Dog Impoundment Task Force

Monday, March 10, 2025 - 11:30 AM

James Monty - Chairman

Chairman Monty called this Dog Impoundment Task Force to order at 11:30 AM with the following in attendance: Clayton Barber, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathy Reusser, Favor Smith, David Reynolds, Meg Wood and Jim Dougan. David Reynolds, Janet Collier, Wendy Tibbits and Kenzie Long had been previously excused.

ALSO PRESENT: Dina Garvey

MONTY: I thought it was good to have Jim here, because of the conversations that we had pertaining to the dog confinement. One of the things that we discussed, Jim, and I want to kind of get this into a more task driven group, was the sites for these buildings that we’re looking at and Jim has had some drawings and some ideas, which is kind of why I wanted him here, but right now we were looking at the Town of Moriah was interested in doing it. They have a site available that they may want to use. Willsboro is interested. I know Cathy, mentioned it, as well, possibly. Favor?

SMITH: Yes, always sort of envisioned a spot. I haven’t gotten much further with Matt Stanley, but a spot in Upper Jay, that could be shared by Jay, Keene, and Wilmington and St. Armand, if they need.

WOOD: How large of a piece of land do you need?

MONTY: We don’t really need that big a piece of land.

DOUGAN: Have things changed in what we were, we were talking about a, I guess a few towns would kind of get together.

MONTY: Yup

DOUGAN: And so maybe, I am just going to divide the 18 towns into 3 towns each, so 6 locations and I think you were talking about, at one time, the Town of Moriah, being a slightly bigger location. This was just a concept, partly because we were going to apply for a grant through Ag and Markets.

MONTY: Right, which Janet, said that that cycle is closed. She expects a new one, coming out sometime, early summer, but I just spoke to Anna, this morning and Anna is going to do some research, since this a County based program, to see what she can find for funding for this and stuff. So, Anna’s going to report to us, the next time we meet, go back to maybe a month from now and stuff.

DOUGAN: So, with that thought process of applying for a grant for the infrastructure of it, because we talked about different things. We talked about operations and your dog control officers and better training and things like that, but when it came to the shelters, I think where we got was this, again, maybe three towns working together, having a shelter at those locations that held, I think that number was six dogs at those little individual sites. So, that overall those six sites, if all of them were six dogs that would hold up to 36 dogs, at any one time by the County sharing and then maybe having one larger shelter at Moriah or something like that, because it fit with the grant, because he already had something. That’s kind of why we were targeting them.

MONTY: Right and that shelter, that one in Moriah, which would be a little larger, could be designated for dangerous dogs, because if I looked at the numbers, doing it statistically, looking at dangerous dogs across Essex County, we don’t have five a year that get classified as a dangerous dog. So, that one could be, it’s little bigger, it could be the dangerous dog location. Unless you had one in Upper Jay and you guys wanted to handle it and stuff.

SMITH: Nah, I didn’t see it that way. I am just seeing it as, you know, the SPCA, Wendy, ran up the white flag, you know, they can’t take anymore dogs and so here you are, a small town and you pick up a dog and you can’t immediately find the owner and get the dog back to the family. So, where would we be able to take the dog, if we had to. Also, the building and codes specifications for each of these buildings were increased by the State, so that they require better heating and plumbing and things like that, temperature control. So, that if we could get something that is consistent with the State building standards for shelters and then share it as a cost to the community. I have talked to Joe Pete, a little bit about, you know, just outside here, you know, he’s talking about changing something inside his highway garage and building something there and the fact is, that’s still each town deciding to do, handle the problem on their own. We don’t quite have the same fund balance as Keene, does.

MONTY: Exactly

SMITH: And so we’re the ones that need some help from either the SPCA, but they can’t anyone or have some way in which we could have a shelter built and share and once the town thinks they can pay for it themselves and retrofit something, then they’ll say, wow. I even think that’s probably, in the long run, while Keene maybe able to afford it, it’s still probably more expensive of a project than sharing services in a way. It may be cheaper in the long run if we have something.

REUSSER: Does it make sense to really asses the different towns and what their participation is or is not going to be or should we peruse this as, everybody’s going to participate and plan that we have to cover that area even though North Elba uses Tri-Lakes?

