay in the joint
priorities agreement
well we actually have not only the joint
powers agreement but we also have
um
our bylaws bylaws so in the bylaws it
says very
and i don't have them in front of me i
wouldn't they did maybe clint or
somebody
might have them that's at the office
easier to access but
we do have bylaws and so while we're on
this
i think and and a little i'm confused
about it
i want to recommend that um that the new
um board members get um the annual
report
the bylaws and and and all the things
and
a bit of an orientation from clint um
and others about about the board and
sort of what our our role is uh moving
forward i think that's really important
to do
um but plan to anybody is do we have
bylaws
in front of anybody that could refer
back
i'd have to look and see if we have
something on our our save drive
for that so i'll look right now
oh thank you um well as in the event
um it is in the bylaws that that the
um vice chair assumes the
chairmanship um
or not i mean if if it's an elected uh
position or whether it's a a
you know an assumption of the position
um
we can vote on it and and we wouldn't
and he would still
that we would still have the same person
and i don't think we'd be
in violation of the bylaws if mr sanchez
became the
commissioner of sanchez became the um
the new chair what do you think mr
ellens
i've written and read dozens and dozens
of bylaws from different organizations i
don't remember what ours says but
generally
speaking the vice chair becomes the
temporary chair in the absence of the
chair
that's generally howard the
duties of the vice chair
correct and i think everybody um
uh is yeah i think everyone would agree
with that
uh that that's usually the function of
not the fun well yeah that serves a as a
function of the
of that position um
[Music]
but how shall we proceed on this
um
i'm looking currently through my my
i'm going to look through our drive i
think the city has a bunch of stuff as
well
and i think i see mr enriquez's not his
hand up but he's unmuted so maybe he
wants to say something
yes i i was going to say i i don't have
any idea where those bylaws are
at but again with the experience i would
say there are some organizations that
say from vice chair
uh to chair and and things like that but
i believe in robertsville the borders
you're you're
appropriate with opening up the
nominations
a nomination has been made you're well
aware that there is a rotation and that
has taken place from city and county
so i i think this is acceptable uh based
on the robert rose border
i thank you yes i i thank you for that
yes sir who was that you know i have the
bylaws here
oh okay and
election of officers yeah
okay so section four election in terms
of office
it pretty much says in february of each
year terms of official one year in
length
filled by a board member no more than
two consecutive terms
here at the end it says the chair and
vice chair shall be selected from
differing
governmental delegations if the chair is
from the city
then the vice chair will be from the
county and vice versa
that's the only thing i can see
pertaining to it
how about is there a specific section
plant
on uh elections
because this uh defines the duties well
it's section four
is election and term oh here there it is
yeah
and that's what i just read from so
madam chair
um yes sir if if it's defined here as
being
elected in the in the next in the
meeting in february would we want to
postpone this uh agenda shall be elected
at the regular meeting
in february of each calendar year terms
of office shall be one year and may be
filled by a board member for a maximum
of more
no more huh that's that's an
inconsistent statement it says
they can be elected for a period of no
more than two years and
our but our terms are only one year
anyway just by practice but we have the
option of becoming two-year terms
based on what i just read
i think we should since february we need
to move it to february
yeah we we really have to move it to
february thank you for
uh spotting that and thank you for um
uh commissioner sanchez and thank you mr
thaecker for
finding this and accessing uh for us to
read
so we'll definitely table this item
february
pursuant to our bylaws and uh then
we by then have a strict clarification
as to um whether it's an automatic
assumption or whether there's an
election it sounds like it's an election
that uh item four so anyway
um thank you uh mayor pro tem gandara
and and thank you so um
commissioner sanchez don't call in sick
that day okay
oh i know i'll be your proxy i'll i'll
be your pro okay
no thank you so much for hopefully
accepting the nomination next month
okay better practice is to nominate
somebody for office whether they're not
there
oh that's a very good practice that's
the best way to do it
so you can't be absent okay thank you
everybody for that input
um the next item excuse me yes
i think i'll be excusing myself thank
you
um are you leaving now yes uh-huh thank
you
and thank you and and welcome again
diana thank you ma'am
bye-bye be well bye bye okay um
so let's move on to action item
5 b committee member appointments
uh we shall also table that mr
uh thacker because it yeah
it goes consistent with the election of
officers
next is the resolution 20
uh excuse me i'm sorry smith
should we um shouldn't we vote on each
of those items that to table
you can't just table i got a vote on it
you have to vote on tabling yeah
really you mean meetings illegally no
just kidding
yes oh i was just going to make the
motion i don't know if i can do them
jointly if we have to do them
individually
we have to do them individually okay
then the military will make a motion
that we
um move action item 5a the election of
officers to a date certain
uh to our next meeting february 25th uh
2021.
