FORT SMITH -- Members of a city board that looks after the care and safety of animals say they are going to shop around for a solution to Fort Smith's animal overpopulation problem.
The Animal Services Advisory Board, which was dormant since June 18 until city directors appointed veterinarian Nicole Morton to the board Tuesday, is going to research what other towns and organizations have done to stem animal overpopulation and related problems.
Board Vice Chairman Brandon Weeks said Wednesday that board members do not need to reinvent the wheel because other cities have already done the work for them.
"They have already asked the questions and had the meetings," Weeks said. "Let's save ourselves some time and copy some of it."
Board members said they will meet over the next month with animal shelter officials in Rogers, Fayetteville, Springdale, Greenwood and Van Buren. The board is scheduled to meet again Oct. 9.
"We just need to figure out who is doing this, who is doing it best, and how do we copy them," board member Sam Terry said during Wednesday's meeting.
The board has taken as its main agenda topic the creation of a dog licensing ordinance, a spay/neuter ordinance or some combination, board member Leeann Hickln-Cox told the audience of about 10 people at Wednesday's meeting.
Wednesday's turnout contrasts with that of a town hall meeting Sept. 4 that drew more than 100 people. Attendance at that meeting demonstrated to city directors that residents wanted the city to take some action.
Speakers at that meeting said the Hope Humane Society was overwhelmed with dogs and cats and was facing the prospect of losing its no-kill policy if the cash-strapped shelter had to close and leave the animals to someone else.
At the time of the town hall meeting, the Hope Humane Society held more than 600 animals, although its capacity is half that.
The Hope Humane Society has a contract with the city for about $300,000 a year to act as the city's animal shelter. The organization raises about another $300,000 in donations to round out its budget.
Director Tracy Pennartz said at the town hall meeting that she would like to see the Animal Services Advisory Board take up the issue and make a recommendation to directors on action it should take.
At Wednesday's advisory board meeting, Humane Society Vice President Storm Nolan said his research over the past few weeks has shown that shelters in the region are about evenly split on preferring microchipping of dogs versus dog licensing.
A microchip can be injected under the skin of an animal and carry a unique identification number that can be read to trace the animal to its owner.
Other people talked about requiring spaying and neutering by tying them to the pet licensing fees as a way to encourage pet owners to spay or neuter their animals.
Vouchers also were suggested to help pet owners in lower-income neighborhoods pay to spay and neuter pets. Nolan said the poorer neighborhoods in north and northeast Fort Smith are hot spots for pet overpopulation.
The issue of licensing and spay/neutering was controversial when city directors unsuccessfully sought to address the issue in 2011 and 2012.
The Citizens' Animal Services Task Force studied the issue in 2011 and concluded in a December 2011 report that pet licensing was not feasible and that spaying and neutering animals should be encouraged but not required. The report also encouraged microchipping pets.
But earlier this year when the Humane Society presented its overcrowding situation to the advisory board, Weeks said, its members discussed the issue and had the city's attorney draft an ordinance that addressed dog licensing and spay/neutering.
It was the licensing and spay/neutering sections included in the ordinance that had prompted the board's veterinarian member, Jon Remer, to immediately resign from the board in midmeeting, Weeks said.
The advisory board did not meet again until Tuesday, Terry said, because the ordinance establishing the board requires one of its nine members to be a licensed veterinarian. After Remer resigned, the city administrator's office advised the board not to meet to take up business as long as the board lacked a licensed veterinarian, Terry said.
State Desk on 09/21/2018