Animal Shelter Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

We were called to order at 06:01. We'll go through roll call one more time.

Did you say the time that you called

the meeting to order? I'm sorry. It was 06:01 was our call to order time PM. We'll And run through roll call one more time just so we have it on recording. Oh,

okay. Sorry. Can you hear me?

Yep. Yeah. We can hear you. Just gotta kinda yell.

Okay. Sorry. Okay. Christie Bandu?

Present.

Estefan Centeno?

Present.

Doreen Cruz? Doctor Pollard. Present. Brianna Geddes. Here. Bo Kidd.

I'm here.

Nikki Ladkin. Here.

And Kate Shaw? I'm here. Alright. And so we do have four. There you go. And go ahead.

So we'll move on to minutes. Consider approval by motion of the 07/16/2025 meeting minutes.

Second motion of the Motion by Brianna.

Second.

So what's the second? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. That moves us on. Presentations, we have I basically just we kinda put these under presentations, just kinda getting updates from the various government partners. So the first one we have is just a Hays County update. What are what are y'all doing in Hays County, Nikki? Well, I have

three things to report on, one of which probably most everybody knows anyway. And that is that Hays County has signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Kyle, to partner on an animal services facility. The partnership will do cost sharing, hopefully improve services, and, increase operations efficiency. The interlocal final interlocal agreement will be forthcoming. But until that's happened, the county has put up a web page on the county the page on the county website with FAQs about the arrangement, and it also has an email address to contact if any members of the public have any further questions.

And that has been been up now for a couple weeks. I think it was up very quickly after the MOU was was signed. That was the first matter. Second matter is that the comprehensive community resource guide has been updated and published to include an annual services resources as well as all of the other community services, which previously focused on mental health, human health, health, those kinds of things. So now the Hays County community resource and life has section on that and then resources.

Got that. And then finally, the intake intake coordinator position was approved by the commissioners, and that is in the process of time. So, hopefully, that'll help alleviate some of the, you know, the the wave of intakes that keeps on coming. That was oh, I did not forgot to say that that that position is also prioritizing a Spanish speaker Okay. To help with the folks at Hays County who apparently at least in the health department that is likely, so they prioritize that.

So those are the three things. Cool. Thank you. Very awesome. Going forward

to kinda as all that progresses now that y'all have the health department, it's kind of like a

whole new world to be there. So So

Can I ask Nikki, where the guide is, the the guide to community resources, where that can be accessed?

That's a very good question, and I'm afraid I can't answer it because I just tried to find it before I came to the meeting and couldn't. Okay. The the previous one, which is 2005, is the old one.

My goodness.

It's possible that it has not yet been put online.

Okay.

But so, yeah, apologies for that.

I think I have the link to the FAQ page. If you email me to remind me, because I'll go home tonight and completely forget, I can send you at least the link to that because I'm sure that's where they'll that'll land

once Yeah. Email

me and remind me. I'll forget.

Okay. Okay, Christie. Gotcha.

The link to it. Everybody sent me the link to it. I looked at it.

I looked I looked earlier, I said, oh, 2025, here we are. But that's the old one. There's nine annual services, and I was forgetting that it's almost 2026. Yeah. So

New fiscal year. Oh, yeah.

Sorry sorry about that, Kate.

I I couldn't I couldn't yet find it, but I I imagine it will be posted both on the health department, web page and also on that, the hayscountytexas.gov, web page where the FAQs are.

Makes sense. Okay. Super. Well, that's a good update.

Yeah. Cool. Anything else? That's it. That's it. Thank you.

Bo, what do y'all got going on in Buda?

Well, we're doing the same as Hays County. We have a MOU with Kyle to cost share and partner for sheltering moving forward.

Yep.

So, yeah, that's about the only news I have from Buta.

Nope. Kyle, Brianna, what y'all got?

Y'all got y'all got all this stuff.

Yeah. We got we got all the stuff. Our latest is where architect is moving ahead with taking the statistics and turning those into bigger plans. It's the same architect. It's Jackson and Ryan. Again, same who did our feasibility study. I've been told approximately November is probably when we're going coming back with the ILAs just due to the lots of things that have to be negotiated in those ILAs. So that's what I've been told. It's approximately November is when those should be in the mix.