i second that i can second as a chair
i can't move but i can second okay
okay all right that's what the mayor
does so
don't you do that too mayor protest yeah
no
okay never done it no never plenty of
you to second it
plenty of you to second yeah
okay well you can second it just in case
i'm wrong
second gandara okay it's been move a
second
that we shall uh table
item action item five subsection
a to a date certain for our next meeting
on february
25 2021 is that 25
am i correct okay yeah okay thank you
someone will need to call the role
yes we need to we need a roll call on
that thank you
roll call please board member gandra
yes board member ellens
yes board member abettas dube
yes vice chair sanchez
yes and madam chair flores
yes motion passes adam
great thank you uh
yes this is commissioner sanchez yes sir
i'll make a motion that we move
action item b the uh appointment of
committee members
uh to the february 25th
uh board meeting
second it's been moved in second
to a table uh the committee member
appointments to a date certain to
february 25
2021 which is our next meeting
may we have a roll call on that mr
thacker
yes ma'am board member gondola
yes board member ellen's
yes board member abetas duvet
yes vice chair sanchez
yes madam chair flores
yes motion passes
thank you thank you uh next action
item five c resolution
2021 hyphen 0 1
accept the fy 20 financial audit
do i have a motion on that moved
a second
is there any uh discussion on this
did everyone have an opportunity to go
through the
audit and to
read the resolution madam chair are we
not going to have a presentation from mr
garner
well do we mr attackers here anybody
yes we should he's he's here
oh okay uh good morning madam chair and
members of the board
josie medina accounting manager for the
city of las cruces
before we have our external auditor
chris gardner percent animal services
annual financial report i want to
acknowledge
the accountant amador espinosa
he accurately prepared the annual
financial report
to meet accounting standards he worked
with budget
animal staff and our external auditors
to have a successful 2020 financial
report
thank you amador for all your hard work
i also want to mention the audit report
can be found on the city's website last
cruises.org government
and then under departments finance
department
under external audit reports now that
we're in the fiscal year 2021
josh sappo is the accountant for animal
services
we do changes with our accountants to
promote cross-training
with this i now introduce our external
auditor chris garner
thank you josie and madam chair and the
board
i have a some highlights from the exit
conference
and the items that we went over at that
time
frame and so i will go through those if
you have any questions feel free to
interrupt and i'll do the best that i
can to answer any of those questions
the first slide talks about our
responsibilities as auditors and
we did talk about this at both the
entrance and the exit
because auditing standards really want
to make sure that we get
this across because there was a lot of
misconceptions about what audits really
entail
and so what we were hired to do as you
can see that top
left box is express an opinion on your
financial statements
and what that means if you look in the
top red box
is we're getting what's called
reasonable assurance again we don't look
at every transaction and we're not
giving
absolute assurance on the numbers but
what our responsibilities are
to test controls look at statistical
samples
and ensure that the financial statements
are what we call materially correct
and what that means is the users of the
financial statements if there are errors
are not going to be big enough to change
their opinion on the financial status of
the organization
so that's our responsibility under
auditing standards
mexico state auditor requires us to
enhance our audit and do a government
auditing standards
audit which is commonly referred to as a
yellow book audit
and in the yellow book audit we have to
look at internal controls
a little bit differently than we do in a
regular audit you can see in that bottom
left box
you know again we're looking at internal
controls differently but we're not
giving an opinion on internal controls
what that report does is it just spells
out how we are looking at things
differently so
for example in a regular audit we don't
have to actually
test internal controls we can just get
an understanding of them
and walk one transaction through and
then we can be done
well with the yellow book audit we
actually have to pick samples test
controls
and the new mexico state auditor also
requires us to
expand that even further they have
certain items that they require us to
test such as procurement
travel and per diem use of p cards
there's a lot of
other items that we have to expand our
testing on in the state of new mexico
and what happens with that is we issue a
report we spell out how we look at
internal controls differently
and then at the bottom right we're
responsible for communicating any
significant matters
and again the new mexico state auditor
has changed that
and and holds us to a higher threshold
so if we have any finding whether it's
significant or below that
threshold we have to report that in the
financial statement so
the new mexico state auditor requires us
to report anything that comes
across and so that's our
responsibilities under the two
standards that we had to follow for your
audit
the next slide is talking about what
what's the result
and so we issued an unmodified or a
clean opinion
in essence that's the highest level of
assurance that we as auditors can give
and that report says that the financial
statements are fairly presented in
accordance with the standards that we
have to follow so
this is a type of report that you want
to receive so this is a good thing
again we talked about the yellow book
report um
that report we're not giving an opinion
but we are spelling out how we are
testing internal controls differently
and again as i mentioned we have to
report if we had any issues
and based upon our testing we did not
have any findings and so this year's
audits there will be no findings
included in our report
the next required communication i think
is important for the board to hear
is if we had difficulties encounter
performing the audit we'd have to let
you know
and with covet it was a little bit
different but we did not have any
difficulties at all when we asked
questions we were given answers in a
timely manner when we asked for
supporting documents again
we were given answers in a and given
that support
in a what we would expect as far as a
time frame so what
i think that tells the board is is that
the finance
department and your management are
retaining the records
in a good orderly fashion so that they
could answer those questions timely and
so
again i think it just is a reflection of
the organizational skills of your
financial records
to me this next one is very important
and we were talking about some budget
issues earlier
and you know if we as auditors are
having to come in
and make lots of adjustments to your
numbers you know it should cause you
some concern as you're going through the
year
and relying on those numbers to make
your financial decisions but as you can
see we did not have a single adjustment
based upon our testing
and so what that tells the board is that
you can rely upon those numbers that
you're given throughout the year
and as you analyze those and you're
making those financial decisions whether
to do additional purchases or not
you can feel confident in those numbers
that are being presented to you that
you're making those decisions from so
again i think this is a really important
communication to know that
the staff are doing a good job in
getting the
transactions properly recorded and
reporting those amounts to
the board
in 2019 last year's audit you did have a
finding that had been around for a
couple years
where cash receipts were not being
deposited within the 24-hour requirement
based upon our testing and i think we
looked at um
25 cash receipts we did not have a
single exception to any of those
this year and so we picked 25 days worth
of receipts
and again we had no exceptions and since
that is the case
this finding will not be included in
your audit this year so
management was very proactive in getting
this resolved this year and so we did
not have any exceptions
as we talked about a little while ago
you know based upon even with our
expanded testing required by the state
auditor
you know there's a lot more transactions
that we have to look at in our state
than we do in others
even with that lower threshold of
basically being on the ground level if
we have any exceptions we have to
include those as findings
we did not have any based upon our
testing this year and so
there there were no findings included in
the financial statement audit
the last slide i have is just kind of a
financial graph of your general fund
and as you can see and it's been
constantly consistently
increasing but really between 19 and 20
your revenues and expenses stayed fairly
consistent
between the two years so there's really
nothing
out of the ordinary that really we need
to report on
with that i'll open up to any questions
thank you mr garner are there any
questions for mr garner
any comments
i don't see any i don't see anyone's
hands up
i would like to thank you mr garner and
i am very happy that there were no
negative findings it looks like
everything is ship shape
in regards to uh financial audit
reporting and the audit came out clean
and i'm glad that last year's
uh finding was corrected
[Music]
and any comments by anybody
okay i don't see any hands up um
thank you again mr garner thank you
appreciate it
yes and miss medina is there anything
you would like to say in closing
now just again to thank everyone that
helped us
with the audit and also the animal
services staff
and we're hoping to have a great
wonderful 2021 audit as well
great and thank you ms medina so much
for your work on this
appreciate it very much thank you in
your department
madam chair yes mr sanchez
it looks like mr thacker has his hand up
oh i'm sorry
yes mr thacker proceed you wanted to
point out really quick we're going to be
supplying the link that josie
mentioned first we're going to supply
that on our facebook so
everybody the public can review that
information is given
also if any of the board members would
like a paper version
of this report we do have it available
just let me know by email
and we'll get it shipped to you
that's all thank you mr thacker
can you send that to me please you have
to email me
[Music]
no happy oh that was mean
my feelings already hurt i need one sent
to you
i'm gonna start yeah growling here um
great thank you uh thank you everyone so
much and congratulations mr thacker for
your
uh directorship and
correcting assuring that the finding
last year's findings were corrected
[Music]
we'll move on to now the
vote on the resolution or
has everyone had an opportunity to
uh read through the resolution
by the way we did receive uh
a letter from brian colon esquire
from the state of new mexico office of
the state auditor
addressed to terry gehart our
city financial services director
and regarding the report
and it's all public record at this point
because it's uh december 22 2020.
