It was standing room only at the Habersham County Commission meeting Monday night. The room was filled mostly with citizens pressing the commission to move forward with building a new animal shelter. Many wore makeshift hats made of construction paper stating, “Build our shelter.”
Voters approved the shelter in SPLOST VII, but county leaders say construction costs have more than quadrupled since the construction budget was set in 2019. Citizens have pressed the commission for over a year to proceed with the project. The urgency at that time was due to overcrowding from the number of strays animal control had to house.
Two groups have addressed their positions on social media about the animal shelter. One group supports building the animal shelter as soon as possible. Another group has requested that the commission take a 90-day pause to review the cost of construction as a cost-saving measure.
Several citizens spoke during the public comments section of the commission meeting on September 16. Some spoke in favor of the pause, while others spoke against it, pressing commissioners to move forward with construction.
Pause
Dale Latty supports pausing the shelter project. He asked commissioners to put the shelter project on hold for 90 days. Patty told the commission that even though he and his group were late to the discussion, they had questions about how the county came to the amount for the construction costs.
“It’s been a long road to this point. It’s a difficult thing to come up so late in a game like this but it’s also, I think, justified in this case in what we’ve seen in the cost escalations,” he said.
Latty explained that everyone he had spoken with over the last couple of weeks wants the animal shelter “but not at any cost.” He expressed that over the last ten days, his group has looked over some of the information they have been provided. They feel that they could bring the cost down even more.
Latty commended the county for bringing the estimated cost down by making value engineering cuts. According to him, the estimated cost originally was $9.4 million. With those cuts so far, it has been reduced to $7.56 million. He feels that more could be done to lower costs further, which may allow the county to restore some of those cuts.
Latty asked the commission to pause its work and explore other potential cost-saving measures.
Move forward
On the other side of the argument is Katherine Warwick, who has publicly pushed the commission to build the shelter for over a year. Last week, she took to social media asking county residents to attend the commission meeting to express their concerns about the existing shelter and the need for a new one.
“I am blown away by the people that have shown up here tonight. I can’t say how much I appreciate that,” she said during the public comments section of the meeting.
Warwick explained to commissioners that she has been involved in some capacity with the animal shelter over the last 25 years. During that time, she said she saw constant turnover with directors in that department. Also, during that time, the animal shelter had a euthanasia rate of 75%. Since Madi Nix came on board, that rate has substantially declined.
Warwick expressed her fear that with the conditions and challenges at the animal shelter, Nix may suffer from burnout and leave the county. She explained that with the growth the county has seen over the last couple of years, there has been a rise in the shelter population. That rise is due to owners surrendering animals to the shelter.
“We need this to happen and not be paused and not be put on the back burner any longer,” she told the commission. She told the commission that the problem would only get worse as more people moved into the county.
Chairman response
Commission Chairman Ty Akins expressed his appreciation for everyone who came out to speak to the commission on behalf of their side of the animal shelter topic.
“I didn’t want anybody in the room to think we are making a rush decision.”
Akins explained that the commission has discussed the animal shelter issue multiple times. He said he was unsure where the original $1.7 million budget for the animal shelter construction came from, calling it “unrealistic” to build anything.
“We’re trying to make the best decision we can,” he said.
During an earlier work session, commissioners discussed potential funding options for the animal shelter. However, they did not vote on funding or a timeline during their regular meeting. County Public Works Director Jerry Baggett said they are still working on cutting costs through value engineering.
