Health, Welfare & Recreation Committee - Regular Meeting

Yeah, looks like it. All right, we'll call this meeting to order. This is our monthly health, welfare, recreation meeting. It's uh Thursday night, June 26, 2025, and we'll start on our agenda by taking role. We have everyone here but Tim Morris. He's think out of town. So, uh we'll be going on down to um number four, which will be approval of our minutes Roseanne so graciously brought into us. So look over your minutes and I'd entertain a motion to approve those when I make that motion. Motion by Mr. Miller, second by Mr. Duncan. All in favor of approval of the minutes. I have it. So let's drop down to number five, which would be public comments. Mr. Chambers, you have anything you want to bring to the table? Public comments. Just wanted y'all to consider for next year that programs that might be that we did here. We approved here. That's what I said. That's what I said. It it just didn't get through the budget. budget. So, we need to inform the volunteer fire departments as they come in that that not to be counting on that money. Is that what you're suggesting? Yes. You know, it depends if it makes approval or gets knocked down in the budget finance, which is always the case, right? For any, right? Right. But that that is our goal is to, you know, that that program is expired,

but it didn't It expired on the books. That's why it's still continuing. It did. It did. It was in the budget the other night. So, it did pass for this year. So, okay. So, we'll just we'll just tell them that, you know, it's just like a it's not that's not going to be guaranteed, but it could possibly. So, we'll see. All right. They can always ask. Yeah, that's right. Next time. Or anytime, but Okay. Let's go down to unfinished business. We have Craig here. Craig, you come on over and have a seat and give us a good animal control report here and see what we got. [Music] Thank you. Thank you, sir. This is just a rundown of our numbers currently for the year. Just keep steadily increasing every year. So, I think we hit 821 last year and we're well on our way to do more than that this year. The youth looks like it's larger. Is it? It's We're I mean we're still considered by numbers was considered no kill, but I mean it's we're just getting more and more. I mean so that number is going to increase with every dogs you can't do anything with anyway. Yeah. That and getting a lot more dogs that are in in worse shape. So people are waiting too long before they do anything with them. So some of those don't make it or you know the vet suggests. So the transfer to rescue most of them going to somewhere up north is you've been doing

in the past. Y. So, we've actually had 99 locally adopted. Great. So, we got 59 now. Yeah, we got 59 at the shelter now and we got 49 in foster homes right now. Capacity. What's that? What's your capacity again? We're way above there right now. And the dogs in foster, those are actually dogs that are being fostered to adopt because we officially adopt them until they're spayed and neutered. So once those dogs get spayed and neutered and those will actually be adoptions there. So that's a good way to do it. Yeah, because years ago the the law said you could adopt the dog and it gave the people 30 days to go be able to spay and neuter. They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it and there's no way keep track of enforce it. So now it's um we just we do it this way to make sure that dog still belongs to us. So if they don't if it don't get done, we can go. Well, they get it cheaper anyway. They do. They do. You're subsidizing it basically. Yeah. But by state law, we're required everything to leave the shelter has got to be spay and neutered. So that's the only way to So what do we charge now for somebody wanting to adopt a dog? That's 100 bucks to Yeah. But the vets give us a major discount. Yeah. So yeah, you've got more the surgery. Oh, that's good. That's what I say. Can't beat that. And some people still think that's high, but it does seem like it until you try to do your own. Oh, yeah. We've we even listed one time on Facebook our our price versus if you took the dog and did everything we're doing, you're looking at three, four, $500 worth of stuff. I've got a thousand in mind. Yeah.

Any uh farm animal incidents out in the county. Any any wild animals? Just a few pigs here a couple weeks ago. Just like feral pigs or No, there's pot belly that somebody couldn't couldn't keep contained. So that that amount of the donation, so the 17,339 that was brought in since January first, is that from people adopting plus that almost 6,000 in donations? Yeah, that 6,000 is included in this. Oh, that's fair. That's Is that above average? Is that about used to it was like 6 to 10,000 a year is what we brought in. That's promising. I mean, yeah, I mean, our the money part keeps keeps increasing. Um, and a lot of that we're getting a lot of business sponsors right now, too. They're they're basically we're kind of advertising take we were taking the dog to their business, taking a picture with the dog at their business, and that's good. They paid the adoption fee for for that dog. So, this donation includes adoption fees. No, no, no. That donation is just just donations. Just donation money. Okay. How about your dog feed is all that pretty much donated too. Yeah. Our big supply that we had forever. The lady passed away New Year's. So we're having to start buying some. We never did have to buy any before. So she was buying she was buying it all and donating. She was sending 1600 pound pallet a month. Wow. That was great. But they're trying to get it going again kind of in her name. That's a slow start for them. Where did she get it? Was there any certain place? It sounds like she had a good thing figured out. She she's up north, but yeah, she just um she didn't even live here. No, they do. But they knew about us through rescues and stuff like that.