MONTY: The only one, St. Armand uses Tri-Lakes, North Elba uses Tri-Lakes. I don’t think they would be included in this, just because of that. Steve, uses Warren County, but I think he would like to…

MCNALLY: I would like to see a County program. See, I don’t, we have a holding place in our parks building that is designed for dogs and you’re fine for 24 hours - 48 hours. What I would like is something, like I would not mind driving all the way to Moriah. If you want to build this in Moriah, that’s fine and I’m not afraid to contribute a couple of thousand dollars a year, because that’s what we pay the vet that we never bring a dog to, might as well give it to the county coffers.

MONTY: And I think once we come up with a framework of an idea then we go to the Towns and say, who wants in, who wants out. So, just for argument’s sake, you take those, you take St. Armand, North Elba out of the equation, and those are the only ones I know of, you have 16 towns and like Jim, said, if you divide that by 3, maybe we have 4 with Moriah, already having an existing, we just got to upgrade their building, 3 other ones, that then we got to come up with a policy, how we’re going to, we’re going to contract with each town, each town, the question then becomes, do you contract by the amount of usage from those towns? Some towns do a better job managing their animals than others. You have some towns that do very poorly at insuring your dogs are licensed and stuff and picked up and you should pay a flat, as far as I’m concerned, we should pay a flat fee for the opportunity to use that shelter and then if we have a dog that goes there, there’s a daily fee for taking care of that dog.

REUSSER: Well, it’s a willy-nilly situation, too, because you never know when you’re going to have that case where you’ve got 36 beagle dogs.

MONTY: That’s got to be the policy that you’re going to pay for that. That’s what happened to the shelter where those 28 dogs that ended up coming from Crown Point.

REUSSER: Sure

MONTY: That they ended up footing the bill, the bill cost them more to maintain those dogs, because of parvo, than they made from the county, as a whole. It was a $40,000.00 bill and then made $32,000.00 from the towns. So, everything went out the door while they’re taking care of them. So, you get it. But, in talking with Wendy, she said she would be more than willing, because the State says, you only have to wait 5 days to hold the animal, because it can be put up for adoption and stuff.

DOUGAN: Not a dangerous dog.

MONTY: Not a dangerous dog, yeah, not a dangerous dog. So, that dog, she said, once that dog has been held in your, they would be glad to take them, because they can put them right out front, right now, to be adopted. They don’t have to wait from those five days. They don’t have to wait for anything else.

WOOD: So, you’re talking about, because we have a space in our old firehouse that is cool enough, warm enough, but if we’re only holding the dog for 4-5 days and then it can go to the SPCA.

MONTY: If it can and does it meet Ag and Markets Code, that is the whole thing.

WOOD: We have very few dogs.

BARBER: So, the Town of Chesterfield is thinking about, just want Favor, said, about building a space up behind the highway garage, just for dogs and most of the time, my dog catcher is great about trying to find the owner, if it’s just a complaint between neighbors of the dog wandering and I didn’t know I was even coming to this meeting, but has anybody heard about the one in Champlain that a person started and I apologize, I don’t have his name. He took a lot of towns, the Town of AuSable, right next door to me, used to go to Elmore’s SPCA, unfortunately, the same thing, they were also too full, no place for the dogs. There’s a guy in Champlain, my understanding, his got like a 60 unit for dogs. So, he’s charging all the towns, north of me, $10,000.00. he takes dangerous dogs, he fills in for the dog catcher. The Town of AuSable, just signed a contract with him instead of Peru. How he’s doing it? I have no idea.

REUSSER: That would be a Janet Collier question.

BARBER: Well, that was another question I was going to ask, I was wondering if Janet is dealing with him.

MONTY: He’s got to be certified and licensed, so yeah. Why don’t you get the information and bring it.

BARBER: I will

MCNALLY: I would like to have that guy at the table, right here.

BARBER: So, I went to the Town of AuSable’s meeting when he went to speak to them when he went to speak about signing up for their contract.

MONTY: Clinton County has a…

BARBER: He said he would fill in for the dog catcher, if you have a call and the dog catcher wasn’t available.

MONTY: How long is he going to take to get to Steve in Minerva?

BARBER: No, no, no, I’m not saying that he would sign a contract this far out. I know he was willing to sign a contract with me, right not I am paying $3,900.00 or whatever.

