The Cass County Board of Supervisors heard from two officials from the City of Atlantic during their meeting Thursday, with regard to the need for the County’s participation in funding an Animal Shelter. Mayor Dave Jones and City Administrator Doug Harris spoke before the Board.

Atlantic City Administrator Doug Harris (Left) & Mayor Dave Jones.

Jones said there have been committees established over the past 8-to 10-years, tasked with trying to find a way to control the amount of abandoned and stray animals, but nothing was ever accomplished. The need is greater now, he says, in light of the death of a Marne resident whose dogs were left to fend for themselves, and other recent incidents of animals being dropped-off in town and with requests from other cities in the county for help with their animal control problems.

Doug Harris says most of the calls the Atlantic Shelter gets are from people outside of Atlantic looking to find a place for dogs and cats, but mostly dogs. He said the City wants to explore with the County what the need is, what the level of service should be and what a fair pricing system is. Harris said the City is feeling the pressure of an expanded need for an animal shelter. He says it costs about $40,000 per year to run the shelter now. He said if the shelter and its costs were shared county-wide, that would be about 5-cents on the tax rate. He said Atlantic is “Ham strung” budget-wise, on how much more it can do alone.

The Supervisors suggested Harris and Jones call a meeting of the Mayors in the County, so they can sit down and discuss how bad the animal control problems are in other communities, and gauge the level of interest they might have in contributing to the costs of running a County-wide shelter.