 Madam current would you show the councilman the ball and make that over here? And now I will be chairing into absence of the chairman chairperson dr. Bussells who understand is looking at us on youtube so we have to be on our best behavior head she should be here in about 30 minutes and we hope that she can get here to take it out okay our first item on the agenda is the goat bill that is coming up for using use of livestock for clearing land i understand victoria you have a presentation to make so we take the good morning thank you for having us here today in addition to goat vegetation management we will be discussing a few ongoing projects under animal services the first being goat vegetation management this is a new program that we are hearing a lot about and to be honest we don't know a whole lot about it our department along with some other city officials have discussed this new practice and we are learning that it is becoming a common practice in many counties should this move forward we are proposing structured guidelines through an ordinance for this practice and that would include a permit process issue to the homeowner with a permit fee possible minimum lot square footage and of course identifying and outlining nuisance issues for example perhaps there would be no front yard grazing we would want to ensure appropriate signage is put in place for fencing and ensuring that these practices are not conducted too close to any schools or daycares odorous nuisance is taken into consideration as well the timeframe and number of goats allowed for a lot of size is still being considered but we do feel there are some positive components to this practice including that it is environmentally friendly it's chemical free and it's safer as terrain management is easier for goats versus some equipment if there are any additional questions on this i can hand the podium over to mr porter i have a couple of questions for you the additional information you have there is not included in the proposed ordinance so are you anticipating that if we pass this thing we'll pass this ordinance and then you'll fill that in with regulations we do feel there should be some structured guidelines included in the ordinance should this move forward is is there any requirement for us to say that if this if this is going to be the ordinance which is two paragraphs and they want to add in the other stuff is that is that done through a different process depends on what they're adding in and what's already in there the idea would be that we would have guidelines and get the microphone oh i'm loud anyway so i'm not that loud the idea would be that there would be guidelines depending on the department who is charged with enforcing or or permitting it and those permitting guidelines would be part of standard operating procedures within that department not necessarily codified in the ordinance itself because then every time something didn't work or you wanted to go back and say 25 feet doesn't work we want to do 35 feet you'd have to go back and amend your ordinance so the idea which would be whatever department was responsible for the administration of the permitting process and then the enforcement action would have standards and guidelines depending upon the various parcels that would be used because obviously the guidelines would be different between a residential area or a more industrial or commercial area that wanted it and so you'd have different considerations there that would be set out in guidelines that would be available for them to see just not codified in the ordinance so so the specificity of those guidelines we dig deeper into that absolutely absolutely and be flexible because what may work in one parcel isn't going to work in another parcel you you know these folks are going to determine how many are going to be necessary in a parcel well that may not be allowed in a very dense area or residential or but backing up to a school or whatever you all decide you want to do or whatever staff wants to yeah whatever whatever the experts want to get together and put in those guidelines but that individual department would have the guidelines and the flexibility to to do that and as long as it were published and open and available to folks it doesn't have to be codified in music so are these only goats or their other lifestyle I only wrote it as goats I I leave that up to the ordinance it just says just says goats because we don't want to slip anything in right you know if it's a goat if it's a goat specified we don't want several cows right well the ordinance says just goes it says notwithstanding the definition of livestock because you already have a prohibition of keeping livestock in the city so notwithstanding that definition we're going to allow goats and goats only for the purpose of land clearing so that also is going to prohibit people from deciding they want to be a backyard breeder or they want to have their own soap or milk or cheese that's not going to be allowed what's going to be allowed is going to be just for purposes of land clearing so so we're talking about cuts through vines we're talking about goats eating everything these are the experts and I hope so because I'm I'm watching because I'd love to have some yeah I'm going to get to some questions I I don't know about that as it relates to the diets you finish with your yeah introduction to this okay let's let the goat man councilman just before this nice gentleman starts and thank you for being here we appreciate you the again the the thought process was an ordinance with a time frame for implementation