That's pretty much where we're at.

Cool. Progress since the last meeting. Last meeting, we were like, we don't know what we're doing. Like, there's direction now,

so that's cool. Well, the

things that happened this last week. Yeah. It's been a busy we picked the busy time of kitten season to try to do all this too. We should have been doing this in the winter months. So okay. Anything else from anybody on discussion or questions for anybody? Okay. I'll move us on to items for action and discussion. The only thing we have on this agenda is figuring out our 2026 meeting dates. We wanna get those on the calendar.

So I I everybody's kind of familiar. I believe we talked about it at the last meeting. I think we did. And I'm pretty sure Dina sent out emails. The new process for putting items on the agenda, is everybody kinda up to speed on that that you have to email? There's gotta be two. It's the same process. You still have to have two people. You email the liaison. If there's two people, she can put it on.

The chair can put it on. It's just that we don't have it on the agenda anymore, and that's, like, a citywide change that they've made to our agenda. So, I mean, I feel like we end up with these really light agendas where we we kinda have our standing agenda items at this point where we're just kinda getting updates, you know, and then we'll have, like, our elections and things like that. I don't know if we wanna continue to have four meetings a year or if we wanna reduce to three, and we can always add extra meetings if we want to.

So there's no citywide standard meetings. Three is the minimum. Three is

the minimum. So these meetings are required by state law for animal shelters, and it's three per year is what's required by state law. We have kinda gone to four, but it feels like the last several meetings have been, like, twenty minutes long. I'm like, do we need to be doing four if we don't have much to talk about, or there's not things that people really wanna bring. You know? So just kinda something to think about if we're if we're thinking about date. Yeah. I guess if we could start with three, we can always add another meeting if things are really heating up with, like, ILAs and things are moving and we've gotta get together and talk, we can always try to schedule another one. But Yeah. I think that makes sense.

Good next week. I would say we've got

20 meetings. So Anybody

thoughts on it? Anybody?

I'm fine with three.

Meetings per second meetings. That's kinda what

they turn into sometimes. So

But that that what what I hear is that there aren't enough of that. Nobody's ever sent too many for the. Yeah. So and those are most that's mostly from the community that I get back to.

So I hear a lot

of to bounce between just just. Right. It's like yeah. So I hear that a

lot too is we need to have more meetings. So the purpose of the advisory committee meeting is to ensure that our facility is in compliance with state law. So it's not like, you know, like a board of directors meeting where we're making big decisions on what's happening with the shelter and funding and, you know, those kinds of things. So there's you know, we haven't had an audience show up to these probably for the last three or four meetings that I can think of. I mean, we may have one or two folks online.

I think if, you know, we had more people on maybe wanting to put issues to talk about, it would make sense to have more. But, you know, it's like most of the time, what's on the agenda is like, I put it on the agenda is the chairs. I'm like, well, we gotta talk about when we're doing our next meeting. So that's basically the whole reason we're meeting tonight is just to do that. So like I said, kind of wanted to see what consensus was on now. Like I said, we can always add more meetings if there's things going on that we need to talk about, but I don't know if we wanna continue on with four, and then we're meeting just to have meetings. And there's not a lot of public interest. Y'all are the hot topic right now, not us.

Yeah. And I have plenty of things to do with that.

So like I said, any so I think you said

Yeah. I I would be fine with three, and you could just schedule the next three quarters. And if you need a fourth, you could

That fourth quarter open, if there's stuff going on, we can always add another meeting then.

Right.

We do that. And that way, we're kind of at least set for most of this upcoming

That's that's why next year open. Right.

And and tell me this. Is is there because I can't see. Is there anyone in the audience tonight? No.

Are there Nope. Nobody here. Just us. Oh,

okay.

My dad is the audience. Well,

I know that, yeah, I know that our meetings have varied from very packed to more on the light side. And, I feel like we sometimes uncover some really enlightening things in the meetings. But considering there's it's been pretty light lately, and I know most of y'all work at the shelter or in the shelter services, and so you guys are probably pretty tapped out at the end of the day and not wanting to add another meeting to your plate. So I'm also fine going to three meetings a year just knowing that we can add another one if needed.

