So we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order.

Welcome everybody.

This is the community affairs committee for the Indianapolis City County Council.

We're gonna start off by introducing ourselves.

So uh we'll start to my left.

All right, Derek Cahill, District 23.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair.

Thank you, Vem Chair Michael Ballhart, District 20.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Nick Roberts, district four.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair Ron Gibson, District 8.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Renee Allen, District 15, the Far East.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh Bob Hopesley, District 12.

And I'm Allie Brown.

I represent District 10, City of Lawrence.

Counselor Graves is on his way.

He's stuck in traffic, and I anticipate we may have more people showing up for the same reason.

For those of you not on the Far East side, welcome.

We love you over here.

Welcome for the Far East Side.

There's a lot of us on this sitting up here for east side counselor.

So that's pretty cool.

So we have two proposals today.

We're going to hear, and then we're going to receive a presentation from uh the uh from animal care and control.

And so just so everyone in the audience knows because we're in a different position.

We don't have like the dangly mics and all that kind of stuff.

So if you do speak on something, we do ask you to come up so that way we can make sure everything picks up on the on the um on the uh channel 16.

So grateful for all of you all to be here.

So we'll start off with proposal number 96 2026, which appoints Angela Hobson to the Animal Care Services Board.

Angela, are you here?

Can you please step up?

Thank you so much.

Um can you tell us a little bit about like why you would like to be on this board and I the work you've done with SOAR and all that kind of stuff?

Sure.

Um I have I want to be on this board because I support um all the initiatives that may that we currently do or that we future do with um animals and people in our city have supported the shelter in a variety of ways for the last 12 years with SOAR.

Um we work primarily with people who are in crisis who have pets.

Um we run a foster care program for people who are going into treatment, um hospitalization where we primarily work with like community methodist esconati, um some treatment programs, court probation parole to try to solve some of the human issues that have interconnectivity with people.

We also support the shelter.

Um this last year has been primarily parvo cases, uh, but we also work with the ATOs on cases that I have diversion.

Um we provide access to veterinary care for people who cannot afford it, and anything else that we can kind of use to fill in the gaps.

Fantastic.

I'll open it up to questions from counselors.

Counselors, any questions?

Councilor Kacum.

No, no questions, just uh thank you for your service.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

Yep, Councillor Gibson.

I just want to say thank you, and Angela, for willing to serve, and you sound like you definitely have a heart for animals and also this was a passion experience as well.

I wonder if fellow board member uh Chris Roberson had anything to say.

Yeah, no, I I um Chris Roberson.

I'm uh currently a mayoral appointee to the board.

I've been on the board of IECS for about three or four years, and I know Angela through her work at SOAR in support of the shelter and actually worked on her with the ordinance that the council passed several years ago that banned the sale of pets at pet stores in Indianapolis, unfortunately overturned by the state legislature.

But Angela was very instrumental in helping us craft that and work with the community and council.

So as a current board member, fully supportive of her nomination and would support your your nomination and approval of her.

Yeah, thank you.

Any other questions, comments from counselors?

Do we have anyone in the audience who'd like to speak on this one?

Sweet.

Uh seeing nothing, uh seeing no response.

I'll take a motion.

Yes, Madam Chair.

I'll move to receive proposal number 96, which appoints Angela Hobson to the animal control service board to the full council final adoption.

Second, second.

Uh motions and properly moved and seconded.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

Proposal 96 will be going on with due pass recommendation.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Angela's a face I recognize from coming to committee meeting, so that's always nice.

So sorry, crowd, if I kind of stare at you, funny.

I'm trying to see if I've I've seen you before.

Um, so now we're gonna change uh topics for one hot second.

So proposal number 209, 2026 reappoints Amy Carroll to the public art for neighbor selection committee.

Uh is Amy uh here.

Amy is not here.

This is a reappointment, counselors.

So this is up to us if we want to continue.

You can see her information inside of the packet.

It's just her uh her uh resume.

Comments, questions, concerns, discussion.

Counselor Gibson.

Might be wise just to move into our next meeting maybe possibly.

I would feel the same if that works for everybody's.

Um so can I get a motion to the to just move this to the next council?

So move.

Thank you.

Can I get a second?

Sure again.

All those in favor of moving Prop 209, just pushing it off to the next month so we can get a hold of her.

All any uh uh any nays?

Okay.

So we'll move 209 to next month or to our next meeting, um, depending on because budget is presented in August.

So we will get that handled.

Um so now we're excited to get to uh the meat and potatoes.

I guess the uh kibble of tonight um to hear about the the update to be in our new building.

Um director uh and uh Billy will be what and and her sidekick Billy will be up here uh Debbie director.

I'm sorry.

Sorry, you need the work.

Um I'm just very excited to be in a room full of dogs be in the building.

I'm trying very hard not to run out here and puppies, so I apologize for the getting us.

