The goal of a new Evansville City ordinance is to reduce wait times for dog and cat adoptions to relieve animal shelter overcrowding.
This proposed ordinance shortens the wait times to adopt stray cats and dogs.
The current wait time is seven days for either, but if passed at the second reading later this month, the wait time would be reduced.
It will be four days for stray dogs, three days for stray cats and 24 hours for "community" or feral cats, said ordinance sponsor Ward 2 Council Member Missy Mosby.
“We found that if someone's actually looking for their dog, they go looking for them the first or second day," she said. "It doesn't take five or six days for someone to realize their dog's calling in to go look for them.”
Mosby says another change is dropping the reclaim fee for someone’s first shelter occurrence — when they agree to buy a voucher to spay or neuter their animal.
She said this change is part of an overall effort to update the animal control ordinance and reduce shelter overcrowding, an ordinance at a time. The next change will concern community cats.
Mosby said this will not increase instances of euthanasia, or move up the time that an animal is euthanized. "This will do is this will allow us to actually move dogs and cats out quicker and free up kennel space," she said.
The city of Evansville has extended the emergency declaration for a third and hopefully final time. the declaration updates the one that ended on May 20th.
The city and county first passed their joint emergency proclamations in mid-April following severe storms.
The new expiration date is June 10 and allows the city departments to keep collecting data on damage to city property during the severe weather events from this spring, said Deputy Mayor Lindsay Snyder.
“…city vehicles, roads, things like that, where there may have been damage done, and they need to gather the cost of those, to submit those, if there were to be any funds dispersed later.”
She said the city Emergency Management Agency doesn’t expect further extensions, and just needed a little more time to collect the data.
Should enough damage be reported locally and statewide, a reimbursement threshold could be reached.
Individual property owners should go to Indiana 211 to report their personal damage due to severe weather.
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