Okay. Well, let's do I think that sounded like a good idea if we just do because we usually do, like, January, April, July, and October are usually the month kinda do it in. So maybe we just do January, April, and July for now, and then we see if we wanna have something for beyond if we're we've got things heating up. So okay. We look calendar. Do Wednesdays typically work well for everybody still? That's been kind of our baseline is.

Yeah.

Wednesday. A little a little longer too far. January. We could just do kinda mid month. So, like, January 14 or twenty first.

Yeah. Preference? Either one. Yeah.

Okay. Let's do January 21 just so we get a little bit past the holidays. Mhmm. We're not bringing it to, like, Martin Luther King Day and, you know, like, all of that being in the middle. So we'll say January 21, which is a Wednesday. And then if we go to April trying to think when there's not much going on in April. When is Easter this year? The tenth. April? April 5. Okay. So later in April, then we wanna make sure we're past April 15?

Yeah. April 15

for everybody?

Mhmm. K.

And then make it easy to remember, we could do July 15?

Mhmm.

Yeah. That

Sounds good.

Okay. So, yeah, we'll get those, and I'll get Dana to calendar them for everybody, and then we can just kind of play it by ear on that fourth meeting.

Are we going to to alternate them between Oh, yeah. We gotta pick times. Yeah.

Do we want and, obviously, like yeah. I know it's with some folks. Y'all are working your regular jobs during the day. You know, we're in the shelter all day. Do we wanna do I think we usually alternate. We'll do, like, noon, six, noon, six. So do we wanna do, like, noon, six, noon for those three dates? Two noons and a noon.

That that works for me if it works

for the

You know, that noon works for everybody on all of them. Yeah. That's for us. Okay.

I could do noons.

Yeah. Noon is great for us at the shelter if everybody wants noon for all of them because then we can go home. I had to

Oh, sure.

Conflict with?

Maybe on a Wednesday.

I mean, it's just weird. It's just like

Make them all noon? Okay. I

mean, if everybody's good with that, that we love it because, like, we're tired.

I do too. I'm with you.

For like me. My poor cat is hiding under the little TV screen here right now because she's so over it today. I thought it's. It's warm down there. She's like, she's she's over it. So okay. So we have January 21, April 15, July 15, all at noon. We're good? Yeah. K. Cool. So I'll move us to reports. I included these in everybody's packets too. Again, kinda like I usually do, I'm not gonna sit and read them. I gave you guys quarter four of the fiscal year, which is July, August, and September of the fiscal year we just ended.

And I also gave you guys the full year end reports so that you can kind of see, like, where do we land for the quarter? Where did we land for the year? We were pretty much up on everything this year. Intakes, outcomes, adoptions, return to owners, everything was kinda just trending up. Our nonlife outcomes stayed the same. So we actually, like, we got more live out than we did last year. So but everything was was pretty well up. I think last fiscal year, we took in just over 4,000. It was, like, 4,039. I can't remember off the top of my head.

Live intakes, we were at 4,416. So it was, 400 and something animals more than we did last fiscal year is what we took in this year. So just if that kinda gives you an idea. But we were up in good ways. We were up in not so good ways, doing more intakes, but more light outcomes. So it it kinda worked out in the washes that always does. I also included our euthanasia reasons for four to three just because I like to share those with everybody. Those are also on our website. So, I mean, yeah, there's not, I mean, not much to talk about. I just like to make sure you guys are kind of familiar and give you that snapshot at least quarterly or as often as I can.

Like, where are we at? What's changing? What's, you know, trending? And that way you can kind of see how we ebb and flow. General shelter updates. Are we doing anything exciting over there right now? We're trying to get some positions fired. We have a couple vacancies.

Gotcha. A

part time technician and a adoption specialist, so those should be getting posted soon

starting. I ain't joke. Well, yeah,

we did y'all should come by and see if you haven't. We've we've been sprucing the place up a bit, painting and kinda redecorating and trying to make it little more inviting, little less cluttery.

That's best at Coordinator's Office.

Yeah. They're we're we're working in the Coordinator's Office now, but we got both lobbies done now. The cat rooms, we'll be trying to do over the winter months when we have less cats, and we can kinda shift them from room to room to, like, repaint, clean, declutter. There's a tendency to become hoarders when you work in animal shelter and animal welfare. So we're trying to, like, no.