Um they're gonna give their presentation after the presentation.

We'll open it up for counselors to ask questions, and then we will have time for uh comments from uh the people in attendance.

If you would like to be one of those commenters, we've got the sign-up sheet up there.

You don't have to run up there to sign up now, just make sure you do.

That's how we'll call people up to order, and it's a two-minute speaking engagement for that.

So director and deputy director, the floor is yours.

Thank you, madam chair, and members of the committee.

Um, I want to begin by addressing a tragic loss we had at the shelter on July 1st of a dog that was in our care named Stitch.

Um, there's no words that can addictly express how deeply saddened we were then and still are by the loss, um, but I want to address that and what happened and the conclusion of that.

Ummediately following the incident, we contacted the mayor's office, opera office corporation council and the city's human resources department and our local union 725 asked me.

We worked closely with each one of those offices throughout the investigation to ensure the incident was thoroughly reviewed, um, that all personnel matters were handled appropriately and in accordance with city policy and our collective bargaining agreement.

The investigation determined that management had issued specific instructions regarding kennel cleaning procedures during the extreme heat.

Those instructions were intended to reduce time outside for the animals to that heat and limit the number of animals outside at one time.

Unfortunately, those directions were not relayed to the kennel staff responsible for carrying out those duties that day, and as a result, the required procedure was not followed, and Stitch, unfortunately, was left outside long enough to suffer a fatal heat stroke.

Following the investigation, the kennel supervisor is no longer employed by the City of Indianapolis Animal Care Services, and the other employees were disciplined as provided for their air in their collective bargaining agreement.

Well, no action can undo what happened.

We have taken immediate steps to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident ever happening in the future.

Those actions have included developed and implemented a written extreme heat cleaning uh kennel cleaning standard operating procedure that is mandatory mandatory whenever temperatures reach 85 or higher, or the animals are in direct sunlight.

All animals are required to have access to water while they are in their outdoor section of their kennels.

Um limiting the number of animals that are outside during kennel cleaning time and requiring frequent 10-minute welfare checks while they are outside and ensuring procedures aligned with local ordinances regarding the protection of care of animals during extreme heat.

In addition to operational changes, we have recognized the emotional impact the incident had on our employees.

We worked with the city's uh employee assistance program to make support of resources available to staff, many of whom were deeply affected and are still deeply affected by the loss of stitch.

And as director, I accept that accountability extends beyond individual actions, and it is my responsibility to ensure our organization has clear policies, effective communication, proper training, and systems that support safe animal care every day.

This incident has prompted us to examine not only what occurred on July 1st, but also how we can strengthen our operations moving forward.

And I understand many members of our community, volunteers, rescue partners, and you as elected officials and animal advocates continue to agree with the loss and may have questions or concerns, and those fillings are very valid and understandable.

Transparency and accountability are essential in maintaining public trust, and that's why we have been committed to reviewing the incident early and implementing changes rather than just simply moving on.

Our commitment in this tragedy will continue to inform how we train, supervise, and care for the thousands of animals that enter our shelter every single year.

And I welcome any questions, and I will answer any that we are able to answer.

Counselors will take a pause in any questions involving this incident.

We'll go ahead and handle those now, and I'll go on to the presentation.

Possibly a two-part question.

One is is the was the communication and the breakdown and the SNAL policy.

Was that a result of this being the first time we had super hot weather in the brand new facility?

In the brand new cells.

Okay, so just because it is a new building, the previous policies didn't apply.

You guys thought of it kind of as as it happened.

Is uh so based on that it's hot right now, but is there an equivalent for cold weather that would be developed before we have counselors?

Any other questions on this?

And we can also return to this after the presentation if you think of something.

Okay, at least okay.

Um, and then just I'm gonna go through shelter stats.

Um, we went through and did them from we're comparing terms of time.

So from January until current, and then we're comparing from January 25 until current 25.

Not current, but from until 25.

Um, adoptions have increased 14.2 percent from the first half of 25 till now this half of 26.

Rescue transfers, we've had an increase of 39.1 percent.

Return to owner rate has been an increase of 58.3 percent.

Our length of stay has decreased by 20 percent from 20 days to 16 days.

15 is our goal, obviously lower, but 15 was our goal that we set for ourselves.

Um, field services.

This is a really impressive one to me, what field services have been able to do.

The average response time has been decreased by more than 47 hours.

It went from two days and 12 or 18 hours and 21 minutes, it is down to 18 hours and 58 minutes, so that's representing a 71.4% improvement.

Uh, live outcomes have increased by 26.3%, and our intake has let's see here, we've had a 23.3% increase in uh intake.

So we're taking in more animals from citizens that are coming to the back knock back door anymore in the tape door now, and our live release rate has been maintained at a 91%.

