I am not one who likes to get into sticky debates. I usually sit back and watch. It’s more fun that way.
My little city is voting on a bond that will potentially allow a much needed new animal shelter to be built. The proposed facility is absolutely beautiful and will more than double our dog kennels. Our cats? Well, they plan to do their best. Poor cats. I wonder how many surrounding cities will call us when they reach capacity. We will be the new shiny BIG shelter.
The animal shelter will include a Veterinarian office, a police sub-station/annex/breakroom, community meeting space, and parking for our lake. It will POTENTIALLY provide more visibility. It sounds lovely. Almost.
The BIG problem?
It will costs $10.7 million for the massive 28,000 sq. ft. building. It will be the 2nd most expensive building our city has to date.
My husband and I are admittedly against this.
There is no denying that our strays deserve something better than what they have. Their current conditions are very poor but as my husband pointed out, the conditions are functional. The city recently spent $400,000 to bring this shelter into compliance. The cages were too small and this was addressed.
That money goes down the drain if Prop 1 passes. They won’t be able to get it back. Why not demolish what is there and rebuild something else? It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just needs to work. We do not need to spend 10 MILLION dollars on this facility.
Rumor has it that 1/2 of our residents don’t know we have a shelter but I can’t imagine that is possible. It takes a 5 second internet search to learn that we do have one and it’s location. If we build a Taj-Mahal out by the lake, it will not be more visible . The residents that likely don’t know about our current shelter probably don’t know about our lake either.
The “other side” is arguing that the building isn’t just an animal shelter. I get that, but how often will the police REALLY use a building and for what? Do we need another VET office? As far as the public space, who wants to hold a birthday party or BUNCO night in a building with barking dogs? The majority of the other side doesn’t live in the city limits either. They won’t get to vote for this and they won’t have to pay for this, if it passes.
The most important thing I have to say is DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Please.
It’s not any of my business how you vote but do not vote for this because your friends are posting sad animal faces and videos about how horrible most animal shelters are. None of that will change. Animals will still go unclaimed and people still won’t adopt.
The city, like most, have extremely strict guidelines for adoptions. I adopted from the shelter and the process is more demanding than having a REAL baby. I know more people would and could adopt if they didn’t 3 references and give you the 3rd degree, nearly putting a stop to your adoption because you didn’t you report your other cat missing to the vet???? REALLY???
Please don’t vote against this because the price scares you or you hate dogs and cats. Vote against this because you believe this is not the best use of our city’s money.
I’m not even buying that what we have is inadequate. Perhaps the neighbors near it would like to see it gone, but it does the job.
YES DO YOUR RESEARCH!
Anyone doing research will see that this is
* NOT the taj mahal
* have equipment from the old facility so it is NOT money wasted (really Priscilla and Charlie? Research)
* A visible location will INCREASE adoptions (do you just make this stuff up? Research as shown that people do not want to go to nasty depressing places)
* Don’t live in the city limits? Please show YOUR research on this completely made up fact.
* The facility is on a flood plain, you cannot build (or demolish and rebuild) in a flood plain. Cannot believe you actually want to put animals in harms way.
There are SO MANY issues with this BLOG that I realize it is only a BLOG which might as well be called an ignorant opinion.
VOTE YES! Because you have done the research and realize this is a basic human/city service that needs to be addressed
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
? Mahatma Gandhi
The proposed animal shelter is not fiscally responsible. To dump 10.7 million dollars that the city does not have into a building to house an animal shelter does not make sense The money the City Council approved for improvements to the current facility would be wasted as those improvements cannot be carried to a new facility. I certainly do not believe that an animal shelter being more visible and pretty is that important to getting animals adopted. People wanting to adopt seek out a way to adopt and do not make their choice simply by driving by and deciding they want to get a dog that day. Continuing to educate the public on it’s existence can help them to turn to the animal shelter when seeking a pet. I do agree the shelter could use improvements and I do believe that those improvements need to be looked at. It does not make sense to go into this kind of debt that is only going to put other necessary priorities on hold even further. There has to be a solution that does not put the city into debt not only for the building that is predicted to need expansion in 10 years (That’s only 10 years into paying back a 30 year bond) but also will significantly increase the budget by the currently unknown increased operating costs.