is that on the facebook page too mr
thacker i don't know that specifically
is but we're gonna have a link to that
report
so i don't know itself oh okay yeah
the report was reviewed by the osa so
uh and that and we got a gold star on
that as well
so has everyone had all board members
um have you all had an
opportunity to read animal services
center of the messiah valley resolution
number 2021
hyphen zero two a resolution
establishing an adoption fee
schedule for the animal services center
of the mississippi oops that's the wrong
one
they were stuck together okay a
resolution authorizing the governing
board for the animal services center of
the messiah valley to approve
the annual financial report for the year
ending june 30 2020.
i'll read it for the record whereas the
financial statements
the government excuse me the governing
board of the animal services center
of the messiah valley ascmv is informed
that whereas the financial statements of
the ascmv
have been audited by patio brown and
hill
llp for the year ending june 30 2020
and whereas on december 14 2020 the
office of the state
auditor received ascmv audit report
submitted by patheo
brown and hill llp on behalf
of the animal services center of the
messiah valley
and whereas the office of the state
auditor has completed the review of the
audit
reported report required by section
2.2.2.13
nmac and whereas on december 22
2020 the office of the state auditor
released the audit report
as shown in exhibit a and
whereas the the annual
financial audit report for the year
ending june 30
2020 is hereby presented for approval by
the governing board
of the ascmv pass and approved this
28th day of january 2021
may we have a vote on this
i believe emotion has already been
presented correct madam chair
oh yes there was a motion there was a
second
that was prior to the presentation
correct so
we can have a vote on this at this point
board member gonda
yes board member ellen's
board member ellens
[Music]
yes yes is that unmuted yeah got that
one
uh board member yes
vice chair sanchez yes
madam chair flores yes motion passes
madam chair
thank you mr thacker
and next item on the agenda
is action uh excuse me
five action items subsection d
resolution 2021 hyphen
zero two establish an adoption fee
schedule
do we do the do we do the um
motion to approve no we just still move
patients we can yeah we can and then we
can have the presentation right yeah
thank you commissioner sanchez i'll
second the motion thank you
thank you so much uh mr thacker would
you please present
yes madam chair
so we we being the managers of the
animal service center
saw that we have a little bit of an
issue
uh with our adoption prices and also the
animals that are available for adoption
so first of all why the reasons for
these change we really wanted to push
out
the adoptable animals as the ones that
are sterilized and also our long-term
animals as you
as you can remember those have been on
the board for a while we
always have more than 100 animals in our
foster to adopt program
now just as a side note foster to adopt
means
that the animals that have
left the shelter as adopted but they're
still property of the center
because they're not sterilized yet and
so
the people adopt the animals the animal
goes home with them
and then it's returned when we tell them
say okay we have an appointment this day
for sterilization so they bring the
animals back the whole program
hinges on those people bringing the
animals back
according to our percentages about 40 of
these animals
are not being brought back and this is
putting a
stair unsterilized animal back out in
the community so we've got to do better
and that was the main driving force
behind
this adoption change and i hope you see
the reason behind it and that
it works it does work out so with these
high numbers of the animals in the
foster to adopt program uh we looked at
redoing the stereo or the
adoption fee another reason is we need
to start covering some of our costs
the sterilization on average is 123
dollars per animal
and that is like average for dogs and
cats
we also need to start covering the cost
of the stay that it costs for the animal
to be here
and we also have some revenues that are
being lost because of
covid and also the future city ordinance
that's going to go forward
we hope passes is do away with the
licensing
uh so we need to make up that revenues
as well so
this change is geared a lot towards
uh those reasons another one that we
literally like and the staff likes is
being able to do monthly specials again
if you remember back in 2018 19 times we
were doing fun little monthly specials
because our adoption prices were higher
we were able to do
a reduced rate and get some attention
there but with our
prices being so low uh the last year
year and a half we have not done monthly
specials and i know
me and the staff would like to start
doing those those are a lot of fun
so what are we talking about how much
what we're going to be doing is we're
going to start with the base price
and then from there we're going to be
offering discounts
when the animal fits into that category
so the base price is a hundred and fifty
dollars
now if the animal is already sterilized
remember our main focus is to push
people looking from an unsterilized
going to the foster adopt into a
sterilized animal
well if it's sterilized they get a 75
discount off of that base price and then
if the animal's been here
longer than three months then they get
another 25
off of that some animals will remain
free
like like we have now heartworm positive
animals and then senior animals
are free for adoptions because we like
to get those out as soon as possible as
well there's
there's cost association with both of
those
so we offer those for free i know my
little dog
my little tiki dog she's 12 and i just
had to put her on some medicine
and that's going to be a monthly thing
from now on so we need to be sure
to take in consideration those extra
charges for those heartworm and also
senior animals
so yes sir
when does the nano become senior
we have on our records our software
recognizes it as seven years old
as a senior animal so i have a senior
joke and i didn't even know it
we actually had to talk about this in
our manager's meeting we're like well
it depends per age you know like a
german shepherd or a little dachshund
or a chihuahua and we decided to keep it
at seven years because that's what our
shelter software
automatically recognizes as a senior and
even though our medical director had
some heartburn about that we got her to
to agree to it
so like i said the animals also will
remain
free for that baby you can't get
somewhere
there are i'm sorry madam chair oh no no
no it's going to be
sorry okay so there are some concerns
that i want to address that came up when
i presented this to the
executive committee and also to the
finance committee
we're looking at a worry and this when i
sent this out to our
regular staff our co-workers this was
one concern that came back to me this
higher adoption fee
that has a possibility of lowering our
adoption numbers
well keep in mind before we changed it
to what it is now the 25 dollars
the adoption fee was 75 for dog and 50
for cats
and we're actually saying fifty dollars
for an animal that's sterilized
and an animal that's been here longer
than three months it's already fifty
dollars
so we're already matching that price and
it's lower than it was for dogs
two years ago we also found that if
somebody really wants a specific animal
they're gonna pay whatever it is for
that
um if somebody walks in and sees their
dream dog of a german shepherd or golden
retriever or a maine cat
then they're going to pay the 150
dollars and
the 150 dollars will pay for
sterilization so we'll still
sterilize it but also pay for the
vaccines and the licensing and the
microchip that
this fee will also pay for as well so
they're still getting the same service