Um she actually got a dog from us that looked like one of her dogs. But yeah, they do fundraisers and raffles and they just raise money and shelters and need food, they they ship it to them. It was a huge help to us. Wow. What a big loss. Yeah, but like I said, they're they're trying to get get it going again. Just she really had a good system, so it's going to take them a minute to get back to where she was. I guess it's not like grocery stores when get a certain date, they'll give it to you. That don't happen as much as it used to, but they like Walmart and some like the dollar stores, they still throw some of those uh bags of dog food away in dumpsters. Yeah, we used to get phone calls like Walmart used to give their damage stuff and all that, but they won't anymore. It's kind of quit. Need to advertise that. Yeah, maybe. So, speak to them on that since they don't do it anymore. Yeah, I know some people so I'm not going to talk to them. the community. If we get in a vine, all we do is put a post on Facebook and we have Amazon truck will be pulling up every day or FedEx or whoever. So, how about your straw trailer? Y'all still giving straw out? Yeah, but it's time of year now. Nobody's needing it. Still have a lot of it though. We got over half of semi-tra left. Wow. I guess last I guess last winter a lot of people used that, right? Well, not as many as you think. And some people we'd offer it like went out on a call. Yeah. Straw's like $8 a bail to the co-op and get it. But we'd offer it and yeah, I'll come get some. That never would show up. I would have bet the time I walked around the cages a few months ago would have been more than 59. So there's times that it is. We we've been on close to 70 before, but

it's a lot. It's a lot on us over there when it numbers are that high. How's our other employees? How's all How's that going? Everybody doing good over there? I've got one on maternity leave, but yeah, everybody's good. We're just Everybody's tired and about burn out right now. Gotcha. It's a lot. the numbers, like I said, the number just keeps going up and up and up and the calls are to the point where we're like a day or two behind sometimes on getting to the calls for people. So, how long have you been doing this? I've been in that building for July 11 years. And you and you've seen it. What What was it? Do you remember about what was in the shelter when you started? Number-wise, there was which I started with the city. I was over there for seven years on the other end of the building. Yeah. Okay. And I've been with the county. I think I'm on four now. Um I know with the city and even the county there was times where like on the weekends we still have to go feed and clean and everything. I remember times have like a dog or two to go take care of and now we've got 59, you know. What do you attribute that to? Uh the biggest factor is spaying and neutering. Yeah, but people have had dogs all this time and I mean they wouldn't spay and neuter them back then either. Well, they just keep multiplying though and that's like we've got some houses like we took dogs from house the other day and we took there was different age groups. There was mama, there was her daughter, there was two eightweek old puppies. There was another six-month-old from another litter of them. And I'm like, "Hey, do y'all have any female dogs y'all need to get fixed?" I was going to read humane. Yeah, we do, but

we got two that are about to give birth. So, these these are single households that are producing I think what it was is people used to didn't have as many dogs like and now everybody has a dog. Yes. No, no. Everybody used to have one dog. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And this Well, I was going to say I don't know how they can afford to feed them. Oh, it's high. It's expensive. They keep cranking out babies. And and society's gotten everybody's impulsive now. Like they see a free dog, they don't need that free dog, but they'll go and take it. And then they don't take care of it. And and they don't get it fixed. They don't get fixed. And then it just snowballs from there. And like just cultures changed. When I was a kid, like people out the country, they had dogs outside. Nobody had a dog inside now. Everybody Nobody's got a dog inside. Just cultures changed. I think and dogs didn't live as long. I mean, if you were outside. That's right. They didn't. Heartworms got them. They all something. Dogs are held in higher esteem now than they used to be too. You see more cars riding around than anything. But this is different. The culture is different. Wasn't driving the other day. I thought it was like How about our uh how about our trucks over there? How's our fleet doing? We put in for a truck. So um hopefully be getting it before long. Our main truck 2017 it's 198,000 miles on it now, but it's still it's still a good truck. That's your main truck that you're using. Yeah, we're hoping this other one as our Is that the one you got from EMA? No, that's the one county bought. Got thinking 18. That's when they bought it.

