Animal Shelter Advisory Board

Animal Shelter Advisory Board Minutes January 19, 2016 STATE OF TEXAS COUNTY OF TARRANT CITY OF BEDFORD The Animal Shelter Advisory Board of the City of Bedford, Texas met in a regular session at 2:00 p.m. in at City Hall 2000 Forest Ridge Drive, on the 19th day of January, 2016 with the following members present Eric Griffin Deputy Police Chief (Staff Liaison) Mark Bellinghausen Animal Control Supervisor Dr. Susan Read Chairman Barbara Richardson Board Member Karen Killian Board Member CALL TO ORDER Chairman Dr. Susan Read called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m. Karen Killian makes motion to elect Barbara Richardson as Animal Shelter Advisory Board Secretary Dr. Read seconds motion, motion carries Barbara Richardson makes motion to elect Karen Killian as Animal Shelter Advisory Board Vice Chairperson. Dr. Read seconds motion, motion carries. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. Consider approval of the following Animal Shelter Advisory Board Minutes: a) regular meeting: May 13, 2015 Barbara Richardson made the motion that the minutes taken on May 13th, 2015, be approved. Board member Karen Killian seconded the motion. Minutes approved as written no changes. Minutes were approved by consent as written. 2. New business Report on Council Discussion At the last city council meeting it was requested by Barbara that we begin discussion in response to recent tornadoes that struck Garland and Rowlett on December 26, what is our plan for the animals. Roger Fisher stated that human life and structure take priority in such an event, but that is a good question. There was an amazing response to try to reunite animals with owners. The process has been started by staff with a Bedford Animal Shelter disaster plan, this is a draft given to this board for comments. Much of this document was obtained from working with the county. There is a multi-jurisdictional task force county wide effort underway working on the same thing. Dr. Read stated this it was well thought out, but should we table discussion til the next meeting since we just received the information. Roger suggested that after reading it we had any suggestions or changes to let Mark know. Dr. Read suggested calling all the vet clinics in Bedford too see how many were willing to participate in a rescue type situation and how many animals they could house.  Roger asked if animals would go to local clinics and other shelters and then be placed with other agencies. Deputy Chief Griffin stated that our shelter couldn’t house nearly enough animals and part of putting this plan together was to reach out to other shelters and clinics to see what help they could provide Ken Horn went to meeting with the county to start the ball rolling on this plan. Texas A&M is also involved. Dr. Read stated that a task force with TVMA is already up and running and we need to see if there is a key contact person 3. Report on shelter statistical data Annual reports for 2014 and 2015 were distributed for board members to review. Mark Bellinghausen stated there were no major changes and things were pretty consistent. Dr. Read asked if anything could be done to try to get more cats reunited with their owners. Mark stated that with new software we can and will be able to offer low cost microchipping. Karen Killian commented that 1791 city licenses were issued in 2015. How can we get an estimate of how many animals we actually have in our community. Can we try to get communication out to our city what we are trying to do, maybe on the water bill. Please help us so we can help you. In the event of a disaster it would be so helpful having more animals tagged and identified so we could reunite more animals with their owners. Roger Fisher stated that there are a lot of ways to get the word out more effectively. He didn’t feel it was an issue of people not wanting to pay the $5 to register their animals. People don’t know their animals need to be registered. We need to find ways to let people know, maybe an awareness campaign we can put together. Roger will work with city manager’s office to put something together. We bring our trailer to events we should bring registration forms with us. Dr. Read stated that when she first opened business in Colleyville the clinic issued city licenses. Mark stated that part of the draft has an ongoing public awareness campaign. Dr. Read asked if there was any more new business and if we should set a date for next meeting. Karen brought up what a great job city was doing with a live release rate of 72% while our shelter is still a full service animal shelter taking all owner surrender animals even if they are not adoptable, while surrounding cities were telling their citizens they are not taking owner surrender animals and to take their animals to HSNT. Maybe that is the reason that their numbers look better than our shelter. Roger asked if our shelter took owner surrender animals from other cities. Mark stated our policy is only for Bedford residents, but when people find out their city will not take an owner surrender animal they come from other cities and tell us they found the animal in Bedford. Dr. Read asked if we wanted to set a date for next meeting or did we want to wait. Dr. Read made a motion to adjourn the meet as there was no additional business to be discussed. Board member Karen Killian seconded the motion. ______________________________ _____________________ Chairman Dr. Read Date Approved