When a wintry wind blows, Hollister resident Elizabeth Gonzalez
said she thinks about the dogs at the city’s animal shelter. The
kennels are outside, exposed to the breeze, and Gonzalez imagines
the animals feeling every bit of the cold.
HOLLISTER
When a wintry wind blows, Hollister resident Elizabeth Gonzalez said she thinks about the dogs at the city’s animal shelter. The kennels are outside, exposed to the breeze, and Gonzalez imagines the animals feeling every bit of the cold.
“It just breaks my heart to see what’s here,” she said.
But by July, the shelter will offer more hospitable accommodations. City staff broke ground on a new animal shelter Thursday, one that will be five times the size of the current facility.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for years,” said Animal Control Director Julie Carreiro. “This is going to make our jobs a lot easier. I’m really happy, and I’ll be even happier when we move.”
A new shelter, however, won’t solve all of the city and county’s animal control problems. Four city employees staff the shelter, including Carreiro. That’s more than the two employed earlier this year, but still below the optimum.
Earlier this year, Carreiro said a lack of staff meant she had to euthanize animals eight days after they arrived at the shelter, rather than keeping them until adoption. With new staffers aboard getting up to speed, Carreiro said the situation has improved, but she still has to euthanize some strays when the shelter is full.
With the recent passage of the sales tax increase Measure T, more help could be on the way. At Thursday’s ceremony, Mayor Doug Emerson said the groundbreaking should be “the first step to really restoring” a fully-staffed animal control department.
“Ideally, it should be 10 (workers),” Carreiro said. “Even seven would be really helpful. If I had seven people, we could probably be open six days a week.”
Still, the bigger facility will actually reduce the workload for Carreiro and her staff, she said. For example, each animal will have an automatic water dispenser, so shelter staffers won’t have to spend an hour each day refilling water supplies.
The 25-year-old, 1,400-square-foot animal shelter was meant to be temporary, said City Engineering Manager Steve Wittry. Four years ago, city staff were ready to build a new facility, but Assistant Engineer Luis Aguilar said rising costs turned the design into a prohibitively expensive “$4.4 million Taj Mahal.”
The new shelter, which will be located just west of Hollister’s public works yard on South Street, is estimated to cost a more affordable $1.1 million – to be paid by Hollister Redevelopment Agency funds – and construction should be completed within six months, Wittry said. The less expensive facility will still be “more modern, more comfortable for staff, more inviting for volunteers,” he said.
The kennels will sit partly indoors and partly outdoors, Aguilar said. Dogs will be able to enjoy some fresh air, but when it gets too chilly, they can walk through a “gelatin door” and come in from the cold.