But I do have the one from EMA. It's It's a good truck. It's just the fuel. Is that They use that for a backup. Yeah. And then we've got the one from Rick. It's a 2001 Dodge, but that thing, it wouldn't surprise me if it quit going tomorrow. You got you. The transmission, we need to get that declared surplus and get that gone. Well, it's a good trucker. Now, you can get some money out of it, but once it goes down, it's That's what I'm saying. We do it get it surplused and get it especially to get another one in. Yeah. Got any more questions for Craig? got any any things coming up? Got much any events coming up? No. Um few ideas I've been kind of tossing around. I know a lot of counties or animal controls now. They're doing offsite like microchip scanning stations where somebody at public finds a dog because that's always a thing. Well, I'm gonna take it to the vet tomorrow. I'm gonna take it down patrol tomorrow and scan it. What they've doing, they're taking old newspaper stands. They'll find them a location and they'll just the microchip scanner inside and leave some instructions on on what to do. And this went over pretty good in a lot of communities and I thought about trying to get one or two around here. How much does a microchip scanner cost? A couple hundred dollar you can get. I know the one everybody's using. They're buying the same one because the way it's made, it's got a handle that connects to itself. So you can run a chain or or whatever through it. They just chain it inside. Just leave enough they reach the dog with it and then put it back inside. You got Bubba microchips. When I had mine spayed, they asked me did I want to put a chip in. Said, "Yeah, how much is it?" And I said, "I

guess not. Thank you." How much How much was it? It was over $100 on it. Oh, yeah. Just to insert the thing. I'm thinking I get a lot especially when you're have putting them to sleep. Yeah. While you're at it, you're shop you're shopping around with a highend town. I know. I know. Was like today some people pulled up and they found a little bitty dog actually found it in Oklahoma. But I guess closed they drove over to us. So we scanned it a microchip and it was back home within 30 minutes. Wow. My brother lost a dog in Texas. Thing ended up in Seattle. Got it back. That's because that's one of the things I see on on Facebook. People see a dog running and they automatically assume that it's a stray that don't have a home and they pick it up. And they pick it up. And then the biggest thing is there's laws when you pick an animal up. That's somebody's property. They're immediately like, "Hey, does anybody want this That's not how that works. You're giving away somebody's property right now. I don't know how to address it. I wanted to to speak up a few times on it, but I do too. But I you know, it's it's a real um I think it's a big problem. People act like a dog just because they see it outside, you know, oh, I got to pick it up. It's lost. It's outside. Well, dogs live outside. Mine do. And the the biggest thing for us is as tight as we are for space at the shelter, the people that just they pick them up and they want to drive straight to us with this dog. Nowhere to put the thing and if you would have left it alone, it would have probably gone back home. Nobody would have found it. Um I see that too. I think it's a lot of people that have moved in. They think it is. Yeah. They don't know. And I I do say it sometime on like the Beach Grove page. Just leave

it alone. It'll go home. and my brothers. It's hot. It's cold. Leave Leave leave it alone. It'll go back home. It's just it's putting us in the bind. I know I've talked to other shelters about it, but nobody wants to tackle that subject with the public. It kind of I guess it would look bad on us, but at the same time, we can't handle it. Picking up everything and bringing it to us when we're already or people will say, "Oh, I'll call animal control." And I I usually try to say something like, "Why don't you you know, they're busy. It's a weekend. Leave them alone." In the case of my brother's dog, the thing would just run off. It wouldn't come back. Wow. And it went through about seven different people before it got to Seattle. And every time he'd let it out, it it would take off again. Strange. He had a dog was a hustler. He was love. He spent thousands on that thing because had hip problems and all kinds of expensive medicine. I thought I'd let it run. That's funny. Okay. All right. Any more questions, Craig? If not, we'll Thank you, Craig. Good report. All right. Let's move on. I figured my dog doesn't want me to go. Yeah. kind of feel the same way. Let's move on. 6B rule fire update. We didn't have anybody um that volunteered to come in. I think it's just hot and they're kind of they're kind of out of the out of the thing. I think uh Hillsboro had a of course Bonnaroo didn't stay the whole full time out there. I think Hillsboro I think they got out there got set up and was there for like two days. Roger, you know anything about that much about That's about Yeah, I don't think they

