Animal shelter could get new location

With numerous issues pushing the projected costs for many of the needed repairs to the Lumpkin County Animal Shelter through its roof, which also needs to be replaced, the Board of Commissioners is now looking to move forward with a plan for a new animal shelter, to be located at Blackburn Park.
“I do think that we need to make this a priority,” said Chairman Chris Dockery. “Because what’s down there is being held together with coat hangers and hay-baling wire. It’s not going to last much longer.”
The plan, which was discussed at the board’s retreat in December, has an estimated price tag of $962,000.
“In 2020, the board budgeted for some funds for an expansion of the animal shelter and to reroof the house and the kennels,” Special Projects Director Ashley Peck said during the retreat. “We put that project out to bid and it came in way over budget on what was expected, so the board put that project on hold until spring of this year in hopes that the cost would decrease. During that time, there were additional issues identified with the animal shelter and direction was given to staff to basically stop those repairs because we were ready to move forward with just doing a new facility.”
During the retreat, county staff listed the repairs that would be needed to keep the shelter up and running “over the next four to five years,” which totaled out just over $185,000. That price doesn’t include the price to fix the shelter’s septic issues.
“The reason there is no price there is because there is no fix,” Peck said. “We just don’t have the room to expand that system, so once it fails and we expect it to fail…there’s nowhere else for us to go to expand that system. So it’s a problem.”
Animal Shelter Manager Wayne says the talks of repairs began to shift to talks of building a new shelter when he and his staff discovered the ground around the shelter sinking.
"The ground underneath the center has started to sink," Marshall told The Nugget. "...It's not going to cave in on us tomorrow, but there's issues that we can't see."
Since the board decided to relocate the shelter, voting in June to move forward with the shelter at Blackburn Park, Marshall and Planning and Public Works Director Larry Reiter began working on the new plan.
“This is a rough estimate of what we expect the facility to cost,” Peck said. “I don’t think it’s an all-encompassing number for the project but this is what we expect the facility, or what Larry is estimating the facility to come in at.”

GIMME SHELTER

Commissioner Bobby Mayfield brought up that there’s more to the county animal shelter than just providing a shelter.
“I think people need to understand too, part of that facility that says animal shelter is designed as a space for the animal control folks,” he said. “That’s where they’ll do all their medical procedures and all those kind of things so it’s an expensive space, some of it is.”
While everyone in the room could agree on the need of the new space, simultaneously, several board members all spoke up at once with a unified question, most plainly asked by Mayfield.
Community and Employee Services Director Alicia Davis noted that the need serviced by the shelter continues to grow.
“And with our county population growing…there are so many people who move into the county who bring, I think the average is 2.3 animals with them,” she said. “Almost every family that moves in, so the demand and the need is just going to get bigger and bigger.”
“How are we going to pay for it?” Mayfield said.
After ruling out using 2026 SPLOST funds, Commissioner Chairman Chris Dockery suggested a combination approach.
“I’m not so sure the ‘26 SPLOST is a good option,” he said. “...You could always borrow the money and spread that out over time. It’s a capital project…you could look at fund balance and maybe pay some of it out of fund balance and maybe borrow the money for the rest. I don’t know that you have to look at one particular option. I think the smart thing to do would be to reduce your liability by using some of the fund balance, even if it takes it a little bit below 25 percent, let that offset the cost and then finance the rest of it. That would be what I would suggest.”
County Manager Alan Ours said the county staff would look into different options to bring before the board at the January work session.
Commissioner Rhett Stringer said the project needs to be handled with some urgency.
“That’s something that we need to get on now or a year ago, ain’t it?” Stringer said. “We’ve been patching it since I’ve been around.”
Marshall said that a new shelter would help him and his staff meet the needs of the community now and in the future.
"If this does happen, which we would love, it would allow us to service the community 10-20 years into the future," he said. "We want to be that shelter that other places visit and model themselves after."