another worry is that potential adopters
they might go out to our rescues
uh to adopt they'll see ours oh you're
just more well i know
uh apa maybe does it for
for uh for more or for less money so
they go out to the to the
apa as a rescue here in town action
program for animals
i called them and they charged fifty
dollars for an animal and that includes
sterilization because most of their
animals already sterilized
and 25 for senior animals
um talking with apa they said they the
highest they know in the area
is a hundred dollars for a uh
already sterilized animal so
us being unsterilized you're paying for
it with that extra
you know the extra fifty dollars so
we're i think we're still
if an animal chooses or if a person
chooses an animal that's still
in that area of already sterilized and
longing three months
they're still within that that within
the whole entire
region of fifty dollars um to go back
really quick
to the potential adopters if they do go
to rescues
these rescues are pulling from us so in
turn if they
empty out a rescue the rescue comes and
says let's take more
more animals and so we will continue to
get
help from them faster rate
and one very valid concern is price too
high for cats
again looking in this we talked to
rescues some just the specific cat
rescues
are charging fifty dollars uh for that
now and it's also it's only a ridiculous
amount of 150
if they're choosing non-sterilized
animal and it's short term
uh most of our cats right now oh and
this is another thing i'm sorry to get
to go back but three months our animals
are getting sterilized before
three months happens the ones that are
in house and shelter
so to say that there will be an
unsterilized animal
that has been here longer than three
months is very very rare
so we still so those two will pretty
much go hand in hand
for that and that's my presentation i'd
love to answer any questions we would
like to see this approved today
so and we would start with the february
1st
uh start date for new adoptions uh we
already have plans on how to
decorate the kennels with the prices
that they're going to have
reduced rates and also how we're going
to organize it on our facebook page
and also on our web page so we would
love to
have any feedback you may have
uh yes mr ellen
i'm sorry no uh mr ellens uh
do you have your hand up
you do not i do not
thank you um counselor aveda stevie
you have your hand up yes thank you um
adam chair and thank you um for
addressing
some of the questions um that i had
during our our meeting as well in here
so i really appreciate that
um for clarification because i know
the ultimate one of the ultimate goals
on this is to make sure that
when an animal leaves that it is
comes back to be sterilized or is
already sterilized
you know one of the main focuses on this
um with the
the change when you have an adopter go
out with
an animal that um
foster to adopt programs will
those animals still aren't sterilized
yet
um so are we just then assuming that
because of the higher cost that they'll
be more inclined to bring them back to
get that sterilization um and then
do are we going to have a method to to
track that during this time to see if
that
effective um change
so hopefully i can get all your
questions the first one is is that
yes that is the host of paying more for
it
and we'll also stress that in the
adoption kind of an interview that we do
with them that you are paying for this
you need to come back and get it done
the animal is still our possession
our property and the adoption is not
complete
until the sterilization is completed so
that is the hope there the other
question you asked about tracking
yes we we can currently track how many
animals are in our foster to adopt
program
so we would be able to look and see if
the numbers are reducing
or if they're increasing or they haven't
changed
um and then with
with that i've still you know um because
we're
coming up as you said on kitten season
uh
with the large amount of
cats kind of in question in the
community and stuff like that i was
uh wondering what types of specials or
pricings
do we think is real to encourage
people to really um
adopt those animals that are already
kind of have a heavy
um i don't say they're unwanted but
it's a that's a hot topic
in the community yeah so
the animals you're speaking of um most
likely if
let me start over if a tnr tnr program
is implicated
and completed correctly you got to
remember it's not just the feral cats
that are going to be tnr'd and send back
out it's any cat that doesn't
show sign of ownership so it could be
perfectly it could be a friendly healthy
cat
but it's just somebody's to outdoor cat
that would go into the program so they
it with that that cat the the high surge
that we're talking about
most likely wouldn't come into our
adoption program
uh however with what you're saying is
we're gonna get we're gonna get kittens
and if somebody really willing to pay
150 dollars
for a kitten just because it's too young
to be sterilized well we have a
dedicated medical team
that will be sterilizing
younger kittens which i mean she likes
it to be you know over a certain age or
weigh a certain amount
but we can definitely sterilize young
kittens and also it's something that we
can look at
and change with this with the freedom to
do this
we would be able to run specials that
say kittens you know kittens need to be
out of here
or kitten crazy you know all adoptions
are this much so we're very flexible
on on moving animals out that's a good
question thank you
all right thank you and then i and i
know um miss gilbert has her hand raised
but i was just
going to ask if um
the rescues then might see in well
hopefully they'll see an influx
of clients i think on their
end if we have people that don't feel
like um
paying those fees and so i'm just
wondering if there's uh beyond apa
and i i love them as well um if we've
had
success if everybody's kind of ready to
potentially see those types of shifts
i'm sorry you must have cut out right
there at the end i didn't unders was it
a question or a statement
um the question is if we've
had uh we've talked to i guess the
the main rescues um especially perhaps
the one focus on the cats beyond apa um
to see if they're
ready for a little bit of these shifts
uh so no i have not talked to them
the larger uh cat focused adoption
rescues no okay
but i'm sure they wouldn't have a
problem with having you know more people
come and adopt from
them yeah okay well
thank you um and thank you madam chair
those are all the questions i have at
the moment
thank you counselor uh beta stewie
um mayor pro tem gondara
do you have your hand down
i do madam chair thank you um
i wanted i'm saying hi to penny
oh hi penny
um i wanted to ask clint about
um in the past when you've raised
the prices and such you gave us
some indication i believe of other um
county or city centers that are
are doing similar things where do we
rate and
what does the standard say the industry
standards say
basically about this you mention and go
ahead i'll let you
answer that so we did i'm part of the
facebook group that has other directors
in it from
all across the country and if you want
to get a convoluted answer
just ask this question about what
adoption fees they are all across the
board there is no standard
some places have a metrics where it's
the amount of amount of animals are
currently in the center
to i know guess how el paso does it
because the number of animals in the
shelter
fluctuates their price um
it was it was crazy trying to figure out
you know like an average or
trying what to do so as a management
team when i reported that to them
we we took out the parts that we really
liked and that sterilization
we want to push those animals and then
more the long term
make them look really good just price
wise
and so that's why we stuck with those
and then the price
is basically we went off what are what
it was previously before we dropped it
down to the 25.
