The Animal Welfare Commission convened on July 13, 2026 at 5:30 PM in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The meeting covered updates on the new animal services facility, a new diversion initiative in partnership with the Shelter Support Network, and progress on the Invest North Grant. The commission approved the previous meeting's minutes.
I'd like to welcome everyone to the July 13, 530 meeting of the Animal Welfare Commission. You can also view this on Cox, uh Channel 24 and TGov Online.org. And we will now call the roll. And call the meeting to order. Roll call please. Burke at present. Stucky present. Well, we have a quorum. All right. Is everybody had a chance to read item number two? The minutes. Motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting. All right. And I will second that. It's been moved and seconded it. And uh let's have a roll call, please. Burke at present. Yes. Coonsweiler, yes. Yes. My name is misspelled, and I'm thinking, should I try to get that fixed or just let it go? But there's no H in Teresa. Oh, no, thank you. Yes, we can get that. You guys have changed the substance. In my last meeting, we changed it because of a name misspelling, so we can just fix it. Exactly. We'll make sure she changed them. Alright, item number three, new animal uh services facility update. Um well it is coming along, they're getting ready to put asphalt on the ground, so uh drive by now, the front of the building looks almost complete. It's just we're getting real close. So we've got some tour set up for city councils, some other groups and where rescue partners have gone out there. Um so it it's uh definitely on schedule and still tentative to get the keys, we hope by the end of September. Of course, that means it'll take us a little while to get in there and we'll have to do a punch list, make sure everything's done, but um it's getting close. And I should have introduced you, Sherry Carrier as our animal services director. I appreciate that. And I'll let you all introduce yourself when we get to the item. Uh number four, new diversion initiatives, shelter support network. So shoulder support network friends of TAS, also animal services. Um we've come together to start something new. Um, been trying to do multiple things for um kind of changing the path before we get to the Silly. Spain order has been a big one that we're still trying to push for education and um potentially finding hopefully more funding in the future for that. Um our friends of TAS group, and I'll let you all introduce yourselves. Um, we came together and decided that we were gonna try something a little bit different. Thank goodness we have them and their support because they're volunteers that are helping us, and I mean a lot of you guys are there multiple times a week. And um, and um so part of our diversion efforts, uh our diversion coordinator is Allie, and um, she's working directly with friends of TIS. I see some more coming. Um so we determined that there's four categories that we would partner and they would assist us, and that would be for anybody that's surrendering an animal for supplies, potential medical peer support, and some housing issues. So peer support could be you know, hey, I got a puppy two weeks ago from you all, it's not working out. We're trying to pass it off to them so that they can maybe give them some training tips, go over some things with them because we don't want animals coming back in if we got adopted.