The Halifax Regional Municipality is looking for a new animal shelter service to house rescued and neglected dogs, cats and exotic animals.
The city is looking for a shelter with a minimum of 15 kennels for dogs, five for cats and at least one for other animals such as ferrets and reptiles.
It must also have a contingency plan to handle any overflow and a way to care for animals for an extended period of time if they are held for evidence or court proceedings.
The shelter would be the keeper for all animals picked up by HRM Animal Services, so the tender also calls for a facility that can provide 24-hour access for animal by-law officers.
Coun. David Hendsbee said the city is not interested in building its own facility because it would cost more than $1 million.
"All we're doing is looking for a venue available to us to use for services … a proponent in the general public to see if they have a facility either available now or want to build a facility they can utilize to service this contract," he said.
Old contract expires
The current shelter, run by the Nova Scotia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, receives about $500,000 a year from the city for its services. But the city's contract with the non-profit organization expires next spring.
A study by the municipality in 2005 found that the SPCA shelter in Burnside was "barely adequate in virtually every aspect of shelter management."
"Because of its poor design, it makes it extremely difficult to provide proper upkeep and maintenance," the report said. "It is surprising what is being accomplished in spite of the condition of the facility."
The report concluded that upgrading the facility was "virtually impossible" without gutting the entire building and renovating the inside.
Hendsbee said Friday the SPCA may still put in a bid on the current tender, but there could also be other interested parties.
"I think there's a number of kennel operations and other pet-care facilities out there that may want to look at this as an opportunity," he said. "We may have vacant warehouses anywhere in the Metro area that could possibly be utilized."
The contract is for a maximum of five years. Proposals must be submitted by Dec. 1 and municipal officials want the service to be in place by next April 1.
Interesting that the word "pound" does not appear in this article. Wonder why?
Click here to see our earlier post about the pound contract and the SPCA's budget
We have a clarification or two to add to the CBC story:
First of all, HRM does not contract the SPCA to run a shelter. It contracts it to run a POUND. The "pound" is presently an area within the Metro Shelter. The article fails to make the distinction.Second, comments on the CBC page were right to point out the dichotomy between one million dollars and the very small numbers of kennels Hendsbee says the city needs.
It should be known that Hendsbee's figure of $1 million is based on a study by HRM staff from a few years ago, prior to the first pound/AC contract it signed with the SPCA. At that time, apparently the city did not want to take on the task of launching its own shelter. So to discourage councilors from voting for it, the staff inflated the estimated costs to one million dollars. That figure backfired, however, because it led the SPCA to bid very high - $400,000 - for the pound and AC services.
It should and would not cost one million dollars to build a pound of such a small size; in fact, it's doubtful a much larger pound would even cost so much. Retrofitting a warehouse or even a farmhouse with lots of cheap land around it is entirely doable for less.
Lastly, HRM needs a much bigger facility for both the pound and the main shelter. The study mentioned pointed this out. The Metro Shelter is considerably smaller than shelters run for cities that are barely half the size of HRM.
6 comments:
Not sure what this means...
Public Minutes of Meeting of SPCA October 26, 2009
10. Motion for separate Metro Shelter bank account Jim Kochanoff explained that a separate bank account needs to be set up for the Metro Shelter to enable more effective management of revenue and expenses for the Metro Shelter as independent from Provincial Office finances, and to allow cheques to be written by the Shelter Director and Chair of the Shelter Management Team.
Motion by Jim Kochanoff to create a separate bank account at BMO Financial for the Metro Shelter for an operating line of $50,000 and a Mastercard of $10,000. Motion seconded by Cait Maloney. Motion approved by majority vote. No objections, no abstentions.
As info only
Here is audited financial statement from 2008- notice the wage category...increase seems steep yet spay/neuter costs have gone down as well as food costs....
http://www.spcans.ca/about/documents/AGM/2009/MetroShelter_FinancialStatements2008.PDF
Audited financial statements _ notice the increasesand decrease over the last year over the last year- http://www.spcans.ca/about/documents/AGM/2009/MetroShelter_FinancialStatements2008.PDF
Here is the audited financail statement for 2008- notice the increases and decreases
http://www.spcans.ca/about/documents/AGM/2009/MetroShelter_FinancialStatements2008.PDF
Thanks to whoever put up those two comments.
We have a clarification or two to add to the CBC story:
First of all, HRM does not contract the SPCA to run a shelter. It contracts it to run a POUND. The "pound" is presently an area within the Metro Shelter. The article fails to make the distinction.
Second, comments on the CBC page were right to point out the dichotomy between one million dollars and the very small numbers of kennels Hendsbee says the city needs.
It should be known that Hendsbee's figure of $1 million is based on a study by HRM staff from a few years ago, prior to the first pound/AC contract it signed with the SPCA. At that time, apparently the city did not want to take on the task of launching its own shelter. So to discourage councilors from voting for it, the staff inflated the estimated costs to one million dollars. That figure backfired, however, because it led the SPCA to bid very high - $400,000 - for the pound and AC services.
It should and would not cost one million dollars to build a pound of such a small size; in fact, it's doubtful a much larger pound would even cost so much. Retrofitting a warehouse or even a farmhouse with lots of cheap land around it is entirely doable for less.
Lastly, HRM needs a much bigger facility for both the pound and the main shelter. The study mentioned pointed this out. The Metro Shelter is much smaller than shelters run for cities that are barely half the size of HRM.
Janice's dogs were taken by Roger Joyce, the SPCA chief investigator. I heard he was a handyman before he was handed this job by Jessica Hunt (former SPCA official). He was scared to death of Judith Gass, and his wife works for the Department of Justice. Chances are she got her job through Jessica too.That's the way it works when you have been there twenty years as Jessica was and she was up the butt of all the people in power. Roger is a heavy drinker who thinks he is a cop. He is not trained for the job and doesn't seem to care.
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