Citizens concerned about conditions at the Vermilion County Animal shelter told members of a county board committee Thursday evening that improvements there are long overdue. Sabrina Kelly, a resident of County Board District 7, said she raised concerns a year ago about conditions in the building….
Audio Player{AUDIO: “I walked in the building today – it’s 75-degrees in there. Year-after-year they don’t have air-conditioning, still. And heat strokes and heat casualties happen in humans and animals. If you’ve never had to deal with a dog having a heat stroke – it’s not fun.”}
(Citizens packed the meeting at the Joseph G. Cannon Building.)
Vickie Stevens of Westville said conditions in the shelter are disgraceful…
Audio Player{AUDIO: “The way I understand it, you’ve got a budget but it isn’t enough to…the place needs to be tore down and rebuilt, or something’s gotta be done. If that was a school you guys would close it in two seconds. All you’ve got to do is walk in it.”}
Lon Henderson (shown here), chairman of the County Board’s Health and Education Committee, said air-conditioning at the shelter is operating….
{AUDIO: “At the same time, I want you to remember that the temperature out there is not going to be the same as in your home. It’s impossible. First of all, we have exhaust fans – correct? They’re run, and exhaust fans are to eliminate the odors that are acquired in that facility. Exhaust fans pull the air out, and by pulling the air out it raises the temperature.”}
Henderson said it was recently 83-degrees inside the shelter when he was there. He noted an additional $200-thousand dollars was put in the general fund earlier expressly for HVAC and ventilation upgrades at the shelter.
Henderson also added “it is erroneous and irresponsible to say that the facility is short-changed as the budget has more than doubled in the last two years to $1.8 million dollars with well over a million dollars from property taxes. Henderson added….
Audio Player{AUDIO: “The City of Danville and the County are in negotiations. We have been talking. And as it has been brought up – 57-percent of all calls this past year come from the city of Danville, and yet they’re only paying 10-percent of the cost. And as I mentioned before, the other revenues come from like adoption fees, municipalities and rabies tags. So, we need to do better. The City of Danville needs to do better.”}
A report presented last year by Animal Shelters of America, a company that builds shelters, suggested it would cost $12-million to $15-million dollars to replace the shelter currently located on the Catlin-Tilton Road.
