Volunteer Angela Kimsey takes a moment to visit with a cat while she cleans up a the SPCA of Bradley County Animal Shelter.CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- The Bradley County Commission has been asked to decide whether it will authorize stray animal control services for county residents and how much it is willing to spend to do so.
The county's $80,000 contract with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Bradley County does not include stray animal pickup. It covers just an animal shelter available to county residents and animal pickup services for county emergency responders.
In a recent meeting, Commissioner Dan Rawls received varied responses when he posed the questions to fellow commissioners.
"My answer to that is yes, we do," said Commissioner Johnny Mull. "We had it before, we need to have it again. ... How we're going to get there, I don't know."
Those services came in a longstanding agreement with the Cleveland Animal Control, but that ended in July 2013 for cost reasons, Mull said.
Commissioner Terry Caywood said he would be interested in restarting stray animal pickup for residents if it were affordable. But Commissioner Thomas Crye said the SPCA's level of services seems to be adequate.
Capt. Keith Edwards of the Bradley County Sheriff's Office said it likely would cost the office close to $300,000 just for part-time stray animal pickup services outside of Cleveland. He said the office already gets about three calls a day and each takes 30 to 45 minutes.
Commission Chairman Louie Alford recommended that Rawls, an SPCA board member, bring forward an amendment to include stray animal service in the agreement.
Commissioner Jeff Yarber, who has referred to the SCPA plan as "snake oil," objected to Alford's recommendation, saying that stray animal pickup services ought to go out for bid.
Yarber said the commission's piecemeal approach to restoring full animal control services is "reinventing the wheel."
With Cleveland Animal Control, the county had an efficient "bundle package," said Yarber. Assembling the services "a la carte" would cost the county more in the long run, he said.
In 2013, the county rejected the city's $355,000 animal control offer. That figure amounted to 56.2 percent of the projected animal control budget for 2013-14; the county's portion was based on a matching percentage of animals picked up and dropped off from outside city limits in 2012.
Paul Leach is based in Cleveland. Email him at paul.leach.press@gmail.com.