Public to Weigh In On Animal Shelter

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Category: News

Created on Monday, 10 March 2025 15:39

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SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer

Rules on spaying and neutering, maximum length of stay for an animal in the city animal shelter, and euthanasia protocol are among possible discussion items at tonight’s community meeting on long-term city animal control policy.

The town hall-type meeting will start at 6 p.m. at Harrigan Centennial Hall.

The Sitka Animal Shelter. (Sentinel File Photo)

Assembly member Thor Christianson will facilitate, and at least two other Assembly members, Tim Pike and Chris Ystad, will be present.

Tonight's community meeting is the one the Assembly said would be held when they signed off Feb. 25 on a memorandum of understanding on operation of the animal shelter.

The MOU sets the responsibilities of the city and the non-profit Friends of the Sitka Animal
Shelter for the coming year, while work continues on a permanent agreement that will be part of the city general code.

The memo the Assembly approved unanimously on Feb. 25 followed months of negotiations between the city and FOSAS after volunteers were not allowed into the shelter last summer.

“I’m looking for guidance,” said Christianson, who was a negotiator on the MOU. “I’m going to be working with others to rewrite the 40-plus-year-old code, and I’m looking for the temperature of the people of Sitka: what they’d like to see in the new code.”

Sitka General Code Title 8 (Animals) has two sections, with one covering animal protection and the other covering control and cruelty to animals. Both sections have numerous subsections. The meeting tonight will have discussions on areas that need to be updated, changed or added.

“My plan is to have a list of questions we want to answer, and my plan is to have sheets up and kind of throw them out to the crowd,” Christianson said. “The first one is, do we want a shelter or just a pound? I know the answer to that, I think, but it kind of needs to be said.”

A few other questions Christianson and others hope to answer include, “How long will the city be responsible for an animal? What’s the procedure for determining if an animal is viable? What are our euthanasia proposals or protocols? Who will be responsible for an animal after the city is no longer responsible for the animal? Who will run the shelter side of things? Who is responsible for for animal control? Again, we know the answer to some of these, but we want to talk about them.”

Other questions are on how much the city should cover in veterinary services, the adoption process, how the shelter will be funded, and how volunteers will be vetted and managed.

“Also, things like trying to maintain transparency and record-keeping,” Christianson said, noting one idea is for a regular update by the animal control officer and a shelter representative.

Kristina Tirman, president of Friends of the Sitka Animal Shelter, said she’s hoping people with a range of opinions will attend tonight's meeting, not just members of FOSAS or shelter volunteers.

“We are really hoping to get as much community input as possible because this is going to help determine the future of the shelter, and update city code,” she said. “So the more people that come, the more people that share their input, the more representative shelter operations will be for the community. All types of community members are welcome to this. We want animal care experts like vets and trainers, but also anyone who has a pet or cares about animals – or has thoughts about what our shelter should look like – is welcome to join.”

Tirman was a party to the MOU negotiations, and said she has several issues she’s concerned about, including “the importance of spaying and neutering, and vaccinating, and having the shelter, and being transparent.”

“And hearing it from the community and not just (FOSAS) will be important,” she said.

When asked for her top issues she wants to see addressed, she said she’d like it clear in the code that the city runs an animal shelter, which currently is not explicitly in the code.

“They want to set a maximum length of stay, and I think they want that in the code,” she said. “We definitely have concerns about that because looking at other cities' codes, that’s not really a thing.”

The MOU, which will be in place for a year, sets three months as the maximum length of time the city will cover costs for basic care and shelter of an animal in the shelter.

Both City Administrator John Leach and City Attorney Rachel Jones plan to attend the meeting to answer questions or provide information. The Assembly will make final decisions on any proposed code changes, which must be enacted by ordinance in a formal procedure.