And I will say we will not use this language, but for industry standards, um, we are two months away from being being considered and labeled a no-kill shelter, and that's really good for municipal shelter.

And I gave you guys stats, those are just June stats, those are our board stats.

If you want to look over them, or I can read over them with you.

So I I just I have a question.

So I know we've basically doubled our capacity, but we've just filled it up, right?

So we only increase capacity very small amount.

It seems like it's doubled because it's double-sided kennels, but we're not filling the other side, the animals, so it's just a very small amount.

It was like 15 additional actual kennel spaces.

That's not including medical and isolation in those areas.

Does it seem like we have so many pets right or so many animals in right now because it's post-puppy kitten season kind of thing?

Is it because we're on a new part of the city that people feel comfortable coming to bring animals because I know the far east side always has a reputation for those dogs?

I would assume this being here, you're getting more people from the far east side coming in, bringing in dogs.

Like, what do you account for this increase?

Do you think I think it's just there's always a need, right?

Um, we we live in a city that is overpopulated with animals, and there is always a need, and it always will be any until we can get this under control.

Um counselors, do we have any questions?

Counselor applicates.

Thank you.

Um, I don't want to get too much into leads on just one specific graph.

I was curious on this one.

Average response time in hours.

Is this relating to our um like obviously our animal service officers?

Yes.

So it's a hugely massive drop in like July of 2025, and I'm not sure which exactly are priority ones versus two, three fours.

It was averaging, I guess this is in terms of minutes or I guess well, hours, right?

Hours, 220 hours for some of these, and then it dropped extremely by the November 2025 down to like 16 hours, seven hours.

I guess what caused that, and I noticed it's going back up again.

What is the staffing?

Yeah, staffing's levels.

Staffing and the big spike in the beginning that you see there, it was from we had so many animal or so many runs that were backlogged.

They were just that far behind, and then we drastically bought those down, and it's the season summer time, it's really ramps up more.

People are outside, animal breeding loops, and those and extreme heat.

And which is is priority one the most important or is pre four.

Okay.

Interesting.

Well, it's good that it seems like the numbers for June are down from last year.

Well, it's mostly down for a lot of these different metrics.

So I guess that's encouraging.

Um hopefully July is not as bad as it seems like last July was the one that I got really out of control.

But that's interesting to see.

I love the data visualization.

It seems like most of the numbers across all these different charts are improved from last June.

But you know, we've got to keep it up.

But I appreciate all these numbers.

It's fascinating to see this actually all visualized.

Thank you all very much.

Council K.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh do you have any update on the unaltered animal uh registry program?

Uh how is how's that working?

Is what is compliance look like just in general?

So right now we have about 800 people that have signed up for the registry.

Um, with the registry, the initial push was to educate people on the registry and just try to get people in compliance um as far as signing people right now that I don't believe has happened just yet.

However, we are still working with the community to get them in the compliance and find resources to get the animals fixed because it is an expensive thing for them to have to pay for.

So is there I guess is there a vision in the beginning what was communicated to us was you guys knew who the problems that were creating creating problems, and you were gonna target obviously with education.

I and I can appreciate that.

But have they mostly come into compliance now, or um again the compliance with the breeding ordinance specifically, they have to register, they have to do certain criteria that that means they cannot still have letters, right?

So um we are using it as a tool, however, we are way behind the eight-ball when it comes to spaying neutering in Indianapolis and Indiana as a whole.

Okay, thank you.

And then one of the so uh it looks like during your tenure you have uh made some big progress on the staff vacancies.

Uh it's not as high as it it was before you got here, but it still seems high to what to what do you attribute that?

What what would solve that?

Uh all of our union positions um cannot be like pushed off, so to speak, so they have to be kept filled.

Um, but if we are our budget right now is a little we're over budget, so we are um holding off on hiring certain positions to be able to make up for that.

Okay, thank you.

Sir, sorry.

No, I appreciate it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So I know in years past, I think one of the bigger topics that I remember hearing, and probably one of the reasons that you're sitting here has to, you know, one qualifications, of course, right?

You're very talented, but um the volunteer side of things.

And I'm looking at the report, seeing hours.

That's fine and everything, but I'm curious how are relationships going, how is the operational process working?

How are things changing now that there's been you know some time since you've been in the office to kind of set the pace and standard your way?

We have the volunteer coordinator Lucian.

Um, he's put out volunteer handbook, he's redoing or has redone the orientation, and Kelly, who is over the volunteer program and Lucian may be able to speak a little bit more to that.

If she would like to sign up, yeah.

If she would like to speak a little bit more to that.

Um I feel like Lucian has a good relationship with the majority of the volunteers that I'm aware of.

They come in, do a fantastic job.

We appreciate everything they do.

They we really rely on them for helping us walk the animals a lot of the times.

Um they come in and help us at the events.

I mean, they do so much around the shelter, we're very appreciative.

