Recent agreement highlights animal control discrepanciesDate: 3/29/2011 March 30, 2011
By Debbie Gardner
Assistant Editor
GREATER SPRINGFIELD — Very shortly, if a resident reports a stray dog in Agawam, Animal Control Officer (ACO) Allison Strong will be able to take that animal to the Westfield Animal Shelter for temporary care and housing.
"It's been one community helping another." — Richard Cohen, Mayor
If a resident reports a stray dog in West Springfield, the Police Department will most likely tell that person to bring the animal to Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society in Springfield or contact a local vet in the hopes he or she will take it in, according to information provided by residents and Leslie Harris, executive director of Dakin, during the March 21 City Council meeting.
These scenarios illustrate the wide gap in animal control provisions in these two municipalities.
The Agawam City Council voted on March 21 to authorize and fund the town's portion of shelter expansion in an Inter-Municipal Shelter Lease agreement with Westfield. Under this agreement, Westfield will provide housing and care for stray dogs captured in town. The agreement will go into effect immediately upon the council's passage of new dog ordinances, which will raise dog license fees from $4 to $10 to help offset the town's annual lease payment to Westfield. Those ordinances will undergo a second reading and vote at the April 4 City Council meeting.
Prior to this arrangement, Agawam has been sheltering strays in Southwick through a temporary agreement arranged with that community by Strong.
"Southwick has been very gracious. They really don't want to be in the animal sheltering business; their facility is for their community," Agawam Mayor Richard Cohen said, "It's been one community helping another."
For 20 years prior to that, Agawam had an agreement with a private kennel in West Springfield to house strays. That agreement ended at the same time as the retirement of former ACO Robert Burke.
According to information contained in a March 2 letter to the Agawam City Council from Police Lt. Eric Gillis, who examined the animal control issue for his town at the request of Police Chief Robert Campbell, West Springfield ended an agreement with the Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center in Springfield in 2009, reportedly because of slow response times and repeated unreliability in handling animal control issues. At that time, West Springfield and Agawam were also sharing an animal control officer, according to Gillis' report.
The agreement to share an animal control officer still exists, according to Gillis.
West Springfield Mayor Edward Gibson told Reminder Publications that he is reviewing two proposals to address the ongoing animal control issue for his city.
"One is to go along with the Westfield [inter-municipal] agreement and use the Westfield facility, the other is from T.J. O'Connor in Springfield," Gibson said, adding that he planned to make a decision shortly.
"Once I make my decision it will go to the [City] Council to approve," he said.
However, according to Animal Control Officers of Massachusetts (ACOMA) spokesperson Kara Holmquist, West Springfield is out of compliance with Massachusetts laws requiring municipalities to have both an ACO and a procedure in place for handling stray dogs.
"This is the longest case and the worst case that I've seen in a long time," she said, noting that there have been other municipalities with ACO lapses and also smaller communities that shared a dog officer for a period of time, but no communities as large as Agawam and West Springfield that have done so.
Minutes of the West Springfield Town Council dated June 7, 2010, indicate the council addressed the Inter Municipal Shelter Lease agreement with Westfield and voted to allow the mayor to authorize it at that time.
Agawam City Council Vice President Robert Rossi said it made sense for his town to enter into the recently approved agreement with Westfield.
"They have a facility and were willing to expand," he said. "I am in favor of regionalization whenever possible."
He said it also made economic sense when compared to an agreement with T. J. O'Connor, which would have charged Agawam $3 per capita for services per year.
With a town population of 30,000 that would have come to $90,000 in animal control costs, not including the ACO's salary. The cost to enter into the shelter agreement with Westfield includes an initial payment of $9,708 to fund an expansion of the shelter facility and a monthly fee of $875. Boarding and any veterinary care costs would be charged to dog owners upon animal retrieval.
Rossi said when the new $10 license fee is approved, based on the current census of 1,400 licensed dogs in Agawam, the program will become self-sufficient and "won't be a burden for the taxpayers."
"This is going to be a good program," Rossi said. "The program in Westfield follows all state statutes [and] all stray dogs are well cared for, which was our concern. I think it's a program that Agawam could not ignore."
"They have an adoption program, which was very important to me," Cohen said. "I thank Mayor [Daniel] Knapik [of Westfield] for helping us in this situation and I thank Southwick for allowing us to use their facility until we came to this agreement."
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