City, Shelter Friends Seek Joint Agreement

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Created on Wednesday, 09 October 2024 15:49

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Assembly laid the groundwork Tuesday night for a revised memorandum of understanding between the city and the nonprofit Friends of the Sitka Animal Shelter that will restore access to the shelter for volunteers wanting to help care for the animals.
The Jarvis Street animal shelter has been closed to volunteers since relations between the Police Department and the friends nonprofit over shelter management broke down.

TOP: It was standing-room-only at Tuesday night’s Assembly meeting in Harrigan Centennial Hall. Many Sitkans attended the meeting to weigh in on the situation at the Sitka Animal Shelter.
BOTTOM LEFT: Assembly members Kevin Mosher, left, and Scott Saline are sworn in for three-year terms after the results of the municipal election were certified.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Steven Eisenbeisz listens to Municipal Clerk Sara Peterson as he takes the oath of office for a third two-year term as mayor. (Sentinel Photos by James Poulson)

The animal shelter issue drew a standing-room-only public turnout for the Assembly’s first meeting since last week’s election. The mayor and the two members who were re-elected were sworn in to their new terms before the start of the animal shelter discussion.
During the informal discourse between the Assembly and two members of the nonprofit, and input from the police chief, there was general agreement that a broader community discussion is needed on what services the public wants the shelter to offer, and what services the volunteers can and want to provide. There were also questions about standards for the volunteers.
There also was agreement that more clarity is needed about the difference between an animal shelter run by the city as part of the Police Department, and a Humane Society-type shelter.
“I’m really optimistic on the short-term future of getting the volunteers back in to take care of the animals, and I think we’ll make progress on long-term solutions,” Assembly member Chris Ystad said today.
He said he plans to work with other Assembly members to chart a course for community discussions for the long term. The long-term questions are to provide clarity on what the shelter is and is not, and adjusting the city code to fit the community’s desires and the city’s capacity for services.
Assembly member Thor Christianson volunteered to lead the community discussions.
“We’ll get the interested parties into a room and we’re going to get the volunteers back into the shelter,” Christianson said today, referring to the city policy now in place that bars volunteers from the city-owned shelter on Smith Street.
More than 70 members of the public filled the Assembly chambers for the Tuesday meeting, and the room was extended to accommodate the crowd. The agenda included regular business such as staff reports, ordinances, committee appointments and the lengthy discussion on the animal shelter.
At the top of agenda a proclamation about Indigenous Peoples’ Day was read, Police Chief Robert Baty reported on activities in his department, and city Sustainability Coordinator Bri Gabel made a report on the electric department’s ongoing plans for future supplemental appropriation was approved for electronics on the city emergency response vessel.
The Assembly voted 7-0 to certify the results of the October 1 municipal election. Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said in most years there’s a brief celebration to thank out-going members, but since all three officials whose terms were up were re-elected, it was back to business after Eisenbeisz, Kevin Mosher and Scott Saline were sworn in to their new terms.
  
Animal Shelter
Assembly members reported receiving 50 to 70 letters on the animal shelter issue since July 26, when the city shut down volunteer access to the shelter.
The Assembly agreed at the start of Tuesday’s discussion that the immediate need was to find a way to allow Friends volunteers back into the shelter to care for the animals, just as they have done for years. By the end of the meeting there was agreement that city staff, Assembly members and shelter volunteers would work on revising an MOU that would allow that to happen.
Assembly members also were in favor of a broader community discussion on the larger issues, which are code updates, delineation of responsibilities at the shelter, and answering the questions about what kind of shelter the city would have.
“Thinking about this as short-term solutions and long-term vision and strategy helps us understand that there’s immediate needs for caring for the animals and a long-term discussion on the future of the shelter,” Assembly member JJ Carlson said today.
City Administrator John Leach presented the Assembly with options based on models used elsewhere, including the city’s fulfilling animal control duties, and the sheltering and adoption duties run by an independent self-funded organization. Other options were to outsource both areas, or pursue a cooperative agreement for shelter services with volunteer support.
    Leach said he’s interested in getting guidance to a solution that will work for the community, “because if we don’t have someone in there managing an animal shelter, we’re just going to find ourselves in the same spot.”
He noted that the city code is specific in defining the animal control officer’s duties, but not on what the city does as a “shelter.”
“That’s where volunteer organizations can help on the shelter side ... maybe those functions do not belong within a police department or animal control, and this is very typical in other communities,” he said.
The format of the discussion was somewhat unusual for an Assembly meeting, with the mayor calling forward the Friends of the Sitka Animal Shelter president Kristina Tirman and co-founder and board secretary Dusty Kidd. The two said their main concerns at this time are what they see as “the lack of standards of care of the animals,” and “transparency with the public.”
They spent about an hour in a back-and-forth with the Assembly answering questions and laying out their concerns.
They agreed more clarity is needed in the code on operation of the shelter.
Volunteers have been part of the shelter operation since it was built in the early 1990s. Friends of the Sitka Animal Shelter was formed in 2021 to “fill some of the gaps existing at the shelter,” the nonprofit leaders said. They added later that the organization to date has donated $36,193 to the shelter, and performed some 2,892 volunteer hours. Tirman said the intent was to be a support group and help make the shelter a more open and welcoming space for the community.
“We would love the opportunity to continue to support the shelter and the animals in their care in the short term, recognizing there also needs to be a long-term change,” Tirman said, in encouraging the Assembly to reach out to veterinarians, volunteers and the general public.
“These are critical services to a community, and we hope that we can work collaboratively with you all moving forward to help get us to a place where we have a well functioning and passionate animal shelter for our community,” she said.
Police Chief Robert Baty also talked to the Assembly about his concerns, and a desired outcome.
“The goal is to find a working solution and yet look out for the city’s best interest, and I’ll also agree with the summary that we do have two separate mindsets about the duties of the city,” he told the Assembly. “By code, it is an animal control facility; the wishes of the volunteers is what I would call more of a humane society. I’m not opposed to that.”
He also talked about the value of the volunteers and some of the problems since the beginning of the year. The lack of clarity about what each entity did led to overlaps, “and there were conflicts related to that,” he said.
The mayor asked the chief, “Do you have a desire to get the volunteers back in the facility operating at a level that provides support to the mission?”
Baty said, “I think if we can clearly delineate duties and have accountability, I’m 100% for it. But the problem is, if we have animals in and out of the shelter, we don’t know what’s happening, our liability is too huge.”
He said he was interested in an agreement, “... but I need to have our duties clearly established and understood that if we are a control shelter, and we are asked to do certain things by code, that we can.”  
At the end of the meeting, a number of past and present volunteers, and a former animal control officer, testified under Persons to be Heard, before the meeting was adjourned.

Other Business
In other business, the Assembly:
– reappointed Gerry Hope to a three-year term on the Sustainability Commission.
- approved a liquor license renewal for the Nugget Restaurant at the airport.
– authorized the administrator to sign and execute $1.7 million in loans under the clean water and drinking water loan programs, to help fund the improvements on Hirst, Lake, Monastery and Kinkead streets, and utility improvements.
– expanded the scope of the Blatchley heat pump project to include the failed heat pumps serving the shops area at Sitka High School. The Blatchley project had $125,000 in leftover funds, which could be used to cover other heat pump issues.
– heard a brief report about Southeast Conference, including the announcement at Sitka will host the conference meeting next year.
– rescheduled the regular Assembly meetings in December to Dec. 17 and 30 to avoid holding a meeting on Christmas Eve.