Okay, yeah, and I'm just gonna read numbers out loud just in case somebody's looking at it right.

But I mean, from last year there was 270 volunteer active volunteers of in June.

Now in June there's 227, and then hours volunteer, very similar.

Um 1200 in both both sections.

So it seems that we've got less volunteers doing more work.

So thank you to the new volunteers that are in the room because it shows statistically that you're certainly putting the hours in, and and we are appreciated on my side, especially knowing that um you're down on staffing, so uh you know, whatever we gotta do to keep putting the the foot on the gas pedal and making sure that our our volunteers are happy and enjoying the time they're here.

I'm sure they are with the animals, but just being down, you know, I don't know, close to 50-ish.

You know, we've got I'd say some room to improve where we've lost some people, it looks like.

I mean, it's up, but it's down from this time last year.

Councilor Roberts?

I was gonna say thank you.

Real quick, too, just to kind of acknowledge and piggyback on that point.

I do notice on a lot of these different um uh charts and graphs.

It is noticeable how much in March of 2026 will be the numbers increase between volunteers but also intakes.

I mean, looking at obviously just adoption, that's one of the most important metrics we have here.

Um, and there was definitely a drop-off last fall when the volunteer hours were changed, but over the last four months it has picked up pretty considerably, which I give credit for.

Hopefully, as you know, more and more people come to this building, they feel like it's a great place to volunteer.

It's a welcoming, bright, you know, nice place to be.

Um, so it is encouraging to see the numbers, especially over the last four months, basically every single metric improving.

Um so I just want to mention that because I don't know if these uh these things are to be published on social media or on our council website or anything, but this is again all encouraging that compared to last year, there are some numbers that have dipped, but since March especially basically every number has gone in the right direction.

I did just want to add one thing about the volunteer program.

I'm sorry, I'm Kelly Laroach.

Um, that the first several months that Lucian was here, it was really just about rebuilding the program behind the scenes.

Um, unfortunately, you know, the system that was in place um had some improvements that you need to be made, especially because we're moving into a new building, and literally everything about our process has changed.

So uh he spent a couple of months really working on that.

Then May was moving into the new shelter.

We actually had that slight pause.

Um, so really June is the first month that we've actually been able to actively recruit volunteers into the building.

Um, this month we have been cranking out new volunteer orientations.

In fact, they have to get to one in just a couple of minutes.

And um, so I think I just wanted to say over the next couple of months is when you're really gonna start seeing those volunteer numbers increase because we're actually getting people in, and now really the only hang-up that we have is getting them trained because we do need existing volunteers to help us with the burden of training for not the burden, but the the time that it takes to train new volunteers.

Okay, counselor.

Thanks so much.

Um, a few moments ago you mentioned that uh there was an overage in the budget.

I'm curious what was the cause of it and what is your plan to address that?

Uh a lot of it's overtime and the money we spend on medical services for the animals.

It cost us currently about 35,000 to 40,000 a month just for spay neuter services, um, and that's not including our um contract cuts that come in, any uh things that we needed for the new shelter.

There were a lot of things that in coming in the new shelter, we didn't they didn't give us the budget to buy all the things that we're gonna need to fill the shelter.

Um, so a lot of it is staffing and inventory basically in medical services.

What's the plan to invest that?

James, are you in here?

I'm in here please.

So hi, I'm James, uh the CFO, and kind of for the plan we did submit for next year's uh budget, which you'll probably be seeing if you haven't already seen in the year in future, some pretty decent size increases in those categories we mentioned.

Um, additionally, we've had some very good luck in the last couple months.

We uh partnered with Alanco and they signed us up for their sheltered discount program where we kind of are getting additional discounts through our distributors for anywhere from 10% up to 50 or 70 percent per items, being kind of aggressive on shopping around items as well as really hunting for more contract vets and a full-time vet, of course, to kind of ease the pain from the pretty high spay newer clinic bills.

So looking for additional contract vets, getting them in, getting additional hours because every hour they're here, even though they're pretty pricey, it's still less expensive than most Spaniard clinics.

Okay, if we could find a full-time vet that would say it's approximately 250,000 to 300,000 a year on our budget.

Are you proposing that in the 2007 budget?

Uh wherever we requested it.

Are you proposing that?

Yeah, yes, that's been put in there.

Okay, true.

Um, I will speak so I'm gonna turn this uh just for a moment to my fellow counselors.

This is the one big thing I'm advocating for for the budget this year is to make sure that they have the staff to be able to operate this building, and we have to figure out how to get them a veterinarian.

There are salary cap rules that we have to deal with in the city, and for somebody who's gone through medical school, the salary that we can offer them is frankly an insult.

So we're spending what would it be the amount to two to three times their salary purchasing outside services because we cannot offer the actual salary.