It is offensive that you would comment on someone’s personal blog that their opinion is ignorant. Her opinion is hers to share and yours might be much better received if you spoke with respect.
Much like a person, you can fix the outside (boob job, nose job, lipo, etc) but fixing the inside is a completely different story. Sometimes what is on the inside is so awful that no amount of exterior work could ever repair the horrors. The shelter is similar. It may “look” fine, and it may seem to function, but its deplorable on the inside.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
No… it doesn’t. Hence the reason we were cited by the state.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
Per the July council meeting the city corrected the deficiencies.
I actually also have spoken to the neighbors, and while they support a better shelter that is up to standards, they aren’t against the shelter being in their neighborhood. Most of the said they just wanted to help the current shelter in any way possible.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
Do you know how many homes could be built for TEN MILLION DOLLARS? (Which is a statement about perspective, not a suggestion for an alternative use of the funds). I think most of us can agree that our current shelter is a mess and a new one would be great, but spending that much money on it is just stupid. I guarantee you could build an awesome facility for half that. This plan is fiscally irresponsible.
A road that isn’t in the city could also be built for $10million. Hmm.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
How many homes could have been built with the money spent on hawaiian falls?
Pflugerville gave PCDC (Pflugerville Community Development Corporation) a short-term loan.This has already paid back. Yes, PCDC holds the loan but we as taxpayers are only responsible if it fails. The park, while if you may not like it, brings people + money to our community.
Ha. Thanks for proving this is a comedy page and holds no factual or thought-provoking discussion. And from the BFF of the mayor’s wife, you really need to realize that it automatically discredits everything you say.
At least I am not ashamed to admit she is my friend and to share my views PUBLICLY on my blog. I don’t hide behind a name with no face.
The city has approved spending $400,000 bringing the existing facility into compliance and bringing the number of dog kennels from 30 to 60 (See City council meeting from 10/28/2014 for kennel count information). $250k will be lost if we replace the shelter.
As for Taj Mahal. A shelter bond proposal 9.5 years ago was $1m. If we double it for inflation (Being very generous here) and double it for the growth of our city, that’s $4m. Less than HALF of the current bond proposal, so clearly we have gotten carried away with this facility design.
Our shelter is ugly, but functional. A modest bond would be acceptable, but not this one.
And for all the non shelter uses, the difference between Option A and B was about $1.5m. If we put the shelter there without parking it would be nuts. As for the multi use room and the police substation? I really don’t think they are worth it. If seen portable building police substations in Austin go mostly unused, because we want our police in their vehicles patrolling and/or being visible.
Unfortunately defeating this bond will prevent us from putting up a more modest plan for quite some time, but that is on those on the committee that didn’t focus on moderation.
One more bit. Th least popular part. How much do we want to spend on animals to avoid euthanasia? If more strays are picked up than people willing to adopt, we will outgrow any shelter we could ever build.
This city of Austin animal shelter budget for FY 15 was proposed at $10m. Austin has about 18x as many people. So if our animal shelter budget were proportional we would spend about $550k/yr. Austin is running the largest no kill shelter system in the country and caring for 18k pets per year (hmm, it’s proportional). I don’t think many of us in Pflugerville want to out do the city of Austin on this matter.
Charles, I invite you to educate yourself on the no-kill movement. America (and Texas) is moving towards no-kill at a rapid pace. Austin is as well!
That is, of course, another debate for another day!
If you are asking how much do I believe we should spend to #savethemall, I believe that life is so much more than a pricetag. Happiness is so much more than money. Unconditional love is not a monetary commodity. I wish I would quantify these things for you… To say that my shelter dog has given me, $12301498327140987 worth of happiness, but that figure wouldn’t even begin to describe it for me. I hope that you are one day able to experience such a thing because its pretty damn awesome!
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
It would appear that there are no shortage of animals to provide that happiness, or we wouldn’t have some dogs at the shelter for 2 years.
We may be moving towards no kill, but we are all spending money we don’t have yet to save animals that might never get a home.
I guess you’re philosophy is “Kill them all”. What an awful human being you are to be so arrogant to think your soul is better than other living beings.
