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| May 05, 2024 |
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General News: Town Looks at Alternatives for Dog Shelter
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| The town of Cornwall animal shelter was closed last year. |
September 10, 2009
A dogfight may be brewing in Cornwall with a decision by the town supervisor to reduce the cost of dog control.
Supervisor Kevin Quigley said that with revenues down for the year he needs to look at ways to cut costs. He told the town board on Tuesday that instead of signing an agreement with the Hudson Valley SPCA to retrieve loose dogs and bring them to the group’s shelter, he wants to consider a lower bid.
At the meeting, Quigley discussed a proposal from the Blooming Grove Animal Shelter to pick up dogs for $25 a piece and to board them for $20 a day. Cornwall would also provide a vehicle to the group.
The Hudson Valley SPCA had proposed a flat rate of $24,000 a year to pick up and transport the dogs with its own vehicle. The organization currently has a contract to board up to six dogs at a time for Cornwall at an annual fee of $8,200. The combined fees would be $32,200 annually. HVSPCA officials say that in the past eight months, they have boarded about 35 dogs for Cornwall.
HVSPCA officials who came to Tuesday’s town board meeting say the problem with the Blooming Grove proposal is that it includes a policy of euthanasia of any dog found to be “un-adoptable.” Tom DiCarrado, a Cornwall resident who is president of HVSPCA board, said that the standard of care proposed by the Blooming Grove may not be acceptable to the community at large.
“How does the community want to define itself?” DiCarrado asked the board, “Does it want to kill immediately companion animals or adopt out these animals?” He said that the HVSPCA shelter had only put one dog to sleep after veterinarians determined that it was in too much pain. He stressed that the shelter’s policy is to rehabilitate and adopt out dogs.
Blooming Grove shelter manager Melissa Veraldo said her shelter is a “very low-kill shelter” but that she is not going to adopt out a dog that would endanger a child or other person. Veraldo said that each dog is evaluated by a behaviorist to see if re-training is possible before a decision to euthanize it is made. She said when she arrived as the new manager of the shelter in April, there were 19 dogs, many of them sick and un-adoptable after being held for as long as three years. Of those, five were put to sleep, she said.
Town board members say they want to have a chance to speak with the Blooming Grove shelter officials before making any decisions about the future of dog control. Currently the town employs a part-time animal control officer who works for the police department to coordinate dog retrieval and transportation.
A special meeting has been set for Wednesday, September 30 at 6:30 p.m. at Cornwall Town Hall to hear from all interested. Tom DiCarrado says he hopes for an opportunity to present a new proposal from the HVSPCA by then.
Comments:
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I need to clear up the pricing for each service illustrated in the article; the dog control service portion and the shelter service portion. The Hudson Valley SPCA (HVSPCA) has a current contract with the Town of Cornwall to provide sheltering for up to 6 Cornwall dogs for a flat rate of $8,200 for one year. This was the first year and neither Cornwall nor the HVSPCA had experience with the costs and therefore it was agreed to use a flat rate. As I read it, the proposal from Blooming Grove is on a per dog basis for sheltering service and states they could also provide Animal (Dog) Control service. It has been the intent of the HVSPCA to negotiate a per dog arrangement with Cornwall similar to the Blooming Grove offer for the sheltering portion. The much larger portion is the actual Dog Control which was negotiated with Cornwall and a contract was accepted by the Town Board at the Public meeting in August of this year for a cost of $24,000 per annum. So we have two sets of offers: a sheltering offer from Blooming Grove and none yet from the HVSPCA, a Dog Control contract from the HVSPCA and none yet from Blooming Grove.
It is the assertion of the HVSPCA that the Dog Control portion must be done as a flat rate for services to avoid an administrative nightmare as to payment for use of resources to search, trap, work with a veterinarian and other misc time required to maintain the standard of care lost dogs receive by a reasonable municipality and have always received here in Cornwall. When someone who lives in Cornwall looses their dog it may take a few hours to many weeks to finally capture the animal. It may take one try or tens of tries before a dog control officer is successful.
I believe the Supervisor and the Town Board are working hard to make sure that every dollar of our tax money is spent wisely, as they should. Go back several years and the budget for Dog Control was about $36,000. The HVSPCA proposal will bring that cost down to about $24,000 to $25,000 and continue the standard of care the citizens of Cornwall have become accustomed to for their dogs.
Tom DiCarrado
President of the HVSPCA
posted by Tom DiCarrado on 09/11/09 at 11:38 AM
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My name is Melissa Veraldo, I am the shelter manager at Blooming Grove Humane. I would like to comment on Mr.DiCarrado's many comments, regarding our shelter vs. HVSPCA.
First of all the Town of Cornwall came to ME asking for a bid, as is their right. I did NOT seek this out.
Second-If the HVSPCA spent 1/4 of their time fulfilling their contractual obligations with the Town of Cornwall as they do attacking me, and my shelter by printing whatever they feel like making up, to outright lies, the town would NEVER have come to me in the first place. Mr. DiCarrado has even printed that the shelter has no liability insurance. How could we employ people without comp and liability insurance? That doesn't even make sense. It doesn't matter if it is untrue it is what Mr. DiCarrado has written.
Third-We in the shelter world are here to educate the public, and take care of stray or abandoned animals. We are NOT here to fight amongst ourselves, over a few dollars. Since the Town of Cornwall has come to me for a bid, I have been harassed, accused of cruelty, and my personal religious views discussed (last I knew there was a thing called Freedom of Religion)HVSPCA has even approached my town, to TAKE OVER the Blooming Grove Humane Society. Do you realize that the harder you attack me, the more it really just looks like a vendetta? I think you should just concentrate on your shelter, and allow me to concentrate on mine. All of this useless nonsense back and forth is just that NONSENSE!
Thank you
Melissa Veraldo
Shelter Manager
Blooming Grove Humane Society
posted by Melissa Veraldo on 11/01/09 at 8:10 PM
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