that gives staff the opportunity to develop these permitting guidelines so right now this draft before you doesn't have a this shall be effective within 90 days of the date of being passed if we were to entertain that we hadn't got to that we hadn't got to that bridge yet where we specifically as it relates to a parameter of time yes sir and there there there are a lot of details to be worked out male goats female goats um the all the things that victoria's got here at that we need to we need a little bit of time to flesh out what that permitting process looks like what department it's going to fall within and how we're going to administer and then enforce that process collect the fees a lot of details there so just talking with staff we feel like we need at least 90 days to to officially be able to come up with that permit process after the ordinance has passed would you if we decided to pass this out would you anticipate it going to council as it is here and then that council amended to give you a 90 day period or I think we would probably make the amendment with the time frame and then it goes to council you could it could be referred up but we would do an amended version so okay I didn't I didn't if you don't mind me asking I didn't understand that so it would go to council and be approved and then 90 days we would have guidelines so that would give us 90 days to develop the permit process and so so I mean if council were to entertain this in the first meeting in September and we're and it's two readings and they were to approve it in order for it to be an effective process we've got to have a way for folks to apply for that permit first to apply for the permit so thank you for your time to dig deeper for lack of flesh out of the detail thank you and may I ask your name sir she'll I'll give you a car awesome um do yourself in your your dress please I'm Jacob Porter I live in Nisa South Carolina and I'm the owner of Green Goat Land Management um so I want to touch on I got a couple things here but I want to touch on a couple things she said I'd like to help with the guidelines just to provide um point of view because I do this in other cities I've worked for other cities I do this all the time and I I'm gonna have a pretty good point of view that some of y'all don't because you don't run goats up and down the highway all the time you probably haven't set up fences all over the place the minimum lot size I don't know there's there's elderly people that's got a backyard no bigger than this room they can't afford a landscaper and can't do it and they've got poison out just growing over the back of the house I don't know about the minimum lot size but I wanted to touch on that I normally in Columbia I don't bring more than 10 goats to any job um wanted to touch on because there is there's a company in Athens Georgia that brings 35 make that money and move on I don't do that you put 35 goats in this room it's dangerous even if the sweet goats it's dangerous to the environment it's dangerous to the people it's dangerous to the goats because they want to fight over one blade of grass you know that's my blade of grass but my point being is too many if you you you was in elevated with me yesterday or the other day at the city council meeting there was four people in the elevator it's a little crowded now putting 40 people in the elevator it's really uncomfortable there's a point where too many is not a good thing I think 10 is a good reasonable number for whatever job we're doing if you put too many goats in a small area you get erosion obviously you get more of the the cons to that you know 100 goats poop a lot in fact plus I don't like when I bring I wouldn't bring a large number of goats to a property because it's kind of scorched earth I like 10 goats or less because what they do is they graze and then they graze and then they graze and they really get eradicate that kudzu or other stuff they really wipe it down better even if it does take seven days it's better to do it correctly than it is to do it fast everything fast isn't always good um I had some questions that maybe you can answer later the process of the permit like they did in belmont is it going to be online with a google earth picture you know maybe you can answer those later um who gets the permit do I get it on a landowner I think y'all are leaning towards a landowner we can work out got you um the temporary electric netting um what I've always done before now is I always give a six foot easement for many public easement um you I think that's a good number to write down is if there's a sidewalk it needs to be an example of the signs we use just for you it's two sided it's got the three most common languages on it um we there's a lot of spanish speakers in columbia let me ask you a question what's the what's the minimum you got 10 goats you you're you're using 10 goats per is that per acreage or square feet normally 10 a half acre I'm sorry normally a half acre and 10 goats all right let me ask this other question goat seed everything no that's an old wise tale goats don't eat cans they don't eat paper they don't eat plastic they now starving goat will but my goats aren't starving all right what right they're not starving Roger you train them not to eat uh plastic and I don't have to train them they just don't because they're not starving they they eat vegetation so you got a place this size you put 10 goats in here no so you maximize the number of my goats eat about 200 square feet per goat per day so two goats could do this room in a day for the ceiling all right let me ask let me ask this