County Commission approves $5.8 million animal shelter contract
The Anderson County Commission has approved a nearly $5.8 million contract with the lowest bidder, Place Services, for a new animal shelter building.
The contract, approved 10-5 on Dec. 15, states that the building will be 14,000 square feet.
It will be at Carden Farm Park in South Clinton, and will replace the current outdated facility on Blockhouse Valley Road. The contract totals $5,797,512, and Place Services plans to work on grading, sitework, utilities and construction.
Carden Farm Park site was given to the county by the city of Clinton, specifically for the new shelter.
County Mayor Terry Frank said the commission had earlier authorized a bond ceiling of $5.9 million for the USDA loan-funded project.
Given the construction and other costs, the county will be left with $102,488 from the USDA loan for the shelter’s equipment. The contract also states that the project should take a full year to complete from the start of work.
While the commission had already approved the bid at meeting in November, Frank told The Courier News this vote involved the specific contract and its language.
Commissioner Anthony Allen made the motion to approve, and Shain Vowell seconded. Voting in favor were Steven Verran, Ebony Capshaw, Vowell, Tim Isbel, Phil Yager, Denise Palmer, Robert Smallridge, Michael Foster, Robert McKamey and Allen.
Voting against it were Tracy Wandell, Chad McNabb, Shelly Vandagriff, Joshua Anderson and Jerry White. Absent was Commissioner Sabra Beauchamp.
The contract states the new facility will have “spaces to facilitate surgery, quarantine, adoption and euthanasia.”
Frank said the new building will help consolidate operations into one space.
“We have storage in Oak Ridge,” she said. “We have an office at the courthouse. We have PetSmart. We don’t have a facility to properly operate from.”
Also, at the meeting, the commission voted to appoint Allen to an advisory committee for animal shelter matters.
“The employees are very compassionate people,” Frank said. “This is hard work. They try their best to find homes, to not euthanize, to deal with animals at large. They’re operating really with one hand tied behind their backs by not having a facility.”
She pointed out that they achieved “no-kill” status last year, meaning 10% or less euthanasia.
She said as construction continued, she’d like the staff to speak directly to the commission more often.
During the meeting, McNabb argued that the commission still had too little information for what he and others said was an expensive project.
Wandell argued that the county’s newly formed advisory board for the shelter should get a chance to look at the contract. He also pointed to a typo in the contract that Frank had acknowledged earlier. The typo involved a monetary amount, but Law Director James Brooks told The Courier News that he did not believe it would lead to any confusion because all parties understood the issue.
Frank said the commission shouldn’t leave the company with the low bid waiting for a response. She, Vowell and Vandagriff argued that the price might rise if the vote was delayed.
“If we don’t build it now, it’s just going to cost more in the future,” Vandagriff said, adding that she still had questions about personnel and engagement with the public in the future.
Joshua Anderson is running against Frank in the Republican primary for mayor next year, and has criticized the current shelter and its management in the past. However, he stayed silent before his vote against approving the contract on Dec. 15. During a recess in the meeting after the vote he explained his “no” vote in an interview.
“If it comes back to commission, I should be able to vote yes or no,” he said in response to the criticism that the earlier vote had already happened and refusing this vote would just keep Place Services waiting.
“If I can only vote yes, why do we even have a vote at all?” he asked.
Vowell, during the meeting, argued that questions about the shelter building’s personnel and management needed to be separate from the new building’s construction.
Anderson, however, told The Courier News he thought they were “inextricable.”
“I think if we can’t manage the little shelter, how are you going to manage the bigger shelter?” he said. “The county needed to resolve issues like unanswered phone calls and staff referring to animals as the wrong sex.”
He also expressed concerns with the future building itself, pointing out that they did not have an operating budget yet. He said the county should consult with a veterinarian on that issue and the design. He also said he hopes the new building’s septic system doesn’t have issues.
“How do we fix these issues before we take the leap with the larger location?” he asked. “I hope this building doesn’t just turn into an albatross that just costs us way more money than we expect.”
He said he did not believe the county government on its own could run the shelter without a public-private partnership or a nonprofit, pointing to Campbell County’s shelter as an example of what he wanted to see. He said that arrangement could provide more volunteers to answer phones.
Frank said that having the county run the shelter meant greater accountability for tax dollars. She said, however, that she was open to having it be under the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction rather than her office, similar to the Oak Ridge Animal Shelter, which the Oak Ridge Police Department manages. She said however, that the Sheriff’s Office had not been interested in running the shelter in the past.
She also noted that some citizens had criticized how long the process had taken to get the new shelter built, but she said many factors had slowed the process. These included the commission turning down an earlier proposal to build a new shelter on Blockhouse Valley Road, the process of applying for the USDA loan and the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also said all of the steps and funding for the new shelter had involved votes by the County Commission.
Animal Shelter Contract Approved
Commissioners approved a $5.8 million contract for a new 14,000-square-foot animal shelter at Carden Farm Park, replacing the aging Blockhouse Valley Road facility.
The 10-5 vote followed debate over cost, timing and oversight, with supporters warning delays could drive prices higher, and opponents citing “unanswered questions.”
County officials say the new shelter will consolidate scattered operations and give staff a facility designed for surgery, adoption and quarantine.