and then we also looked at at the cost
of the sterilization that was a big one
we need to start covering
these animals that people are electing
to buy unsterilized
it needs to be covered for that that's
where those prices came from
okay i i appreciate that glenn thank you
and
you had my mention about the licensing
and having to recoup right word like
that in the new ordinance um we will be
eliminating the licensing fee
what are is that from year to year
and um what would that i mean
if we're doing that you said it would
make it
help make up the difference if you will
and i just want to see
those numbers those are numbers that
have to give for you i know that it's
pretty minimal especially during covet
right now
i think we're only at like 20 20 i want
to say like 27 percent
of where it should be for the city and
the county licenses but i can get those
numbers to the board and send them out
yeah i think that would be helpful um
well it would be helpful to um
you know for me to have that to weigh in
on whether i agree with this or not
um and then um
yeah i guess those are all my questions
at this point
i know if josh is still on i know that
number
was in his uh financial report
in in revenues it showed that they were
and it should be in your packet probably
as well
under revenues i think the first two
lines there are
city and county revenue licensing
[Music]
and clint i i guess then um typically we
don't
you know not everybody is licensing
their pets that's part of the issue
right
that's the biggest issue so that was one
of the reasons i think of many that we
in our task force talked about
eliminating that fee
so um i
i i don't know that you know this would
be helpful or not but i
i do know that there is a concern about
recouping the cost
of sterilization it's it can be
costly and we were our numbers were so
low
right that that we were sort of losing
out if you will
and our numbers were
astronomical in the foster to adopt
program when i came on i think we were
in the several hundreds
of animals in the program um and now
we're down into the hundreds i know just
recently
dr haddon sent me a report and shows
that there's 45
only because she has dedicated more
time to the foster to adopt animals to
be sterilized on her schedule log
but what does that mean is that means
less animals in the center are getting
sterilized
it's like a give and take but i think
that's where those high numbers were
coming from
uh licensing has never been
a big when i say a big not a major
revenue
maker for the center because there just
hasn't been a big push for compliance
and that's what we talked about in the
task force is it needs to be
either we go out of 100 and enforce it
or
we let it go we focus more on
microchipping and getting animals
more towards uh reunited with their
their owners
sure sure thank you class for your for
your comments and
answers thank you madam chair and thank
you um
mayor pro tim uh mr clint um
mr thacker apropos of revenues
uh pet licensee licenses
this is general fund seven four
it taking into account all of last year
it accounted for
22 wait a minute yeah
the city of las cruces
of las cruces was 22.7
and pet licenses for the county
was 28.9 percent
now is that um the audit you're looking
at or is that the monthly report
that this state is see i'll tell you
what it is it's a statement of revenues
expenditures and changes in fund balance
as of
december 31 2020 unaudited
this one yeah well that's saying is we
should
so that's on a fiscal year what we
should be at is around 53
53 is normal for revenues collected
because we're only 50 of the way through
our our
fiscal year and it's currently only uh
like you said in the 20 was it 27 and 28
percent
so they're not a major revenue driver
for us
okay i see compared to
well investment income is at 699 percent
so that's a it's like whoa we're
millionaires
okay thank you so much mr um mr
thacker uh commissioner sanchez and
after that
uh ms gilbert but uh mr sanchez please
proceed
thank you madam chair um clint i know i
appreciate um there was a you know a
couple of
of notes that you had added in um the
presentation and i was
that i know i'd asked her in the finance
committee in terms of what
our local the not the shell excuse me
the um
the rescues had been doing so i
appreciate having that information
um while i i still think i have
reservations
just because of you know some people may
see the base price
and this is something i had voiced i
think during the during the finance
committee as well
uh i i think i understand where you're
going with it
uh and i do believe that that's
something
you know we've i've said on anything
during this meeting
i joked around about it as well is that
i
encouraged you to continue to think
outside the box
um and like i said
while i may have my reservations i i do
believe this is something different and
i
uh i wouldn't mind supporting this i
think
we should if if this were to be approved
by the board
what i would probably ask is that we
come back maybe
uh after you know a few months after
this is implemented
and take a look and see you know are you
receiving feedback what do the numbers
look like
and either you know change it or at
least have some discussion
uh about um
the chain this change um like i said if
it is approved but
um i said i i i
am willing to try different things just
to try to see what works and i
understand like i said the approach and
trying to
steer the attention towards those
animals
that uh maybe want we
you know we really want to focus on
getting out of the
center and into people's homes so that
way they can find a good home
so like i said i i um
i appreciate the work that you've done
with this and helping trying to
to find information and get some answers
um with the questions have been raised
so i appreciate it thank you i think
it's a great idea do you like a
four-month review and a six-month review
and
and see what those numbers are i like
that
yeah i just like i said i just i'd be
curious just to see if it's something
we're seeing a huge drop off
then maybe we reassess but was it even
with my reservations i'm willing to
support this
thank you thank you madam chair and
thank you
uh commissioner sanchez um
miss gilbert your comments please are
questions yes i
i like the idea of going back and having
a review and i think
largely i support it uh and with a
review
perhap perhaps then you'd be able to
tell
if this change is going to have
unintended consequences
and by that i mean you know one thing
that i
just thought of right off the top is
okay
so the 150 dollar fee applies
to short-term non-sterilized
animals so so could a consequence
be that the a short
term becomes a long-term animal i guess
then
the fee would be lowered but we don't
want the animals
uh sitting in the shelter either you
know we don't we know that there are
behavior problems that occur and and you
know it's an emotional
uh psychological emotional impact on
animals too
so so that would be my concern if if
there's unintended consequences by this
but i think largely it's a very good
proposal
um we need to get our animals that
are already fixed adopted
and we need to get i mean they are our
priority
animals and the the long-term ones
thank you thank you thank you
to that i would only say that to
remember that this is not the only way
animals are leaving our center
we have a very active rescue program and
rescues
especially out of state rescues like
halo are
taking non-sterilized animals and those
animals they have to be sterilized
before they leave halo or leave those
rescue areas
so and that's where we would gear them
towards
is towards these non-sterilized animals
so
great great comments gene thank you
i agree thank you uh mr thank you for
your comments
mr allen's your hand is up do you have a
comment
or a question yes yes yes i do
the uh whenever you get the financials
including today
it shows that our our revenues are
exceeding our
expenses and that's occurring
under the current fee program
so i'm reluctant to want to approve this
because it's not causing us to lose
money we're still
getting a net increase in our revenue
and i have real concerns about the
the slowdown of adoptions because if i
walked in and i saw it with 150 dollars
for a cat
i don't think i want to adopt that cat
because
