KC Council approves contracting out animal control

By Brent Toellner of the KC Dog Blog: Yesterday, the city council of Kansas City approved an ordinance that will privatize the city’s animal shelter beginning March 1st.  At that time, the shelter will be run by Veterinary Management Corporation (which is run by 74 year old Dr. Wayne Steckelberg).

The contract calls for five, one year renewal option. This provides some stability for Dr. Steckelberg — and yet, provides an “out” if for some reason things aren’t going as hoped.

I haven’t read the final contract yet — but we have been assured that all of their records will be made public.

Over the past 3 year (plus), KCMO has killed around 65% of the animals it has brought in.  While one person quoted in the article said it wouldn’t be easy to reduce the number of animals that have to be euthanized, I think it will be. Just being OPEN when people can adopt would be a start. Scanning for microchips would be another start.  Getting to no kill won’t be easy — but getting a pretty sharp reduction in animals euthanized should be fairly easy.

I’m looking forward to meeting with Dr. Steckelberg to see how KCDA can help.  This should be good news for KC.  Hey, and it’s saving them money too.

Here are my initial thoughts on this from last week.