question I think I heard you say you prefer in goats what is that in male goats 10 oh yeah yeah female goats or weathers neutered males all right I understand that but how does that work into the into the equation if not female goats male goats without testicles yeah okay they're not they don't they don't go in the rut they don't stink they're not chasing girls they're worried about eating well that's that's that's that's my next line questions if the if it's a male goat and it's not been neutered neutered they eat more well I mean they stink well they stink a lot more the ones that have the ones that have their testicles stink a lot because they they the colognes so they can chase the girls a smell good for them and that's why we weather them and so we there's some details I don't know but you you asked our weathers and our females because of weathers don't worry about the girls they worry about so no plastics no nothing other than vegetation yeah they're not garbage collectors poison ivory they poison ivy poison oak poison sumac stinging nettle kudzu they kudzu by the pound we have one goat eat so much he looked like a constipated sumo wrestler we couldn't even open his eyes let's move on that's some details I don't want to know man all right and then so I thought six foot easement for many public walkway would be good that way you know they got to go six feet on to somebody's property to touch the fence fences low wattage those signs by law are required every 200 feet normally when we know we're going to be on a walkway we put them about every 100 I think that's and there's an example y'all can keep I got plenty more the two-sided um what was about the fencing uh-huh fencing you you you you corral a piece of property electrified fencing how does that work sir it's a step in fence okay what is tell me what that is you stretch it out you step it in you can it probably be better if you looked on our facebook or our websites you can see us setting it up and I would invite any of y'all uh-huh 42 inches I would invite any of y'all that's in this decision making process or guideline process you let me know and I'll take you to one of our job sites but you need to bring saltines bring wood saltines the goats aren't going to visit with you for free they will expect you to bring some saltines and give it to them I'm just telling the cost of admission you don't drive your car for free you got to put gas in it name a memo on this planet things five without salt thank you I wanted to ask you another question we talk about um in the draft ordinance no longer than seven consecutive consecutive days or 14 days in any six-month period and growing season or whatever that would the production or destruction rate that you're talking about in terms of what they consume does that seem reasonable to you well that was I'm glad you asked that sir that was something I was going to bring up to you so my goat seven ten goats can eat a half acre in about seven days um I think most lights in Colombia are an acre I think probably 15 and now we're I think we're residential lights we'd be half or less maybe a quarter or the ones that we've been going to seem to be about half an acre um that they need done but we can go with that but I think 15 and 30 probably is more reasonable because again I don't want to put I don't want to look at that and say seven days okay I've got to bring 15 goats I don't want to cram more in and break you know I've set these barriers in place myself ethically because I know what's healthy for my animals I know what's healthy for the environment I don't want to cram more in just to meet and a guideline and put my goats to rest I'll put the home on at rest or I don't want to create a problem just to meet a number sure no no I understand that I think um would you say the majority of the time the ten goats could handle the acres and seven days would I would say that eight out of ten seven days is fine but I bring up another point working for cities or commercial work that's where it calls y'all got kudzu we have to have a variant somewhere in there where if the city wants to hire me to do a kudzu over here there's ten acres there's no way I could bring a hundred goats and I get done we got to find some way to wiggle out of that one and then there could be in the process of a residential and then a commercial and then separating that through the permitting process we'll have to talk with on our commercial jobs like what we did for city of Belmont we brought 20 goats and they was there for about three months but they ate 55 acres and even 55 acres in three months is I'm still moving them right along but I'm not bringing more than 20 I think that's a plenty you know they're doing four acres ever they were doing four acres ever 11 days I mean so we may want and that's in the ordinance yeah also we may want to tweak that a bit as well as adding that time frame to develop the the process for effectiveness if you also choose so yes sir and I'm just piggybacking on something you said at council meeting how are the goats I shouldn't say how the goats paid what's the cost my cost or the cost to the person how does how does that figure in in terms of the acreage and the size of the lot and that sort of thing so I charge $10 per goat per day so if a goat eats you know if this was the place and you needed two goats for a day I'd probably charge 30 bucks mileage from orangeberg and 20 dollars so then I would do this room for 50 bucks that's that note and I don't charge anything set up defenses so I would do this room for $50 and I don't know a landscaper to come in here