MONTY: Well, half of you is in Clinton County.

BARBER: Right

WOOD: What is the cost now of the SPCA?

MONTY: If you bring a dog, it’s $350.00 and that covers it, up until then it’s nothing.

WOOD: What is the signup fee?

MONTY: There’s nothing this year.

SMITH: They got rid of their flat fee, because it was so expensive.

BARBER: So, she’s not charging the $3,500.00?

MONTY: The primary reason is people weren’t paying.

BARBER: Because I thought it was $3,500.00.

MONTY: I don’t know what you pay.

WOOD: Don’t you have to have a place for dangerous dogs?

MONTY: Well, that’s a great question, Meg and I asked Janet Collier, that same exact question and said, so I don’t have a contract for dangerous dogs, well, you have to. Okay, what’s the penalty if I don’t. She said, there’s not a penalty, we’ll just give you a stern warning and a letter. And I said, why am I worried about it? Well, it’s an Ag and Markets Law.

WOOD: And that’s why we use a place in Warren County.

MONTY: But, again, we’re getting a little off topic here, but I think the importance is here, most of us care enough about the dogs that we want them taken care of properly, animals taken care of properly. I want my dogs taken care of.

REUSSER: The other thing with the shelter, the SPCA is they didn’t have room for dangerous dogs. If they had room it would be a different story. So, I think we need to prepare something for ourselves.

MONTY: Right and it doesn’t mean that she won’t take a dog. I signed the contract with her, because it didn’t cost my any money and it’s $350.00 if I take a dog to her.

SMITH: If they’ve got room, they’ll probably help us out in that situation. So, it seems to me that the priority might be the dangerous dog accommodation type stuff, center it in Moriah.

REUSSER: And large number seizures, too.

SMITH: And then the second part would be, you know, when Janet comes in and starts talking about the building specifications for these shelters.

MONTY: Jim, I think has that.

MCNALLY: Jim, has those prefabbed, you put one in Moriah and you put one in Lewis, you pretty much cover the whole county or something like that, you know.

MONTY: I actually like the idea, Steve, of putting one, I have no problem putting one in Lewis, but one up in Favor’s neighborhood, so that those towns can use it and put one, maybe in Moriah and then they could use it, so then they don’t have to worry about it and then the condition would be in the policy that, if we have to take a dog, it wouldn’t be mine, if Chris, had took his dog to the shelter, it would be Chris’ ACO’s responsibility, if that dog’s got to be transferred somewhere, it would be his responsibility to do it, not Meg’s. Not unless you have an ACO in Schroon Lake that wanted to do that.

WOOD: She just turned 88.

DOUGAN: I believe from a county standpoint, where we wanted to be involved was to be involved in getting the infrastructure, meaning these units at the different locations and then as far as operating them, you know wherever it’s located; right, if there are three towns using one of these small units, if our town brought a dog into that unit, I don’t know how your operations are going to be set up, I thought operations were, whoever your dog control officer was that brought them into that small unit would be also responsible for them, feeding them for the first few days. We’ll have to figure that out long term; okay?

WOOD: That’s tough, because you have…

DOUGAN: It can’t be a county employee.

WODD: No, I understand that, that’s not what I was saying.

DOUGAN: Let’s clear that up, right away. How do you have a county employee for this when other times of the year they’re doing…

MONTY: Maybe designate a town employee that would take care of the feeding and be the one taking care of him for that time frame, but that comes from me, signing a contract with Favor, saying, okay, I am going to give you a $100 a day for every day that dog is in there for maintenance of that dog.

WOOD: Right and Favor you use it to find someone to feed the dogs.

SMITH: Right now we share, in Wilmington we share a dog control officer with Jay, and Matt has a backup for the Town of Jay, as well.

WOOD: That’s good.

SMITH: He put him as PS, he’s paid services, so he’s on the payroll for us and so eventually, if we have some sort of shared agreement, there would be an agreement with Jay and Keene and Wilmington, about making sure that there are budgeted funds for food and stuff and the number of personnel would be 2-3 and they would be sort of in charge of that kind of stuff and we could manage that.