cats from here to there so i may vote no
thank you mr helens um to that madam
chair i just want to state that
the revenues are a little bit skewed
when you look at that percentage on
there
because the city and the county both pay
a large sum
up front at the very beginning and
that's why
um it's at such a high number right now
the later in the month
or later in the fiscal year that we get
the lower that percentage
stops growing or becomes more realistic
for that and also
to comment commissioner ellen's it's i'm
with you i wouldn't
adopt 150 cat i would look at the
50 cat that's that's been there for a
long time that's already sterilized and
that's the whole idea
is to push people away from the 150
dollar animal
to the lower one
thank you mr thacker
and your comments mr sanchez
use your hand yes madam chair i i just
quickly wanted to add to
what mr thacker was saying um in
addition i think
one of the things that we've seen so far
in the financials is that
because of kovid because of the number
of
uh vacancies in that have to be filled
in terms of staff
there has been some cost savings to the
budget
and so it's although although um we are
probably i think under our uh budget
parameter for
this time of year through uh through the
month of december
uh it's it's somewhat artificial and so
as soon as we start
filling or at least as mr thacker starts
to fill
those positions we will start to
probably
you'll see that numbers kind of inch up
again in the cost so
i'm just something to keep in mind and i
and i and to commissioner allen's point
and i think
this is something we talked about as
well that i think mr thacker hit
hit it on the nail on the head which was
um
and i think this this was the turning
point for me um
is i don't know if you want to call it
the salesmanship
of it where you know you go on to uh you
go to a car lot
and you see the really expensive cars
and then you know they
they might the prices might steer you
away from them but then all of a sudden
you see
um a a you know something like that that
fits
the bill what you're looking for you
know a family pet a
a you know a a cat for companionship
and it's half that price and that
kind of steers you towards that you know
maybe
section of of um the animals i think
i think that there's something to be
said for
the human nature when you're looking for
deals um
and when you're looking for something
that um although
you know you maybe you know you go in
thinking you're looking specifically for
a specific um breed of animal
if if we even if the center can turn
your attention towards uh
you know another animal that might that
might exactly be
exactly you know matter what what you
went in for
but it could be end up being you know
the right decision for you in terms of
the cost
but in terms of the companionship of
what you're looking for i think
um i think that's what did it for me
during the discussion is
how that price might
steer that attention towards animals
that we want to move so
um just wanted at that point so thank
you madam chair
and thank you mr sanchez um
if there aren't any other comments i
would like to
contribute to the comments that have
been made i agree
in in what mr
commissioner sanchez has said in its
entirety
i also would like to add that the longer
we have
an animal at the shelter the more our
costs
and expenses go up and um
and everything is skewed in so far as
um cost savings at this time because of
ko
kovid as commissioner sanchez pointed
out
and the other factor that um that plays
into this
is the fact that um
a lot of animals haven't been uh taken
in for
you know for safety reasons and whatever
um
and i think that yes uh you see the
hundred and fifty dollars
and you know it you know i mean
[Music]
for someone who has paid i paid six
hundred dollars a piece for
my jack russell carriers and boy did i
live to regret it
they're terrors now i loved uh max and
wishbone very much maybe in dog heaven
um but you know when you when you look
at the fact that
you can bring that animal back to be
sterilized
um and clint did you say that the uh
shelter
excuse me the center i'm so sorry uh
madame um
mayor pro tem you hate that word the
center
um retains ownership of the animal
when it's sold at 150
yes the actual ownership is not
transferred over
until the animal is sterilized okay
uh but they pay the 150 uh ab initio
from the get-go okay okay
so then um but they know that they
they have uh the luxury of coming back
and having a
free uh spay or neuter
not only the luxury but we make the
appointment for them we contact them
say this is a day tell them everything
they come and everything's included they
just drop the pet off and then pick it
up later that night
right and how much does a spay or neuter
cost these days
well with us just only the time and
the equipment is around 123 dollars
but if you go to a regular veterinarian
i mean for a female it could be upwards
of three hundred dollars
yeah so yeah all that being said
um i think that charging 150 dollars
is reasonable given
the fact that there is some control over
that if they choose not to
is there a time period clint where they
uh buy it on day one and then they have
um months days whatever to
to conform to this to those terms or
what happens usually about three weeks
out is what we are right now with
surgeries so after
three weeks of the adoption we're
contacting them setting up appointments
if they don't um respond or they know
show on their
appointments we do send a letter out
after one month
reminding them that it's still the
center's property we need to get the
animals
animals sterilized and then we do it
again at another
another i think it's three weeks we send
the same letter out and then at the
at three months we have not heard from
them we send a pretty nasty gram
stating that the animal is going to be
reported as stolen
and all this information and so we
also get compliance from those letters
as well so they have upwards of three
months to
come into compliance with it right
and um what if the animal goes into heat
during those three months
or are they you know i mean they may be
over six months old or so
yeah that's the whole thing about
getting this program out of here i mean
we
would love to get to the point of not
doing any more foster to adopt
but we recognize the fact of our high
intake and that we're not going to get
all these animals sterilized that
somebody's interested in
before they're able to get adopted right
so insofar as salesmanship goes
as that word was used previously i
believe by uh commissioner sanchez
uh would you would you say for 150 this
is what you get
you know all the bells and whistles type
of thing
and um and we're going to make sure you
comply
then you hit him over the head with a
hammer okay i'm
i'm totally for it um so
i want to thank you uh mr thaecker uh
mayor putin is your hand up again yes
thank you madam chair sorry i probably
should have said this but
is there any way that we can wait on
this
and what would be the ramification or
consequence for doing so
i just i i am concerned about
our adoption rates going down because of
it
but also um you know covet co you know
a lot a lot of our folks are
experiencing lot financial loss and
um you know in different ways have been
affected by covenant and i'm wondering
if we can wait
and re um visit this
maybe in the summer i don't know but i
i'm not sure that i'm in agreement to
this
at this point and at this point in time
honestly so thank you madam chair you're
welcome
uh mayor pro tem well it's been proposed
that we check in three
in three months minimally maybe or
four to six months to review it and we
can check
then whether it's working and i agree
with you that
covet has skewed everything and
everything has you know
it's thrown a wrench into everything um
madame sharon yes sir if i may
i first you know i would hesitate
um delaying it we we've had plans on the
background like i said we've
uh working on our website just waiting
to flip the switch
we have um uh the kennels and everything
that we're just waiting to flip the
switch
um and also i mean we have
it's not hard to do a present or a first
month
february we want to do the for the love
you are
you know for the love of the animal and
and do a special and let's do
25 adoptions for ones that are
sterilized
this just this opportunity gives us the