and weed whack this whole room for $50 where the goats are the weed whackers project but they're more like the weed eaters just being technical well I understand that I think the thing that is I think important if we look at this in terms of usage within the city I think we need to be very clear whether it's a requested service how much is it going to cost I mean that's going to be the pivotal question I believe what is it going to cost and I think I heard you clearly say $10 per goat if it takes 20 goats 11 days I mean that's that's simple I can I can figure that within my own hand okay all right that gives me a better picture brother Jacob if we want to send this back to council do you want us to give you permission to change the 7 and 14 yes sir if you would just to consider that um and we may Daniel we may work we'll get together work may I ask what we're considering changing so we may go to uh work square footage we may look at extending we may buy for Kate residential and commercial and and give a little more well and if I can out for my two cents worth I'm fine with the seven goats per half acre but just have a pathway to ask for an extension and somebody can come by there and then a pathway to increase the number of votes that's what I yeah for days yeah um I think we can work we can work something out there well and if y'all got any other questions for me we will get you with the committee this the employees that are going to be drawing up these requirements and let you have your input all right thank you thank you Jacob appreciate that and Robert council and committee I really want to say that the the idea was to get Mr. Porter involved and actually understand how the guidelines need to work out but we need to make sure that any guidelines we put in place you know right now we're talking about a proprietary business but you know we had some goats at our shelter last week that came from another business in Richland County already so we need to be prepared for this goat business to possibly grow and make sure that any guidelines we would in place is not just for one it's for all I would also caution to say today's price is $10 a goat but if we put a permit fee on in the city of Columbia to collect up front that price could change for the homeowner but that's between the Mr. Porter and the client correct that's a contractual arrangement right is that right Robert that would be a contractual arrangement between the goat person and the homeowner correct any other questions so in the process we're going to be tweaking what we have and sort of diving deep into the lack of a better word the weeds of it all yes sir so I think the the the action of this committee would be to refer give us the opportunity to amend the ordinance but refer the concept of that ordinance on to council for consideration at the earliest possible time if you also choose to do that and then we would we would make the modifications add the time frame and then that would give us 90 days to flesh out the details of the permitting process and be able to implement that process and the fee associated with it and we will certainly work with with Jacob to to do that any other interested party to do that but that would give us some time to to fill in the details and we can come back to you and talk about those details as we get ready to implement that permitting process but that wouldn't be in that wouldn't require an ordinance change all right ordinance authorizes us to do that I've been listening in on YouTube so I'm caught up yeah madam chair we've had a delightful discussion about the goat industry would you talk about the potential change you wanted to make to the permit program to the what to the permit program well the permit program will be just designed by a committee that mr. Porter will be an advisor to to get the details what we want to do is and I will make a motion to refer this back to the city council giving the staff permission to tweak the consecutive days and the total days to meet the requirements of the industry and that's providing that everything is tweaked and that we've got the necessary the necessary time alliance is sir to develop the process I'll second that all in favor all right none opposed thank you so um moving on to the next ordinance and and we um we started off with victoria given a little bit background and mr. Porter gave us some some additional to address number one and then number two and number three may dovetail together victoria's got a few slides that kind of set the table for that discussion so if it's if it's okay with you we'll have her present those few slides and then we can talk about each of those yeah and before she begins just context for both of you um this was something that was brought up by a community group um as something that had been considered in the past I thought it'd be nice for us to talk about it in depth here at the committee I will say up front that neither of these ordinances in my opinion would be particularly effective unless we have richland county on board as well that has a similar or identical ordinance uh but wanted to get the conversation started um and asked clint and his team to um provide some background and history and uh look at the different possibilities we know that you know columbia animal services continues to be um overburdened by the number of dogs coming in many of them are um a pity breed and uh the majority of them still come from the county so just wanted to put that out there as we begin victoria we'll pass it over to you thank you dr bustles um so yes next on the agenda is mandatory