I need to we need to figure out how to do that inside of our salary cap rules.

Um, but it's really our rules that are hindering them from being able to do what they need to do.

And if they were able to bring in a full-time vet and do spay and neuter themselves, and even if they had higher outside assistance, the amount of money they would save would help cover the staff that they need to run daily operations, union staff, front desk staff, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for uh that clarification and saying that you wanted to advocate um for someone to be able to run this facility.

Would someone straight out of college that got their degree, would they be able to meet the salary requirements for this position?

The only problem we have is they usually have to they usually go to a private practice and work under a vet for a while to gain that speed to the high volume spay neuter because that's really what we're gonna need with someone that comes in here is um high volume spirit services and someone that can handle emergency care because we get a lot of that.

And correct me if I'm wrong, director, because we've spoken about this before.

If we brought in and had a full-time on staff vet, we would be able to take interns from Purdue, bringing more veterinarians in to do more work, but without a full-time doctor on staff, we can't do internships, and we've got the best veterinary schools in the country all over the place here in Indiana.

Council Grace.

Thanks, Madam Chair Keeper and representing Council District 9 on the East.

This might be a question for James.

Uh, do you guys have any any revenue generating services or fees that if we took us to our closer look at that, maybe that can help me some of the yes.

Uh once we move back into the shelter, uh the biggest source of revenue for us in general is our adoptions, and we started collecting those again once we moved into the new building.

Uh so we are collecting I think my estimate was about 250,000 in adoption fees for next year, which should help cover some of that.

And then we also have uh Kennel and surrender fees and just general enforcement fees and citations that the animal control and enforcement side of things collect, which is significantly smaller, but twenty-five.

Oh, okay.

So when so I just so animal care control officer outside of things that are your staff, the fees that are paid on those do not come back to you guys.

If we go through Andy, like if it becomes a true court case, that can kind of it is kind of removed from us, like if it's a true criminal court case.

Uh, I was recently speaking earlier this week with OFM about looking at that because it looked in the past that those hadn't always been being properly coded to us.

So it's something that I was actively looking into this week and making sure that even our quick uh enforcement citations are properly coming back to us.

So that is something I will be.

Let's chat absolutely confirming to make sure that you're you're getting the money that your staff is out there doing the work for.

Yeah.

So let's let's figure out how we can do that.

Councillor Kate.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh one one more comment along to build on that.

Uh I know we've had this discussion that the the fees were being waived uh for quite a while.

Now we are in here.

I'm glad to hear that we've stopped waiving them because it is material to your operation.

But those fees, my recollection is the fees are set by us in ordinance, but because they had been waived since pre-COVID times, I don't think that they have been updated.

We and we've talked about that globally, but just the the council has not done a great job keeping up.

There's so many fees and things that haven't been updated for so long.

And just my research has indicated that our fees are very competitive in a way that I don't know that they I think we should benchmark against some of the donut counties, things like that, because my recollection is that the if we had if we would charge, say what Hamilton County is charging, we could generate another hundred thousand dollars uh into IACS through those adoption fees simply by charging what uh neighboring counties are charging.

So thank you.

So I think raising them too high, we just need to find a reasonable number.

If we raise them too high, we would probably see less adoptions.

I I am sympathetic to that, but I I will say that I I've thought through this several times, and my thought is that the fees that we're talking about charging are if someone is struggling to afford uh 150 dollars or something, I I think that frankly, somebody should save up for a couple more weeks because you're talking about adopting a pet.

And if a hundred this is, you know, we're not talking about taking somebody's pet that they have away.

We're talking about giving a new pet.

And if 150 dollars as an example is a burden to that person, the I I really struggle with their ability to provide the ongoing care to feed them, and if God forbid a vet expense would come up right after, you know, that I mean 150 dollars is I I'm sympathetic to it, but I am but I'm mindful that I think it's not an inappropriate filter at the same time that somebody that there is a financial uh filter that says can you really afford this pet?

Because otherwise, there's a real risk that that pet gets returned simply because the person goes, well, actually, I can't afford this fed after all.

So I'm sympathetic to it, but I but I I'm mindful.

I do understand what you're saying, however, keeping in mind that we stay at capacity and limiting, and I understand I mean limiting everyone to 150 dollars that can't afford it, you're talking about Matt.

You're talking about euthanizing a lot more than what we do now.

And again, I'm not sure if that's what the community wants or not, but that is something that we have to keep in mind as well.

Because again, last week we had 270 dogs in this building.

We're able to house 260.

Right.

Um, so keeping that in mind as well.

Yeah, no, I I think it's for sure it's a balancing act.

I just like I said, I think that I I do think that if we apply, and we unfortunately have applied that logic to a lot of things, even outside IECS, where for various reasons the city has said I don't we haven't touched these things, we haven't increased them for years and years and years, and then the the challenge that what I hear on the the flip side is that we have budget overage because we have overtime because we have to outsource uh the medical stuff and we're doing spay and neuter and all those things, and that's I mean, at some point I think there has to be you know, if our goal is to not subsidize it, right?