had, as far as I know, they didn't have anything happen. And um I think they still It went down, but I think they're still getting paid. I think they still get paid for for services rendered. Um I don't know how I guess it be insurance money, I guess, but I'm under assumption that they did. Um, I saw some of the guys other night at the at the uh at our uh monthly meeting and they seem to be tickled at the at the smoke detector money and then they got that and they got their money too. So, they seem to be they were kind of in they didn't really know if they were getting it or not because you had we had last minute discussions about that. So, I think they were pretty happy that they they got that. So, And um I think some of them's looking at some different equipment. I think uh what was New Union looking? What were they getting? You remember what it was, Roger? I think Weren't they getting a cascade system? It seems like it. Yeah, I think uh I think they are out there. So other than that, I haven't talked to him much. So, we'll move on down to any we have anything on the direct side of it, Roseanne? No, nothing. Nothing. So, nobody's got any money, right? No land. We don't have We don't have any place to put anything. I think scrapping the barrel now about their wreck situation. It's a hard thing to they were trying to get put a lot of I've been very busy so I I haven't promoted any meetings but I don't I think they were cutting back on donations from the city area. All right. So we'll move on. Tim Morris, he's over real water. He's not here

tonight. He sent me a message and said that uh I didn't get any details on it, but he said the water deal for the J Sarton Road deal was off. So, I'm assuming that there was no money available to do it. So, I guess those folks are back to square one. So, we'll see how that goes. Anybody else have anything on rule water? Any anything that they know of? That's all I got from Tim was that and he's will be back next month. So, all right, moving down the list, new business. Anybody have anything to bring up under new business or anything they want to we need to look at this coming month? Well, I I mean, I feel like I should bring up the Coffee County Fair is in August now. And I mean, that's part of recreation. They've moved that to the August. Was it August last year? Yes. It's kind of been a hard thing to get used to. Yeah. And sound It's in August. Yeah. You know, you know the date on that? Um, not off the top of my head, but I can look it up pretty quick. But I think that's something that we should at least, you know, be aware of. It's it's really agriculture. It's recreation. It's education. It's a lot of things. I'm not talking about the we can we can Since it's July and it's a month away, we might could get uh uh Amy Willis over here maybe next month. We can invite her over and let her kind of go over our 4H happenings because you know that's going to fall under Yeah, that'll fall under recreation, right? So, is it going to be moved to the pretty much the end of August? It's always I know been first couple weeks in September or something. Um, it's all it used to be in September,

like the 19th. Okay. But now it's So, it's going to be it'll be before the Warren County Fair now. Yeah, it it might even be the same. I'm looking just to see when it is. Bring on $59. Well, I will pick up pick up a duck and So, by the way, did you bring a $100? Well, they had a, you know, they had something this past weekend at the fairgrounds that was related to just, you know, welfare, health. I don't know. I think it's something we should at least. So, last year it looks like I'm just trying to find the date, but I don't have it. Um, last year it was August 30th through September 7th. And it could be the same again, right? Could be the end of It's probably close because, you know, it was a big deal to move it, but they had to because of the the company who does the rides. Gotcha. That's why they did it. But um I'll come back with that information. So we you want to ask Amy and I'll ask some of the people on the fair board, you know, because I was trying to go to those meetings. I've had conflicts. So I haven't been to one in three months. We'll put that under new business. So you you get somebody with the fair board and I'll talk to Amy and we'll try to get them here next month and I'll get some more rule fire guys and start getting more updates from them. Anybody else got anything other new business that they want to bring up, talk about for the next meeting?