spayneuter versus improved pet licensing and before I dive into that I really wanted to give everyone a look at this uh flyer that I recently obtained from a conference hosted by best friends animal society out of houston just a couple of weeks ago this is something that we've been looking at for a while now and this is a really uh short and sweet recap of breed labeling and why it is frowned upon if you look at these four examples here I can tell you right off the bat from a shelter standpoint we would easily say lab mix poodle mix pitbull mix probably schnauzer mix or something within that general family however per dna testing we see that the predominant breed traits and these four examples come out pitbull terrier pitbull terrier shockingly enough on that guest poodle uh what we would label number three rider here is a pitbull mix came back predominantly beagle and number four is a australian cattle dog so the reason I'm showing this to you today is because when we did look at these ordinances historically uh with our legal department we ran into a lot of roadblocks with pitbull specific spayneuter mandates the only ordinance that we could find that was similar and already implemented was out of bufert and per reading that the big question is how do you identify the dogs as pitbull breeds that particular ordinance leaves it up to the discretion of the shelter director and I can tell you that I am not a dna test and I just told you what my guesses of those breeds that I just showed you would be and they were inaccurate science will show you that 75 percent of dogs guessed visually by breed are inaccurate therefore there's not a real solid way to say what your pit population is secondly I think that we have fallen into a pattern of saying pitbulls are the problem pitbulls are all that the shelter has but again if we were to dna test every dog in our facility 50 percent of that population is probably not pitbull heavy we're going based off of physical characteristics and again that's not accurate we don't truly know the genetic makeup of our shelter population in addition to all of those points significantly there is a resistance a significant resistance of legislative breed specific legislation I should say from a national animal welfare standpoint HSUS ASPCA and best friends who we are currently in a partnership with do not back up this mindset and we do not feel it's the right direction to go so with our legal department we push that aside and we said okay in reality there's a pet population problem in general no matter what the breed is we have too many dogs so there was a blanket ordinance drafted to potentially reinforce a spaniard or mandate on all pets as dr bustle has already mentioned it is important to notate that 65 percent of our intake is from richland county so not only were there concerns that we wouldn't get the support or backing from them they would have to follow suit in order for this to be effective there was also some legality barriers in reference to professional dog breeders so we looked at even weight restriction all right let's take breed out of it large dogs are the hardest population to move do we focus in and and mandate some sort of spay neuter ordinance around dog by size but what happens when you have the small breed that comes in overweight or when you have the large breed that comes in emaciated and underweight which we do see quite often so we had a lot of roadblocks here and we pondered for a bit longer with our legal department and we felt like there was a better way to go about this that would help give folks in the community incentive to spay neuter without putting in these harsh mandates or zooming in on breed specific legislation so our differential licensing ordinance currently section 462 license of cats and dogs is what we've been operating by and it requires anybody in city limits to license their pet annually if your pet is already spayed or neutered that's a five dollar fee if it's not it is a twenty five dollar fee what we are proposing is to revamp this ordinance and offer a one-time lifetime licensing fee of twenty five dollars if your pet is spayed neutered and microchipped and I'll talk about the resources that can support that in just a moment if your pet is not spayed neutered or microchipped you would be looking at a one hundred dollar annual licensing fee so one thing that we already have in place through the animal mission is a solid spay neuter voucher program if you look here you'll see since 2006 through last fiscal year animal mission has provided funding for over 58,000 citizens through the cost spay neuter efforts that's totaled over 25 i'm sorry two and a half million dollars all from donated funds so that's a solid program even today the shelter would help with microchipping efforts at low cost this could get people in compliance with spay neuter and chipping to allow them to exercise that one-time lifetime fee we do feel this would create greater incentive for pet owners to spay neuter and hopefully generate a little bit more revenue from that program if you look here currently we put more money into the program than we get back spending on average 54,000 per year and only receiving 43,000 back from that so we would hope to see an increase in revenue and then we could apply that revenue to other efforts to become more friendly with our local vet clinics maybe make pet licensing a bit easier right now it is a very manual process it does require supplies and manpower that are difficult for us if we could revamp this ordinance and redirect these resources and increased revenue we would like