Because we were waiving fees, I mean, zero is a is a number, but if you've worked into the world of we're gonna charge a reasonable fee, then I just think we should evaluate we should benchmark the reasonable fee against others, and keeping in mind that because we hear year after year, costs go up, you know, these are medical things, they've they give they go up every year, and we heard that last year during the budget that very similar thing.

The the these numbers that you're encountering are supplies we buy, and so that's that's just my my opinion.

Thank you.

Um I wanted to ask one more question and then any other presentation you have, and then we can open it up for people for questions or comments to us.

Um I've gotten a couple emails lately about the dog park.

Can you uh and I understand there's gonna be there's a little bit of change.

Can you explain that please?

Yes.

So when the building was being built and agreements were being made, I don't know how it came about.

And Brittany and Parks' time, um, there was an agreement.

There's a dog park, it should go to parks because parks runs dog parks.

Um I have went to parks previously and asked if we can shit co-shares share the space um if we can have half of it, or how we could make this work because our animals here have no green space to run.

Um they just have the concrete pads out back where the plate runs are in a very small little it's kind of like an adoption meet and greet area is what we use it for.

Um they it was concluded that they could not share space.

Um, there was a requirement, the dog parks had to be four acres and had to have a separated section for smaller animals.

Um their animals would be here between dawn and dusk.

We could use it potentially after that, but then there's a liability in that having public animals in where shelter animals are because what if a dog gets cocked city RGRD and they're gonna assume they got it from a shelter animal that was placed in there after hours?

Um so it kind of went still for a little bit.

I have reached back out to Brittany, like, hey, can we revisit this?

You know, I can't find where this requirement is for a four-acre dog park.

Um, I can't find any signed documents that this agreement was made to make it a public exclusive um dog park.

Uh, she's very open to it, I can say.

Um, so I'm hopeful that I am moving in the right direction, and we will at least maintain a portion of it.

Um I cannot promise that at this time, but right now it is still ours to use fully because it has not been handed over.

Um, but we are in works with parks department to see what we can do.

Okay, okay, got sure.

Yes, sir.

On the point of the part, I mean it's shocking the whole thing.

I mean, I should be under getting it by 101, right?

Um, do you have the equipment to do the yard that like the maintaining the grass and all that stuff that goes on?

Uh one side of it is church, actually.

Um so it would just be maintaining the equipment, and the side closest to us here is actually grass.

Um, and right now our maintenance crew is the one that's been maintaining it, and they would continue the the grounds for here would maintain maintain maintain it.

Alright.

Yeah, any other questions.

Do you have anything else for your presentation?

Sweet.

So um uh Madam Clerk, could you read in to for our commenters?

Yes.

As we move into public comment portion of the debate for this proposal, we would like to remind committee members and the public of a few ground rules in order for everyone to have a clear chance to speak and be heard.

It's important that we observe the foreign ground rules.

First, each speaker will be limited to two minutes.

Second, any public comments must be reasonably relate to the agenda item under consideration.

Service speakers who stray from the item under consideration or become unruly repituous may be asked to move on to their next point or conclude their comments.

Finally, attendees who cause disruptions that prevent the council from proceeding through today's agenda in a reasonably efficient manner will be removed.

Please remember that some types of threatening speech or in or incitement to violence aren't protected by the first amendment at all.

We will do with those issues if they come up, but we don't think they will.

And now, Madam Chair, if um comment if if committee members ask for consent to adopt these rules, we can proceed to public comments.

Thank you, committee.

We'll go on to public comment.

Um just to remind public com of everybody because we're in a weird space.

If you could kind of come up and either stand on either side of the table, but you are directing your comments at us, and then uh yeah, I know it's it's weird, but we're so glad to be here and excited to take a tour afterwards.

So uh Madam Clerk, could you read our our speakers, please?

First we have Monica Griffin and then and Ann Annie Go.

Amy Okay.

Hi, um, I'm Monica.

I've been uh volunteer here since I think 2017.

You've seen me before if you've been here.

Um I have one brief comment and then I want to spend most of my time talking about another topic related to it.

Um the one topic is um I would like to see us be more proactive than reactive, um, especially in regard to things like the stitch situation.

Um let's not wait until tragedy happens to develop the policy procedure.

Next, I want to talk about we need staff.

We need staff.

We need uh desperately need volunteers, but we it need staff.

Good staff or we're not gonna keep them.

You know, the the kennel staff, all they're able to do at most is clean.

They don't get to interact much with the dogs.

Um the kennels are a mess.

Um, I was here over the weekend, and it was it was terrible with the public coming in.

Um the the kennels were a mess.