MONTY: And I think that’s the responsibility of the towns that are participating in it, to come up with that agreement and stuff and there would have to be a fee, obviously for the electrically and whatever is used that we could figure out and it’s statistics, if your statistics are accurate, liars figure and figures lie, you know you can figure out how many in this area, you know, if you’re averaging only 10 a year, which it think would be high.

SMITH: Yeah, these are almost like insurance policies, I think if these as flat costs, because I never know when I’m going to get run over by these extremely mean dogs.

REUSSER: The only time this is really going to get out of hand is if there’s a…

WOOD: Major bust

REUSSER: Criminal action where we have to hold dogs for an extended period of time for a court and it’s a large number of dogs.

MONTY; Which, right now, the SPCA is still holding 2 of the 3 dogs that killed the chicken or goat in Westport and bit the State Trooper, which they could have handled differently and that guy has been dragging it out for over a year in court and the SPCA is still feeding that dog, maintaining that dog with no consequences.

WOOD: And the town isn’t being charged?

MONTY: No

MCNALLY: So, just setting here, there are a couple different things about, you know, when you’re talking about people opting in and paying for it. Trust me, I opted in, I don’t have that option being in Minerva, there are programs that I don’t ever use, but if the County was going to supply two facilities and the number could be three, it could be whatever and then the towns would contribute to buy those facilities through our taxes, but a pay to play program, if you have no dogs this year.

MONTY: That’s why you put a fee on it.

MCNALLY: But, I think the fee based is the way to go with this.

MONTY: But, you’ve got to have a small pot of money every year, because they still got to maintain the heat, they’ve still got to maintain…

MCNALLY: But, I am fine with that. Like I said, I’m paying $290.00 a year and I haven’t used them in 3 years.

MONTY: Right, and you can figure it out, but those schematics are more of the towns to decide.

DOUGAN: If I were to say a priority, right now, because I think the last grant that was available was up to $500,000.00 with a 25% match, but that was only if there were multiple municipalities, more than one municipally involved.

MONTY: Right

DOUGAN: And so, as we read that last grant, because Moriah, kind of already had something that Janet said was listed as a shelter, you had to already have one to be able to apply for the grant; right?

MONTY: Right

DOUGAN: So, I think my priority, at least in my mind, would be that we develop enough of this of where are the locations of the smaller units and where the location of the big unit is going to be, so that we could, maybe Anna, will find other grant money, but that we can actually have a program, it’s going to have to have a piece that talks about how it’s going to be operated to be sustainable later on, but so we can at least either apply for the money or.

MONTY: Right, I agree.

DOUGAN: Because that grant was almost over when we talked about it last year.

MONTY: That’s why I want to meet more on a regular basis so we can get this information out. Jim, has some designs that he showed me, some pictures of things that he had, which I think we’re great. So, I guess, like you said, Jim, finding the interested towns. You said Jay and Wilmington, will definitely be in it?

SMITH: Well, Jay has been thinking about refurbishing their old firehouse.

MONTY: Matt, did mention that.

SMITH: If it’s cheaper for us to share a space then it is for Keene to build one on their own, and for those guys to build another one.

MONTY: Absolutely

SMITH: If we have some actual numbers, they would look and say, okay, and look, putting something in the firehouse and when one of the things, remembering what Jim, was saying is Janet’s comment about Moriah was, yes, it’s good for now.

REUSSER: Yeah, it was subject to 2025.

SMITH: It’s good for now, it’s not going to be good forever.

MONTY: She sent us the specs, right, Jim?

DOUGAN: Yeah, she did. I have them.

SMITH: I just remember the conversation.

MONTY: There’s one of the buildings that Jim, pulled up.

DOUGAN: Yeah and part of way we pulled these up is because they met, even the new requirements for heating and cooling. They have a little mini-split air conditioning and heating units on the inside of them and they’re fully insulated. So, they kind of met that, even for the smaller ones.

MCNALLY: What we’re the cost of those, Jimmy? We’re they $90,000.00 each?

DOUGAN: No, $35,000.00.

MCNALLY: Oh, that’s all.

DOUGAN: These were $35,000.00, but these were 3 dogs ones. We weren’t talking 6, I threw out here a minute ago, as I am looking at my notes, we were looking at 3 dog ones at a number of places and then a 12 units facility in Moriah is what we were looking.