to strengthen vet partnerships maybe offer electronic reminders online and online payment options for pet licensing is right now the only way to license your pet is by mail or to come into the facility and that's not the most convenient especially in today's world additionally we would like to apply some of this revenue to greater transparency marketing efforts but before I roll into that are there any questions pertaining to you're going to get into the transparency issue yeah so so several questions I mean I it's great to see 4,000 but we know that there are many more pets than the 4,000 absolutely my biggest concern is that we continue to operate in the red with this current existing license program to be honest with you I didn't even know that I had to license my pets until I joined a dog park and automatically they required us to give the five dollars towards the city so I mean going back to the two ordinances I agree with you a blanket ban or restriction on a specific breed particularly pipples is not the avenue that I would like to go and you know I'm happy to open it up okay because I think that there's a lot of discrimination for no reason I do think overpopulation continues to be an issue but I do I don't think that and this is a question for Clint you and the team if there's an opportunity to really kind of outsource this licensing program where vets are the ones that are taking it on the same way we kind of you know created a triage system with our water department I am open to a third party helping us with this this is not something I think our Columbia Animal Services should be worried about they should just be worried about getting the revenue and being able to apply it to different programs I don't I don't think I would be in favor of additional manpower internally going towards this since we have so many resources but one thing I would want to have up and running pretty quickly is the online payment program and I think I think it's it's possible to to partner with our veterinarian community and some of the other partners to help us do the licensing you know yeah yeah and that is definitely one of our goals is to strengthen those relationships and see if we can at the time of getting your rabies vaccination go ahead and license right there with your veterinarian so and then in terms of updating the licensing just to understand we would have to make these changes via ordinance or these are more programmatic changes what exactly would have to change an ordinance 462 oh for the for the pricing correct okay particularly if you look you know okay yeah so I would be fine with that I just want to make sure that you know this whole like us operating with less than what we you know put into it changes otherwise it's just a waste of time to update the ordinance so madam chair we have two ordinances in front of us neither one of them which I think need to me push forward I'd like a table those two and I asked the staff to come back with another ordinance that would similar that would take care of the suggestions that you have here yeah that was that was going to be my concern how do you take and rep both of those things into one that was sort of speak holistically to where we need to be yeah I'd like to I think we should have them come back with an update on the licensing ordinance and and not and maybe table these ordinance these other two that are on the agenda right now about spain neuter until you know when appropriate and then that way we can address some of these things what do you think yeah um and I also think that some of the spain neuter ordinances and I I shared this with some of our community groups as well they have to happen on a state level a lot of this has to happen for consistency on a state level um and I would be very in favor of us having a discussion once that happens but for us to do it you know the lines feel kind of arbitrary um I don't think it'll ever happen at the stake level either yeah sure but but um South Carolina our problem is over a population and the number of dogs being euthanized because of the population so whatever we can do to reduce that and if that means encouraging spain neuter and I like Robert's idea maybe we incentivize the vets that are participating to help offset some of that cost I don't know um we would have to think about that and that's what I'd like the staff to think about is how do we then encourage spain neuter through our licensing program and then I would want to share of course that um from what I understand Palmetto lifeline has gone to Richland County with a licensing program I'd want us to mirror some of our aspects similarly in terms of like online payment and how the vet partnerships work um to keep it consistent since people will be going to vets both in and outside of the city um and if there is a capacity concern or issue I do want us to also explore um you know potentially having them help run that program for us um so that again Victoria and her team can just focus on getting the revenue and implementing the different programs that we have and if we could it would help tremendously if we could take both of the the pieces that we've seen here this morning wrap it into one something that that the verbiage is usable and friendly I think it would be to our advantage to dig deep into that yes sir I think and I think that's that's that's the point I think I don't think we want to wrap this language into anything I think we need to table these two and let them come up with a new order I understand that do you want Victoria to do that or do you want Clint and the team I think it's