We throw it in the trash if we don't need it. So but just kinda trying to spruce everything up. We'll be working on the play yards next as the weather, if it ever cools off. I keep saying it's gonna cool off, and if it's not, yeah. But the first pretty fall day that we get the single one that we get, we're gonna be sprucing up play yards and then just kind of working our way through the facility area by area depending on, you know, how many cats we have and trying to so that's been exciting.

It's looking better. We're getting there. So other than that, yeah, we just we have a couple vacancies working on getting those posted hopefully very soon so we can get those positions filled. Words at that time of the year, we're starting to see a little tiny I don't have one to knock on. I can't say it. Little tiny bit of a slowdown in the kittens, at least. Not so much on dogs, but in kitten. So, hopefully, that trend continues as it usually does, and we can get a little bit of a breather for at least a couple months over the winter. Anything else? Are you doing anything else in there?

It's been our yeah. For our big focus is first day. Our big focus has been kind of on the redecorating and Trying

to reinvent ourselves. Re

Rebrand. We yeah. Kind of make it more inviting for folks and a little more organized. We had a big staff turnover a while back, and so we had a lot of new staff that came in who didn't really know our system of organization, and we're trying to get everybody, like, on the same page on that again. So Oh, doc changed your last name. Oh, doc got married. It's not doctor Fruhry anymore. She's doctor Pollard. So I hope you'll notice that during roll call. I think my

That one was.

So It's nice when you get to.

Yep. Clear the shelter so well. I think we did six. No? How many did we do?

How about

For both, it was 86.

86 adoption. Six plus since then. It was a lot. It was a busy day. And then I think we're gonna be running an adoption special Mhmm. This weekend, trying to just get some little keepo, get more dogs out of there. We're like

We're so close to

So close to being at zero open kennels, not negative kennels. So we can just get to zero, I can die happy. So that's pretty much it going on with us. Shanann?

Christie, that's great to see the numbers. And I know I saw y'all had just a a lot of great things going on that I've seen on social media and all the animals that you've been getting homes for. It's been wonderful. I know it's been asked before, and I just wondered if you have an update on the TNR cats. Are they, I know sometimes they get returned to like, they go off with, volunteers to be returned to where they got picked up at, and sometimes they're given the exact address to be returned to, and sometimes they're given a general area to be returned to. Is there any update on that in terms of, like, if they're being returned to the exact locations? Or

I can only give them the information that I'm provided by whoever brought them in. So, like, if it's you know, ACO is bringing them in from another organization, and they're just telling me 100 Block Of Maple Street. That's that's all I've got is 100 Block Of Maple Street, which is a pretty exact location. Like, a block is usually about 300 feet. So, like, a neighborhood block. So, like, that cat knows where it's at when it's going back. Mhmm. But if we have an exact address and if, you know, those people are expecting that cat to come back and volunteers to be in their yard, like, there's a little bit of coordination there. We don't wanna just send somebody, you know, walk up in their front yard and let the cat go and Yeah. On.

And, you know, then people are like, what is happening? So I'm trying to make sure volunteers are kind of armed with information. But, I mean, I can only give them what I have. So if all I'm given by the APO to pick them up is a block number, that's what I got. So Gotcha.

Most of our cats right now coming in for TNR. Brianna, if you guys bring yours in Hays County, most of those are coming in over the counter. So we have a an exact address because the person's trapping them and bringing them in, and we're actually talking to that person that trapped them when they come in. And a lot of the times, those people are coming to pick them up when the surgery is done too. We try to work that out as often as we can because it's just one less thing to have to bug Nikki and her crew about. We're like, oh, these cats. So that's I don't think we've had really county animal control bring us any cats. In a while. In a while, it's all been over the counter.

I I was given the cat ended. I'm happy to stay a bit longer, but I was given an actual address for a TMR. Yeah.

That one was a public he had a eye tumor, so we're just letting him because we had to it was benign. We had to kinda just take it out. We're like, that's my cat. Get him

a little Are you affiliated with the person?

No. She was gonna drive it back. It was a little while. So I'll

have Leandro. I told her to call.