MONTY: And to be honest with you, I think 3 dog units..

WOOD: I think it’s enough

MONTY: I think it’s enough, because I tell you what, if I have 3 dogs, and we have ours filled and Shaun had 1, hey, Shaun, I have a dog, can I run him over? You know, I think a 3 dog unit is fine.

DOUGAN: I think you guys would all work together on that.

MONTY: So, if we’re looking at potentially, 3 of the 3 dog units, that’s roughly $105,000.00.

DOUGAN: Well, the numbers that I had quickly thrown together before were $35,000.00 a piece for these premade units and then I put $20,000.00 worth of site preparation.

MONTY: I was going to say $25,000.00, but that’s good.

DOUGAN: Right, but assuming you put them near where that town already has a facility, the highway garage, something like that where you could, somebody already goes there every day, sort of a situation or already plows every day or whatever in the wintertime.

MONTY: So, we’re looking at roughly $60,000.00 a unit, just throwing it out there?

DOUGAN: Yup, my number was $55,000.00 a unit.

MONTY: Okay

DOUGAN: And then my number for the 12-unit facility and I forget how much that costs, was a total of $225.00 to equal up to that $500,000.00 grant. So, I had 6 locations, 5 small and 1 large in Moriah.

MONTY: And we think we need 5?

DOUGAN: Well, I would max out the grant. I don’t know, let’s find out, if we had 5 small and the other 12-unit, that would be 27 dogs, at any one time that you could have.

MCNALLY: Wouldn’t it be better to have 2, 12-unit, one in Moriah and one at the north end of the County, because you would save a lot of payroll to maintain it, because one person could take care 12 dogs, compared to 1?

MONTY: I see what you’re saying, Steve, but if you look historically, the statistics on the dangerous dogs, we don’t have a lot of dangerous dogs. We’ve had incidents where we’ve a lot of dogs come in. we’ve had Crown Point, a couple of times and there was someone recently with beagle puppies, I’m not sure what town that was in and they ended up with 6-8.

REUSSER: That was Moriah.

MONTY: That was Moriah, thank you.

REUSSER: Eddie Roberts.

GILLILLAND: Did we have a lot of Pekinese from the breeder here in Etown or something, a number of years ago? When we first got in office there was a big one.

MONTY: Was there?

GILLILLAND: Yeah

MONTY: So, I don’t think we need two 12.

DOUGAN: Some of what was described to be was that some of your dog control officers have them for a very short period of time, it’s overnight.

WOOD: Yeah

MONTY: Yes

DOUGAN: So, your dog control officers is almost, already, I guess if they’re delivering to the SPCA, I guess they’re planning on somebody else dealing with them for the next 24-hours, but some of the thought process of keeping them local, the small unit local is so your dog control officer puts them in there overnight. Yeah, your dog control officer has to feed them, check them, during the day, but if they’re typically gone in 24-48 hours then why travel all the way.

MONTY: And a lot of times, where I’ve picked up dogs, locally, they sit in my truck until I get home and usually by the time we figure who’s dogs there are and I deliver them.

BARBER: That’s what my control office does.

WOOD: And tell them to make one hefty donation to the SPCA.

MONTY: Sometimes you don’t want to let the dogs go, because you know they aren’t being treated right.

DOUGAN: I would like to plan on 6 locations, so you can distribute across the county to start, if we’re going to start to make a great proposal or if I’m going to start to talk to Anna, about other options she might have. It’s up to you guys, it really is.

MONTY: Where would we go with the other locations? Meg, would you want one in Schroon Lake?

WOOD: I don’t know, because where we have our dogs, now, we’re talking about putting behind that parking lot, because parking is such an issue.

REUSSER: Just strategically, with regards to grant applications, it would be better for us to go with more site locations and then have to trim back.

MONTY: That’s fine, but we got to…

SMITH: He’s not here, but North Hudson.

WOOD: I was going to say…

REUSSER: It’s right off the interstate.

MONTY: What I will do, is send out an email to everyone asking them if they would be interested in one of these 3-dog units.

MCNALLY: I would be fine sharing with North Hudson.

MONTY: Where else would you suggest?

DOUGAN: I would look at a map and I would just start putting towns together. These three towsn make sense, these three towns make sense, these three towns make sense.