I think we need to uh I know Tim Morris had the idea about the uh the county Christmas tree and I'll talk to Amy with that about that, too. I mean, we need to start planning on that now. So, of course, Tim will be back next month and we'll go over that with him. So, anybody have anything else? Jack, you got anything? No. Um, I I guess I've got some interest that kind of stirring up an interest for the uh the county museum. I don't know much about it and it's not really I guess not advertised a lot, but that's something I want to find out more about, I guess, because interested in historical a lot of historical things and I'm working on a lot of historical things and I guess I need to I've got stuff I can can contribute and there's some things that I want to be made more aware if you'll let me if you'll let me know this month between our next meeting I'll put it down on the agenda. Okay. I think we need more little more notoriety on the county museum and everything. There was a thing where is it sent out on the website, wasn't it? Yeah, they were they were saying forgot. Yeah, email type thing. I don't You just got it. Go get it. Go get it. Go get it. I haven't gotten an email since since uh Judge took office. I don't get emails anymore through the county, but I I just got set up today where I will get them. I think I probably got about 10,000 pieces of mail

up there now, but we talked about that today and we talked about it a little while back and I did come up. I think we're set up now. So, why don't you check why don't you check with them with the museum and see if we can get something next month? I want to find Okay. either yesterday or today. I think that's something needs to be publicized a little bit more maybe than a lot of people not aware of it. We do have a kind of museum and y'all ever been to it? No, I didn't know about it. It's pretty neat. I've been there a couple times to contribute some stuff in the courthouse or where you courthouse through the back. I never go in the courthouse. And then there's another They have up in the front they have an ancestry meeting every so often up there I think and I've been meaning to get into more of that but need to go to Warren County to get in there it's pretty neat like every little community has its own historical thing it's it's neat and I think they're not publicized enough but in the in the telephone paper I know they always have a page of things to do for the month the monthly events that they have scheduled and uh whatever meetings or lunchons or whatever else they you know you can find you can get quite a bit of information there but I still don't find everything I'm looking for. Will you call me next month and we'll put it on the agenda and get something on with that. So that'd be good. Dwight, you got anything? I can't think of anything. have Jackie on here next month. What about uh you got more update on the new shelter? Craig, you got anything on that? I started to ask you that while you were there. I'll have a I I'll I'm on Capital

outlay. I'll have us something next month on it. So, it's moving along. Yeah, they're out there working. They're going at it. Put ins getting prepared to start. I'll try to have us I'll have you a a full report on that next month. I'll get out of Capital Outlet. Can they uh post some pictures on the website or something? Yeah. Promote it. People might want to contribute. Craig, can you handle that? Get some pictures on it. Get get up on the website. that contractor'll almost daily. Got you. Do you post pictures of dogs to try to get adopted? Oh, yeah. I don't know where to look. Well, the adoption photos we do find. Okay. Our our Facebook page a lot of times we're posting stray dogs and then business sponsor, stuff like that. So, we do Petinder for the dogs. If you do too much on Facebook, it gets to where you can't keep up, right? Stuff gets lost on there. I tried to adopt and tried to go through rescues and some of them were in Chattanooga and various other places and I was interested in one and they turned me down. Oh, really? Yep. They wanted to come to the house and check everything out and do all this. I said, "Go ahead and come. But I live in Oklahoma. Well, there's something else they didn't like. And I thought, "Oh, I know what it was." I didn't have another dog. The dog I was going to adopt, they said

needed a companion. I said, "I don't want two or three. I just want a dog." I said, "I believe it could adapt." They said, "Nope. No change." Oh my gosh. That's a picky operation there. Well, I thought so. They can't adopt them. I'm thinking that's pretty hard to adopt. He would be depressed. Adopt it. No, that's so that's the problem. No. Yeah. All righty then. If nobody has anything else, we'll set a time and of course we know the location of our next meeting. I'm looking at July 24. It'll be a Thursday night. Everybody check that on you. calendars there. I can't say well I will be or not. I'll put it down there. It's a little too soon. I'm going to be in Texas. I don't know I'll be back or not. Well, I'll try to give everybody a call and make sure everybody will be available. So, we'll we'll set that time, that date. We'll set it at 6 o' I got it down. Get her down there. And of course, we got a month there. So, Is this the committee that was looking at lighting the coins? Um, actually that would be capital outlay. Okay. Yeah, I think that's I think that's probably going to be done in the next couple months. So I think he he had got the stuff that' be capital outlay. So all right, all that being saying, I would entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. Motion. Mr. Miller with a motion to adjurnn. Jackie Duncan second. All in favor of German. I I have it. Thanks everyone for being here. See you next month. All in favor say get a motion. All in

favor stand up. Thank you.