availability or gives us the chance to
do those
and do those fun specials and hit
facebook hard and
i really do not see do not expect a
decrease in adoptions with this at all
so that's just my two cents
thank you mr thacker what have been the
adoption
uh rate the adoptions or the adoption
rate
uh we have a full year now of cobit or
excuse me
almost a full year i think it was in
march when everybody
definitely i mean it started trickling
out in january and then it really hit us
uh yeah in march so we almost have a
year to measure
how adoptions have gone for you know a
sizable
chunk of time do we have those stats to
see how they were before
and how covet has without a doubt covet
has had an impact
certainly a big factor perhaps i don't
know i don't want to comment too much on
our year-end numbers we're going to have
that coming out next month
in our our yearly report will be coming
out in the february presentation but i
know that the adoptions have not
suffered
our number ah okay well that's good to
know
that's good to know mr ellens you've had
your hand up
yeah we don't have emotion on the table
yet
no we don't oh wait a minute no we do we
have emotion
we have emotion we're discussing we're
in discussion
all right i didn't hear the motion
earlier okay
no worries ms gilbert you have your hand
up
again yeah yes and i'll keep it short
because i know the meeting is run
really long um i want to ask clint
if uh you feel like there's already
buy-in from the community
on this on the change in adoption fee
and also if it's something that can be
uh
can be mentioned for
uh support at the conversations with
senator with the center
um meeting which will be um
in another week so we have not been
out to the public at all you know saying
that we're gonna
we're gonna do this because we didn't
know if it was going to happen
we made arrangements on the back end uh
just in case
things did go through it could just be a
quick switch to flip
i i don't with the prices that are out
there i don't see
any hesitation from especially the
rescue cup or the rescue
industry as well i think that they'll be
in line with it as well
too and what i hear you saying
too with this new program if it passes
the new adoption fee that it would be
very very flexible
so it would be it would remain appealing
to the public
right yes thank you miss gilbert i
agree uh totally with your comments
the flexibility is built in
[Music]
if there are no further comments we
should uh take a vote on this uh
roll call please vote on this
yes madam chair uh board member gandra
no board member ellens
a very reluctant yes
board member rebecca study um
mimik miss commissioner ellen is better
reluctant yes
vice chair sanchez yes
madam chair florence a very robust
yes but will we visit in a few months
right
mr yes ma'am chair manager it passes
with one two three
four yes and one no
adam chair yes mr ellens
you say potato i say potato
tomato tomato okay
thank you
okay
madam chair
madam chair you're on mute madam chair
[Music]
i'm sorry yes mr ellens uh i have to
leave
because i have a 1 30 meeting
so i don't think my attendance is
required for the final discussion
although i'm sorry i'm going to miss it
yeah we don't have any more action items
so
thank you very much for letting us know
mr ellens
be well the next
item is discussion items microchips
and it is 12 37 the longest meeting
we've ever had
i guess we've had the luxury of uh not
uh
taking up any zoo zoom time for anybody
else
on this uh whatever so
yes sir i i'm the one who put microchips
on
it was requested by the executive
committee we had an email earlier in the
month
from emile bourdain is the gentleman's
name
yeah he's still very involved in what
we're doing here
he wanted the topic of microchips
brought up
specifically wanting to know why
animals are still being impounded with
no microchips or bad microchip
information
so uh with his request as an agenda item
i thought i'd put it on
um and have a quick quick
discussion about uh microchips in
general and what are some of the
the um i don't know the issues
of not having it done and i can tell you
one thing right now is that
the animals coming into the center i
can't
i can't gauge or i can't say why they're
not being done rather than availability
i mean southern southern new mexico
humane society does a great program
and teams up with bark house quite a bit
on doing adoption or doing uh microchips
we've done microchips in our
drive-through clinics and they're very
popular
all the veterinarians in the area offer
microchips
i know dr carter does microchips uh at a
discounted rate when she does her
clinics
so it's all about the opportunities
there
it's about the owners actually coming
together
or taking that responsibility among
themselves and getting it done
um that that's my side of this so what
i'm saying is i don't have a lot of
control
over or who's getting these microchips
it's just all about creating the
opportunity and hoping for compliance
and email brings up that yes they are
mandatory he's right
microchips are mandatory so maybe that
falls more on the enforcement side of
things
i can tell you every animal that comes
into the center leaves with the
microchip
no if and or buts about it it gets a
microchip and it's
it's also registered to the individual
who redeems it that's my side
i just wanted to comment clint um
wondering when they come into the center
if you know
what where they're coming from if it's a
district
county and perhaps there's a problem
with availability of microchipping
you know sometimes i think of the south
valley i don't know what the
opportunities are
for the microchip clinics like like you
were referring to bark houses uh
that hsn did just recently with them and
they did
close to 50 and they have 40 people on
their waiting list for the next
microchip clinic so whenever they're
offered they're they're very popular
so i don't know yeah maybe it's
something we need to do more
of uh opportunity of um
and co-ed has really put a
you know issue on this in in providing
these clinics
my staff was very hesitant about being
exposed to other staff or to other
individuals
out there so
but it is it is an issue i i
agree with emil we need to provide that
opportunity and make it attractive for
people to get their animals out
and like gene said get it out into fire
outlying areas
can we track where these animals are
being impounded from yes we can
and so that's something that we can
start doing once we
[Music]
have the resources to do so
you're on mute madam chair
thank you uh clinton thank you uh ms
gilbert is there any other
discussion on
microchips
and it is an enforcement issue but all
right
it was there any public input did you
receive any
emails mr clint i did receive one
it's a little bit different i it's about
animal control and
[Music]
the
dogs on chains and i responded to her
and i told her that this isn't
the animal service board does not have
governance over
animal control but yet i
let her know that i would read it i told
her that she needs to this individual
needs to go to the city council and
present it there
but it says hello mr thacker i was
informed there will be a meeting
tomorrow about shelter business
and was told i could put in my two cents
i believe that the animal control
officers could and should do a better
job at enforcing the ordinances that we
have especially the dogs on chains so
many of us called about this terrible
abuse and neglect of these poor dogs
if aco shows up nothing gets done
most times they don't even come to check
these people need to be held accountable
why do we have an ordinance if no one is
going to enforce it
i see dogs all the time suffering the
cold and the heat of end of chain
with no human action interaction at all
please help us help them
i know more can be done and with that my
experience
madam chair as and the board as an
animal control director
the complainant really doesn't know a
lot of times what is happening
um i'll i would show up as an out of
control officer
and i would talk to the animal owner and
if that
animal has the bare minimum of food
water and shelter
and vet care or needed vet care that
needs to be there
then there's nothing that can be done
obviously standards are a question
here i would never keep my animal
chained up in