Clint and the team including Victoria to do that yeah well I would think it would probably be these two are not to our advantage yeah yes sir and that's what I'm saying I mean we've read these I mean we've read that and we understand that it needs to be reconfigured we understand that and we hear you loud and clear moving away from a mandatory that's correct spay neuter to more through the licensing program or incentivizing spay neuter chipping through the licensing fee and then incentivizing business partners to help us with implementing that program and then building a business case where what does it make sense for us to manage versus private sector to manage and stop losing money yeah my thing is like if I had to develop a metric for success it would be we'd be either breaking even or in the green ideally in the green and we start to see a significant you know in decrease in the number of in terms of overpopulation and I think it's possible I but I think two pieces have to be in place of consistency across city and county and then also being very deliberate on how we're administering the program through vet partnerships absolutely we're actually not talking about tabling anything we're talking about reconfiguring we're tabling we're not talking about I mean we're not acting on anything right no sir not to these two we've got two ordinances on our agenda but we're not we're not tabling anything but we what we've been asked to do is either to approve this or to reconfigure the the language and the verbiage there so Howard says table I just say let's reconfigure it so I'd like to make a motion to um table ordinance number 2023 100 and 2023 101 and reconfigure our existing licensing program and ordinance for our next meeting that will include some of the details that Victoria has presented to us today I second that so we've got a motion in a second all in favor I know yes sir I think we understand where you're coming we're all the way from just and on the same page just give him verbiage yes correct all right I go back to Victoria's last slide there is a better way at the bottom we want to try to define that better way put some put some meat on that skeleton and come back with something that y'all can and in terms of timeline if we could work towards the January 1st kind of implementation that would be I think doable or at least you know start getting some vet agreements in place by then so our next meeting would be September the last week of September so hopefully by then we have an update um to the language on the licensing program and then can move it along to um I like January 1st target yeah I think that's a good target work toward that he's like I like that because I don't want to be here so if y'all have the y'all have time for just another slide oh yeah yeah absolutely but I just wanted to make sure we were all kind of thinking through the different moving pieces and being clear about community discussion on the ordinances and on the agenda yes thank you so moving on to the topic of transparency I'd like to go ahead and make it known that nationally intake in animal shelters is up four percent across the country after our last committee meeting we did have a revisit with our mentors out of orie county as well as best friends and we really zoomed in on transparency as we acknowledge that that is the area that even though we're being transparent there's room for improvement what can we do to take it a step further and increase live release we were encouraged by our mentors to find a way to start getting dogs at risk of euthanasia out to the public in advance and historically we never really generated those lists in advance so we have made some internal procedure modifications to now have animals as we advertise them in line for euthanasia and we're promoting these animals through a new platform as of July 26 we do have a new social media platform to advertise these dogs at the highest risk these are adoptable dogs at the highest risk of euthanasia and what we are doing is making those lists and making it known that these are next in line we do not have a euthanasia date as it all depends on intake thus far we have seen a 100 live release rate of those dogs the last count of those dogs was about mid 50 i believe it was 54 55 dogs total we are continuing to market these dogs on a weekly basis to put the public on notice and we are very proud of the community step up and outreach that we've received from that in addition to that orie county suggested we come up with a more consistent way to share our numbers so thus far every Friday we have been posting our weekly intake and outcome numbers for the community to see as well we are very aware that we should not be hiding from the community and that's never been our intent we are looking at ways that we can continue to become more transparent as the community can only be a part of the solution if they're aware of what we need we are not stopping there we have within the past two weeks made connections with large transport services to also explore how we can start moving dogs in bulk upstate or across the country to get them out of the shelter as well but i think it's important to know that these marketing efforts are time consuming and one of the biggest kickbacks that we're getting right now is the post aren't being updated in time we're not citizens aren't getting answers to their questions on these social media platforms so again going back to the rebamping of that spayneuter ordinance if there is any additional revenue or resources that we can replace we would like to do it towards these marketing