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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Shelter Still Needs Funding

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
    The East Mountain Regional Animal Shelter is still looking to find funding.
    The proposed $10 million project would serve incorporated and unincorporated areas in Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Torrance counties.
    According to Deborah Torza, who lobbied for the shelter on behalf of the nonprofit organization Animal Protection Voters, the shelter was only supported by one legislator in the recent session.
    State Rep. Kathy McCoy appropriated $100,000, which is still subject to a veto by Gov. Bill Richardson.
    "It was the hardest year I've ever worked," Torza said.
    So far, stakeholder groups, including Tijeras, Edgewood, Santa Fe County and Bernalillo County, have contributed a total of $210,000 to the project.
    Additional funding may come from the city of Moriarty, but that will be decided at a budget meeting in March, according to Geri Salazar.
    That is still a far cry from $10 million. In addition, Torrance County may pull out of the project as one of the stake-holders.
    "I hope you don't give up on Torrance," Bernalillo County Commissioner Michael Brasher said at the animal shelter planning committee meeting on Feb. 20.
    Edgewood Town Councilor Chuck Ring agreed with Brasher and, without elaborating, said there may have been prior difficulties with the county that may be hindering a relationship.
    He added that he didn't think "any entity can do justice, by itself, to any animal shelter."
    Jonathan Craig, one of the architects working on the project, estimated that it would cost about $4.5 million more if each entity involved were to build its own animal shelter.
    "The real savings will be in operational costs," Craig said.
    Larry Connolly of Austin-based Connolly Architects, another architecture firm working on the shelter, said the proposed shelter is very sophisticated.
    "There is an economy of scale in this building type. We've gotten so good at providing safe, sanitary shelters. That's the good news. The bad news is they aren't cheap," he said.
    He added that he doesn't see the shelter as an "indulgence."
    "This is not a low-kill or no-kill facility," he said. "You have a charge ... what you're really fighting against is these sort of puppy mills where indiscriminate breeding goes on."
    He said one of the most important parts of the proposed shelter is the low-cost/high-volume spay and neuter clinic.