in uh with a big chain around its neck
in the backyard
but that's just me and and that's the
issue is as long as there's that bare
minimum
another thing is like i said a lot of
times these individuals don't see when
the animal control officer comes out
or they might be by a phone call
follow-up
or also a letter sent you know it's
a lot of times they don't see that
compliance part of it um
i know it's a popular call especially
here with our
hot winners that we have but sometimes
people's standards of caring for an
animal
are are just different than the
complainant
that bare minimum has to be benefit is
there's nothing animal control can do
and i don't know if gino and mary lou
are still on the call but
i'm sure they'd probably echo that
madam terrify me absolutely uh
gino jimenez city las cruces animal
control supervisor yes ma'am you know
that has been
probably one of the hardest sections of
the ordinance to enforce
i'm glad that it was put in there
because i think it needed to be put in
the ordinance so that these animals
wouldn't live
their entire lives on chains but when we
did that we also put time restrictions
um we said that uh if the animal was to
be
tethered to a fixed point it could only
stay on that fixed point
for a maximum of two hours and then we
also put in there that if it was going
to be on some sort of a trolley system
or pulley system
that it could only be on that system for
a maximum of four hours
um the problem that we've
run into is that when we respond to the
calls
we can't verify what how long that dog
has actually been
on that chain or on that tether because
we go ask the owner and they say i just
put it back on
how can i confirm or deny that if that's
what the animal owner is saying
so what it takes is a lot of
and and it takes a lot of manpower if
you will
for somebody to sit at that location for
two hours to make sure that that dog is
um removed from that tether or that that
uh
trolley system right now um
i just got up to fully staff i have
three officers that are
in training right now so it'll be
mid-march before they're released on
their own
then i will be fully staffed um but
last the whole entire year of last year
i was at five
five officers so manpower plays a big
issue
or a big
issue with enforcing that part of the
ordinance
thank you uh thank you uh mr jimenez
officer jimenez and yes that's exactly
what mr thacker
director thacker pointed out it's an
enforcement issue
and and i think that's and and the crux
of the problem
lies in the um
you you have to see it happening the
officer has to see it if the officer
doesn't see it as happy it's like when
you're speeding down lowmen
or when i'm speeding down them not you
me when a driver is speeding down lowmen
if a cop doesn't catch me yay
but if an officer is right behind me
which has happened on occasion
oh my gosh slam on my brakes i just
really slow down and hope that i can get
away with it and i have
i've been very lucky but again if the
officer doesn't see it
you know it didn't happen which is
unfortunate
right what about a video uh
is there any no because that that all of
that would have to be double checked to
make sure that the time
is perfect and hasn't been in any way um
you know adjusted or what's it called uh
whatever and madam chair in in some
cases
the judge will allow a video or
photographs to be put brought into play
however that complainant or that citizen
must be willing to testify in court that
they took that photo
or they took that video um
so that it can be presented into court
and i think that's where
a lot of the issue is is because people
don't want to be confronted or don't
want retaliation from their neighbors
so therefore they're not going to say
anything from the get-go they rely on us
um and and that's our job and i'm not
trying to shy away from it
however um it's it's a real
hard section to enforce because of
manpower issues
yes yes but and thank you also for the
clarification
that photographs and videos uh will be
viewed by a judge usually it's not
admissible evidence
because of the foundations that have the
foundation has to be laid
for the veracity of the document itself
so
um or the exhibit thank you thank you
uh officer jimenez uh miss ward you have
your hand up
yes i was just gonna i was just going to
um
explain pretty much what gino said
because i was looking at our ordinance
and our times are pretty much mirroring
what gino's times are the same amount of
time
you know the two hours and the four
hours and even the 12 hour time with the
trolley and without a trolley
in the amount of time that they could
leave their animal on a chain
um again we don't have the manpower to
sit out there and actually
watch the animal being on a chain
so when we do get called for something
like that a lot of times we'll ask the
people that are calling to complain
if they have have witnessed the animal
for that amount of time
out on the chain and and they don't they
just see it out there
and then they'll go do something and a
few hours later they can come back
and they see the animal out there so
they can't confirm that the animal has
been out there
for an extended period of time and then
when we talk to the owner well they put
the animal back out there
so we don't have that evidence showing
that the animal has been out there for
that extended period of time
however if we do have somebody that says
yes
you know i've witnessed that animal for
that extended period of time
and they want to be a witness in court
we can go that route
or if they've sat out a camera or
whatnot and they haven't moved it and
showed it
and provided that for evidence we will
definitely go that route
and issue a citation but we will always
start off with by going to that
individual and
explaining to them and and going over
the ordinance and
and um trying to get voluntary
compliance that route
um um but that's that's the one way
of doing that right now as well for us
thank you so much uh officer ward thank
you
thank you yes thank you for taking that
extra step to
educate people as to what the ordinance
is thank you
any other comments
okay so
is that the extent of public input mr
thacker
yes madam chair thank you
uh we have item eight chair and board
comments
i certainly don't have any comments
except i'm hungry
does anybody have any um
any parting words i don't see anybody's
hand up
um i think genie does yeah oh genie
genie yes just something really quickly
um a couple of weeks ago there was
someone who was arrested and
incarcerated at our detention center and
for some reason failed to tell anybody
that he had a dog in his apartment
and the dog of course after being alone
started eating
the sofa and then chewing on the door
and
left a complete mess inside until some
neighbors
contacted the landlord and they let him
in and the dog was put with somebody
while the guy was in jail
so that was a concern i think we all
should have really
so i contacted the jail detention center
administrator
baker and we agreed that we were going
to start
preparing a form to give out to everyone
you know basically asking them if they
had any unattended animals at home that
needed care
and that we would work with some of the
rescue agencies to temporarily house
these animals
until either the detainee could make
arrangements
or the person gets out of jail so
i it's right now in the beginning stages
and
but that's what we are talking about and
and trying to get this form together
and trying to get a process to where
either we would contact somebody
or we would pick up the animal on a
welfare hold until arrangements can be
made
but i think that's a concern really that
it's another aspect of what we do
and that's all i have to say that's
great thanks janie
i really like that yeah thank you i do
too thank you so much for
sharing that and i think it's great that
that question will be asked
so that uh there could be a welfare
check on the
on the animal any other comments
by the board
okay um
a motion for a german please
commissioner sanchez so moved
it's been moved by uh commissioner
sanchez that the meeting be adjourned
and seconded by
councillor aveda stevie um
[Music]
the meeting is now adjourned thank you
bye bye bye thank you thank you thank
you everybody
great meeting wonderful good good
meeting
i'm very good thank you everybody
you