We had staff here, but not near enough, not near enough.

And volunteers, good long-term volunteers who love the animals are leaving because they think it's inhumane.

And you can't you can't do that.

You can't have that and be able to um operate a facility.

I love our animals.

I love it here.

I am grateful not to have mice running over my feet.

You know, I am I love it, and I think the staff are trying so hard, so hard.

But we are behind the eight ball.

We need volunteers, we need staff, and we need help.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Amy.

I'm a volunteer here.

Um, I spend most of my time doing dog walking, and um, I agree with Monica.

We absolutely need more staff here.

The building is massive if you walk around.

It takes twice as long to do anything, um, even though kennel capacity is not increased that much.

The kennels are double-sided, so you essentially have to clean two kennels for everyone.

Um last time we had this meeting.

I spoke about my concerns about the plan that dogs would not get walked every day by kennel staff, and they would be relying on volunteers and extra time for kennel staff.

Um that's still my concern now.

A lot of dogs because staff are occupied with cleaning.

Um a lot of dogs don't get out every day.

Sometimes it's several days before they will be able to leave their kennels.

Um, so what I would like to see obviously is more staff, but uh also just more coordination with the volunteers and the staff.

So I know that some staff are um walking dogs after they do their cleaning duties, but when we come in, we don't know which dogs have been walked, so we have certain assigned kennels.

Some of those dogs might have already been walked, some might not have, and we just don't know.

So I think better coordination would be helpful.

Um, that has to be done at the leadership level of those groups.

Um, I know sometimes Wednesdays um you all walk all the dogs, but we usually don't find out until we come in.

Some days or some kennels, we just don't know.

Um we are I mean, I'm glad the hours have gone up, but as far as like trained dog walking staff, it's mostly the same crew we had at the old shelter.

So we all know each other pretty well, we all talk, and um I think we're struggling just with dogs not getting out every day and everything taking longer.

Um, you know, one way is to get more dog walkers trained.

Um that's just hard.

We have a bottleneck because we don't have many people to do the training.

Um, so another thing.

I mean, this is like a well-worn subject, but increasing the hours again is a way to have more dogs walked every day.

It sounds like the problem's not gonna be solved anytime soon.

Um if you want to finish your own.

Okay, please.

Yeah, just it like it won't be um it won't be done anytime soon.

I know that management to supervise the volunteers is limited.

We brought up this idea before of volunteer managers.

We have volunteer dog walkers who have been here more than five years, more than ten years, um, very responsible.

You know, they just put their heads down and work, they've supervised volunteers before.

Um, if we could get them trained in the same dog handling training as staff, they could supervise volunteers to stay longer.

Um, if we extended hours as they were before to nine, that would give us about nine extra hours a week.

If you multiply, just do the math of the volunteers.

I mean, we could get out hundreds of more dogs a week than we are now, and just seems like a better long-term solution than always asking for more money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Trust me, we hear you, and like I said, this is my this is my charge.

This is my challenge, this to my committee, and we have we I was I was telling the director, you can't just build a big beautiful building, a big beautiful school, and then provide no teachers.

And that's you know, as a city, we are responsible not only to make sure that they have the building, but they have the staff for everyone to be safe in the building.

So that's something we are definitely here for.

Do we have any others?

Oh I'm gonna try to go fast.

That buzzer sounds like the cookies.

Uh Vince Gordon uh president asked me local 725.

I just want to say quickly that um with the tragedy that happened here.

The director immediately reached out to me.

I represent the men and women that work in this garage.

Excuse me, I'm used to seeing the rods and they work in the shelter.

Now, one thing I learned we had a meeting here with all the personnel.

Not one person that works here, even the volunteers refer to the animals as dogs, cats, squirrels.

Every animal here has a name.

It's personal.

So when we had the tragedy here, I saw tears in everybody's eyes.

But at the same time, this is a business, we have a job to do, and things had to be put in place and measures had to be taken care of.

Because of the collective bargaining agreement, we were able to represent the union employees that were involved.

But at the same time, I want us all to remember that they're human.

They had to go home with the same fears, the same tears, the same emotions from what had happened here.

This building's only been open since May.

It's brand new, it's big.

I don't even like walking it.

So I can imagine what people that are coming in or for the animals or going through to be in this brand new building.

But it's gonna take time, and we're gonna have to work towards staffing it up, getting the proper pay for the individuals that we need for this uh facility, and to ensure that we don't have problems like we had before, and that the volunteers definitely are not being overworked.

We've got to work with the council, you guys have got to work with each other so we can get the funds, just get the politics out of it, think about the animals, think about the workers and get these individuals and the animals what they need.

And I'm asking you a junior president to please think about that when you're sitting in your rooms and you're sitting in your offices and you're thinking about the people.

Remember the individuals that actually do the job.

That's all I ask.

That's all I have.