Wow. So my husband is awful because he thinks he (his soul??) is better than a dog or a cat!? I truly hope consider your spouse/kids’ needs before your pets.
Laura, apparently replies can only go so deep, so I’m replying to my own comment to group it with yours. I’m not against trying to find all of these animals homes, but I’m saying that we can’t treat resources as unlimited.
I don’t think we should take money by force (threat of eviction or arrest) to feed every cat and dog that no one wants.
One more thought (among many I have chosen to self censor). I am confident that the shelter is not serving vegan pet food, and doing so would probably be it’s own form of animal cruelty. And that cat would certainly eat a mouse and the dog would certainly eat a rabbit. Heck, they may kill them for entertainment and never eat them at all.
As much as we would all love for money to grow on trees it does not.
And money doesn’t buy happiness. I’m all for adopting from a shelter. On more than one occasion it’s been the first place we’ve gone for a pet. I agree my pets bring tons and tons of joy. However you have to be reasonable about it. No matter how you look at it they are animals not humans. Would I spend $10,000 on cancer treatments for my cat or dog? absolutely not!!
Hi! I notice in your post you discuss doing adequate research, and I would invite you to do just that. Part of addressing the issues with the current shelter and why a new shelter is needed so badly is touring the current shelter to get a full grasp of the situation. I invite everyone who reads this blog to do the same, and if you do not want to go alone, I am happy to go with you!
I am happy to meet you down at the shelter! You can find me on facebook (obviously we have been commenting on the same threads).
Please let me know when I can meet you there to help you fully research this issue. It would be interesting to see to see how someone who is wheelchair bound would navigate the current shelter. I couldn’t navigate the area with my son in a stroller so if you’re able to get around the facility that would be awesome.
I’m also happy to give you the literature from the “other side.” Part of understanding is after all understanding what the “other side” believes. I’ve linked the vote yes for pets website in my information. But here it is again: http://www.voteyesforpets.com. If you have any questions about the “other side,” I am again elated to sit down with you and explain that perspective.
Education has always and will always be my number one priority when it comes to the homeless pet population of Pflugerville. That doesn’t just involve a new shelter either! It involves education about spay/neuter programs, information about local non-profits that can help with pet resources, nutrition education for pets, behavioral training, etc. It is perhaps one of the best feelings to teach a child how to approach a new dog and to see their face light up when they are given the unconditional love from a dog! Obviously, I’m not just pro-pet. I’m pro pet education!
We have to educate ourselves so that we can educate our children! As a mother, I’m sure you can agree that being aware is crucial. Obviously you are unaware of the current conditions, for example, when you say the current space is functional, actually according to the State of Texas it is not because it is not in compliance. Also please remember your council and mayor gave you this option… Its the Taj-Mah Coleman! Another example would be when you say $400K would “go down the drain.” The city was out of state regulations, but it will need to use the current shelter (and keep it up to reg while a new one would be built.) The building they have placed there is not actually functional and again, if/when you would like to meet I can show/point out to you how and why! The majority of the “other side” may not live in your neighborhood (I do actually) but they live in Pflugerville— in Gatlinburg, in Olde Town, Highland Park, so many other areas outside of your little, big neighborhood. I know that many of those active on facebook may live further down in the ETJ, but as your side has pointed out, those people in the ETJ matter. That’s why the need a road!
I respect that as citizens we all feel passionately about this bond. I don’t believe that name calling, shaming, or bashing helps either side.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
I would not classify Priscilla as “wheelchair bound”. Her wheelchair is the device she uses not something she is “bound” to.
I would also caution you in following someone who does not or can not identify themselves publicly! If you know who they are privately, at least consider that they are in fact breaking the law to popularize and sensationalize their own ideas.
You honestly seem like a wonderful person, so I hope that you have thought long and hard about following someone who doesn’t have the courage to even stand by their own opinions publicly.
Stephanie´s last blog post ..Just what does a $10.7m bond proposal mean to the average homeowner?
I have certainly talked to Shannon Coleman who has made her views very well known on this issue. I’m sure there are others that haven’t put their name on it, and I have no idea who they are. Priscilla and I feel strongly that this is not the best way to spend taxpayer money, and are publicly saying it.