Oh. See, like, if she can just keep her eye on the. Yeah. So, anyways, yeah, so that one we had to cancel. But, like, Nikki's helped a few times with taking him back. When we get up over the counter, we're getting a lot more information versus when they're just coming in on the trucks than we get what we get. That kind of makes sense.

It is helpful to have an actual address when you're in. Yeah. Because

Some of them are kind of far apart. Yeah.

Cool. Cool.

Anything else on that subject?

No. Thanks for the update.

Burning questions? Okay. Question and answer session with the press and public. I think we have a couple folks online. I guess I can allow There. I allowed you guys to talk. Do any of you guys online have questions?

I have a question. This is Sherry Boyette. I'd like to know, if there has been progress for your original partners For a long time, we've had ordinances pending. And given that, honestly, they are the ordinance in San Marcos is more lenient than some of us would like anyway as far as sterilizing on first first impound and maybe instead of second. But I'm just hoping that, you know, we still have a big gap before there are other shelters that are gonna be helping with intake, probably years.

So think the pressure and the question of ordinances so that they're in line and mirroring with what you need and want, I just kinda wanna do a little ping on that and maybe do some advocacy if necessary for the county. And, you know, Kyle's pretty strong. I don't know if it's in exact compliance with the major things, you know, microchipping for everything that goes home, a 100% of the reclaims, those kinds of things.

That's everything that we were required to

match under the last ILA.

I think files pretty caught up to speed. County, I'm not sure where they're at. I've heard that they're in the process of revising ordinances, but I don't know precisely where they're at in that process. I don't know.

Well, that that's that's what I'm saying, Christy, is that I know for sure they're not moving, at least haven't been. It's been a couple years now.

It's been yeah. Every time. Yeah. It's progress.

Yeah. That's all we hear too is that it's in progress. So, yep, that's all I that's all I know on him. They say it's in progress.

Well, you've I I guess I guess I'm just re rekindling it because there's gonna be more conversations coming up with all the things happening, and maybe maybe there's chance to escalate it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have signed ILAs now, so I think it'll just be conversations that have to happen on those. And who passing an ordinance is not always an easy thing to do. So sometimes it's nothing happens fast in government, I like to say.

So Exactly.

A little bit of patience. But

Are the animals from the county getting sterilized before they're returned?

To, like, if returned to owners?

Yes.

No. We don't have the legal authority to do that.

No?

How do you feel about that?

Yeah. I mean, I I think everything should be fixed, but I don't have the legal authority to create and enforce laws in unincorporated Hays County. So those are all that you probably wanna just continue having with county leadership.

Yeah. Mine mine allows me to do the mandatory second inbound, but we have to give them thirty days notice, and there's a process. So we've eliminated you guys as part of the process. Right. Yes. Well, even if it's Legally, you guys couldn't even

Right. Even if, like, Kyle, they have an ordinance that matches ours. If they bring us in a dog and it's the second impoundment, I still legally can't fix that dog because it's an owned animal at somebody's property. So Brianna has to know about it when it's getting reclaimed, and then there's an enforcement process that she does behind the scenes to make sure that person gets that done and then compliance is cited if they're not. So I couldn't even write a citation to a Kyle resident. You know? So even if we have that passed, it's still you know, there's some logistical stuff. But, yeah, I would just keep talking to county leadership.

Do you do you have people from the animal welfare health department now spending regular time at the counter?

Yeah. They're maybe not at the shelter quite a bit. Once they get this position filled, I think they'll we'll probably have somebody there a little more full time. Because right now, they just have the two gals over there, and they're running around kinda doing everything. So they'll be filling that kinda dedicated position for it, but they've been really helpful if we're backed up, and we have a lot of stuff coming in over the counter from the county there.

Well, I would I would encourage that they be given anytime an animal goes back to a county resident unsterilized that they'd be given some information about that individual owner so they can offer services and track it.

Okay. Oh, anything else? See, we have somebody from Anybody from CALS got anything? No? Lauren.

No. She's muted. Lauren, you don't want to talk to her? Okay. Well, I guess if that's all we got, then we'll go ahead and do you need a motion to adjourn? We do. Yeah. Okay. We need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. At 06:34, we'll call ourselves adjourn then. Thanks, everybody. Alright.

Y'all have

a good night.