Council commits to ‘no-kill’
San Marcos has made a commitment to achieving “no-kill” status at its animal shelter within five years.
At its meeting Wednesday night, the City Council approved an ordinance directing the city manager to work with staff, regional partners and area animal advocacy organizations to “develop an implementation plan to achieve and sustain 90 percent or higher live outcomes for dogs and cats at the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter.” The group working on the plan is to present it to council no later than June 28, 2019.
“This is a giant step toward our goal,” said animal advocate Sharri Boyett during public comments at the meeting. “... and we all support the council’s move in that direction.”
Boyett expressed a sense of urgency in getting the shelter to no-kill status.
“The time is now. It’s not acceptable to maintain the status quo another day,” she said. “It’s time to stop the killing.”
City Manager Bert Lumbreras said that the 90 percent threshold could be achieved before the fiveyear mark.
“We feel confident that we can do it quicker than the five years,” he said, noting, “We have seen incremental increases just over the last few years.”
Lumbreras praised the animal shelter’s staff, along with volunteers and the community as a whole in lowering the kill rate at the shelter.
Council member Lisa Prewitt made an amendment to the ordinance adding a specific date for the achievement of the 90 percent live outcome rate. The ordinance says the shelter will reach the nokill threshold by June 28, 2024.
Prewitt also asked Lumbreras who might be included in the implementation plan committee and how people might get involved. Lumbreras said the other entities that use the animal shelter — Hays County, Kyle and Buda — would be represented on the committee, as would various animal advocate groups. Lumbreras said the group will be inclusive, but, “What we don’t want to do is have such a large group we can’t get it done.”
Cheers and applause erupted in the council chamber when the no-kill ordinance passed 5-0.
In other business related to the animal shelter, the council approved interlocal agreements with the county and with the cities of Kyle and Buda for animal shelter services. The county will pay $259,596 for services — up from $141,462 — and Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe will serve as the county representative in any matters related to the agreement. For Kyle and Buda, the police chiefs will serve as representatives. Kyle will pay $141,881 for services — about twice what it paid in the last contract year. Buda will pay $37,463, an increase of about $14,000 over last year’s amount.