MONTY: I will send out a blanket email, this afternoon, to all Supervisors, with a brief thought process of what we’re thinking, would you be interested in a unit and we’re still talking, putting the big unit in Moriah?

DOUGAN: Well, that’s up to Matt.

MONTY: If we do two, can we put one in Moriah and maybe Shaun would take one, instead of a small one.

MCNALLY: I mean Minerva, Newcomb, Schroon Lake and North Hudson are, you know, that’s a given.

MONTY: And again, we’re only dealing with 16 towns, because I’m quite sure that North Elba and St. Armand are going to stay contracted with Tri-Lakes.

REUSSER: That is Elizabethtown, from this standpoint, should have a bigger unit. The County Seat of Essex County. We have the SPCA, we have two vet offices. It’s centrally located and it has the services that we need available.

DOUGAN: So, my question is, if you have a bigger unit then you probably are going to have to staff it more.

REUSSER: But, if it’s a cooperative, then we can manage it that way.

DOUGAN: I’m just, if it’s in your town, I agree with you, but I see you taking the lead, someone expecting you to take the lead.

SMITH: You would have to go collect.

REUSSER: That would be on my con side of the list.

MONTY: So, I will put together an email and I’ll ask them, we’re looking at 3-dog units and 12-dog units, would you be interested in one or the other in your community and then once we gauge the interest of the Supervisors then we can flush that out.

REUSSER: And then opt in/opt out, if they’re going to use services from some other county…

MONTY: They’re still going to have to have services, even though according to Janet, there’s no real penalty for not having one and I will also email Janet and find out when the next grant cycle starts for Ag and Markets and what’s available.

GILLILLAND: Is this one of those that we have to have to it built, already, before we get the grant?

MONTY: One of them was, when we initially started talking about it Shaun, it had to have a location where we had something in place already and then you could operate it and that was Moriah, they have their building, but if we would get the money…

DOUGAN: Janet, from Ag and Markets, basically said that what Moriah, has right now, would probably be considered as an insisting shelter and therefore we could apply for the grant. We are only eligible to apply for the grant, if you already have a shelter and there were two options. One was just a single shelter, applying for upgrades and other was more than one municipality applying and we’re hoping that we would, in that grant application, hopefully this will be similar, the next time this comes out, if you’re more than one municipality, it would be up to $500,000.00 with a 5% match. If you were a single, it was up to $200,000.00, but a 50% match.

MONTY: Yeah and I spoke to Anna, this morning, she’s going to join us in our next meeting with an idea if there is any money that she can find, out there, as well.

DOUGAN: So, before you send your email out, I will send you the pictures of the floorplans, again.

MONTY: Perfect

GILLILLAND: Now where did you get those? Where did those come from?

DOUGAN: Online, me looking around at stuff that actually meets, they meet Ag and Markets, 2025 requirements.

MONTY: They’re actually prefab buildings.

GILLILLAND: Roll off the truck?

DOUGAN: Yup, yup, they already have heating and cooling, just got to do site work, electrical to get to it, those kinds of things.

MONTY: And that could be covered in our 25%; right?

DOUGAN: I don’t know if in-kind services was a match or not, but it maybe.

MONTY: Do they have one smaller, Jim?

DOUGAN: Yeah, they have units in-between, as well, 6, 8, 4.

MONTY: Alright, I think we have some tasks.

WOOD: If you do get all of that before Thursday, I can bring that to a Board meeting.

MONTY: I will get that to you, Jim will do his best to get it to me by tomorrow.

DOUGAN: Yup

MONTY: And I will send the email today.

WOOD: Great

DOUGAN: If you keep your email, I can tell you, look for an email from me on August 29, 2024, because that’s when I sent it. I sent you the write up and those pictures.

MONTY: Yup, okay, I will go through them. That will be included in the packet and I am sending it to all 18 Supervisors. That way no one can say that they weren’t informed of the direction that we want to go. I think we’re one step closer and I am going to get ahold of Janet and find out when the next grant cycle starts for Ag and Markets and see if there’s anything there.

All, well, if there’s nothing else we stand adjourned. Thank you

AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS SUBCOMMITTEE, IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 12:08 PM.

Respectively Submitted,

Dina L. Garvey, Deputy Clerk

Board of Supervisors