Thank you, sir.

Do we have any more public comment?

Last chance anybody.

Okay, counselors.

Do we have any more comments?

Oh, yes, sir.

Yeah, it ideas come to mind, so I appreciate what people do if we give public comment.

I mean, think about two things.

One on the recruiting side, what what recruiting strategies do you have in place for both volunteers and staff employees?

When you're not freezing hiring.

The recruiting is just the posting, and we will put it on our Facebook if it's the non-union positions or the union positions that we're not finding enough uh applicants for.

Um recruiting volunteers, they go.

I mean, I know our volunteers talk to other people quite often, they go to a lot of the events, um, doggy day outs, and they're talking to people about volunteers.

I know Monica who came up and spoke is a really good one about pushing the volunteer program, talking to people about signing up to be a volunteer.

Um, we do community events where we're going out putting tables up, farmers markets, and they're always always talking about how we'd volunteer.

Okay, and then on the uh on the dog walking portion of it, how many dogs are walked at one time by a human?

One dog per dog or one dog per person at a time.

Multiple dogs is it's possible to crease or is there stuff and safety risk?

We don't know these animals' behaviors, we don't know where they came from, putting two dogs on a leash, you're putting that person as walking them at risk.

Now if they come in and they're bonded pairs, we will let them walk together to go outside because we know they've been together, but as far as having dogs that don't really have it never interacted, you're talking about illness being spread, you're talking about fights that could break out, there's a multitude of things.

Can I explain it?

It's not really a comment, but it's kind of an explanation of here versus the old place.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

At the old place, they had kennels that uh uh kennel runs that the dogs could go in, and I don't know how many did we have to it.

Um I think runs where you could take them out and leave them, and so we would do a rotation.

So I would typically do a three-dog rotation.

So take one out, go grab another, take that.

Yeah, it's just a rotation, so you're kind of handling three dogs at once, not at the same time.

Um, and now we can just walk one at a time, so you can't leave them unattended.

And they don't get the run around and get that extra size.

Yeah, I don't I don't disagree with that.

I do think it's nicer, it just we just can walk a lot fewer dogs in one time.

So I mean, I used to walk, I don't know, maybe twice as many as I as I do now in the same amount of time.

Um just needs more manpower.

Any other questions?

Okay, yes, please comment on why that is the way it is right now.

Yeah, so the playgards are all out back that were built.

Um, and I can if anyone wants to go on this tour, we can show you.

Um, so when we were moving in here, we were under the impression that all of these spray master machines that would clean, we would be able to put staff in every single kennel, clean them in the morning, be done by a certain time, and all of staff would be able to walk the rest of the day.

They would be able to enrichment, get animals out.

So the idea was every animal would be out every single day.

Since we have been in here, that has not been the reality.

We found out the machines can't work at the same time.

You have you can only do so many kennels at a time, um, which delays things.

Half the machines have not worked properly since we've gotten in here.

There have been major issues and hurdles that we're still trying to work through.

So that pushes another reason pushing staff back, delaying kennel cleaning time.

Um as far as being able to take animals out, like Amy was saying at the old shelter, you didn't have a place you could take the dog, so to be able to clean that kennel, you had to take them out.

So for staff, they would clean a teams of two.

One would walk the dog out while the other was wore multiple dogs out and they would clean volunteers and they would come in and they have the place at the uh in the outside area.

There were secure kennels, they could go out and put multiple dogs out on separate runs um at a time.

Here, the kennels have also we've tried, we have found are not super secure, so we're having to make modifications, and there would be many hurdles that we're trying to work through as part of why many animals aren't getting out every day, like we all take a look at and again why we need more staff.

Yes, I think it we're we didn't I don't think they took in consideration we were gonna be cleaning twice as much, right?

So we're cleaning where we were cleaning one role, now we're cleaning two roles for each role that we're in.

So that is taking up more time than people weren't about input.

Any other comments, questions, or concerns?

Well, I I appreciate uh being here.

Thank you so much for opening your space to us.

I know it's not normal uh to have uh to have us here.

Thank you all who uh from the deep for my deepest heart from what I can do to extend from the city of Indianapolis from the council.

Thank you so much for volunteering for those who work here.

Thank you for what you do.

You were we know you were underpaid and overworked.

We know that.

We know for our volunteers, you were also underpaid and overworked, and we appreciate you.

We appreciate you caring about our animals.

We appreciate you caring about by caring about our animals, you're caring about our community, you're building a stronger community.

We can tell, I can tell that we are moving in the right direction and that animals are going to be doing better in Indianapolis because of you all.

Um but now the responsibility is on us because we if we're not giving you the tools, you can't build it.

So we will take this back.

And I just want to thank you so much.

So with a motion, we can go ahead and end the meeting.

Motion move, second, all those in favor?

Uh any opposed?

Okay.