efforts as well in order to keep maintaining a transparent image and keeping our community engaged and on notice one of the things that i do want to commend you for is that based upon our initial meeting and some of the concerns that came out of that initial meeting as it related to the issues that were brought to your attention the transparency issue slide represents some of that work that you've done to sort of center ourselves into that whole transparent mode and and that's great because that's one of the things we ask you to do and of course thank you for that thank you thank you river me down for for that comment i um and i think victoria great work and the august numbers look terrific really really good work there i think the the challenge is continuing that forward momentum and not getting community fatigue that's correct as we continue to say these these animals are at risk um and you know so how do we continue to build a toolbox how do we continue to operate transparently but but involve the community and and those community sheltering activities rather than it just being the city's problem it's the whole of us as a community in our issue absolutely the core of the issue is still intake while we are receiving great response and placement of these dogs right now it's important to note that many of these dogs are funneling into our foster system which at some point will also hit capacity as we have very few program coordinators to sustain these numbers so we're always encouraging people to promote for rescue polls and commitments or adoption to make it a final um in addition to that our fiscal year just ended with an 80% live release rate that is not 90% but it is the the highest number that a fiscal year has ended with so it just goes to show we are on the up currently for the month of august we are at a 91% live release rate we have no doubt that it's due to these new efforts of transparency and as you've mentioned we would like to see the energy and the community involvement stay there but it is important to take into consideration that compassion fatigue can hit your community just as it can your organization so we're looking at ways again transport efforts and other ways to help the community help us so that we don't turn into the cycle of burnout as we increase live release Victoria the chairman chairperson uh mentioned a few minutes ago that the percentage of animals that come from the county area what is that percentage currently at 65 percent 65 percent of animals and so if if we're getting that many from the county is pushing dogs towards euthanasia at the end of the land right it is important for richland county to be on board with the direction that the city would like to go and per recent discussion they are on board with these license changes i do feel confident that they would follow suit okay much easier than they would a spayneuter mandate which and can you talk a little bit about so in terms of um working with richland county is i know they don't have their own animal services but they have do they have like staff that are similar to you um at the county level that you work with like who do you who do you work with there typically so they have their own set of animal control officers and they're their own director who oversees their policies and operations i will say that they're they're easy to work with we have a good working relationship but just like us they have the same community challenges and a much larger jurisdiction than what we have so it it has been um we're trying to find a balance to appease the community but also make the community understand the needs and their director does seem on board with recent discussions that we've had in helping us improve life release so um speaking of animal control um one of the suggestions that um i was looking at was potentially additional training for the animal control officers that allow them to then um potentially uh directly do the citations or provide citations if something is against code um i don't know enough about what they're able to do right now but could that be something that we look look into to see um i was reading about how you can be like a classy trained animal control officer and i'm not sure ours are is that correct yeah that we tore it out deferred to you and robert on that i believe richland county does have a little bit of a different policy than city it's my understanding that they may have the option to become sworn in after a certain term of employment that is not anything that the city currently does offer um i'm sure we could have discussions about it we have had those discussions historically um right now animal control officers do cite on misdemeanors in city code they do not cite on a state level so they can reinforce general care um at large spay neuter license uh ordinance violations but really what we're trying to look at unless it is something that is felony level and very serious in which case we put that in the appropriate hands is helping the community versus just citing them if you are out of compliance how can we get you into compliance is a resource that we can offer you um we're not about just impounding your pet because you failed to provide a doghouse we want to provide that doghouse for you now and maybe check on you once in a while to make sure that you and your pet are doing well times are very hard right now and that's no secret if citations are issued and we can get the honor within compliance before their court date many times that we will drop those citations again unless it is something a little bit more severe that would fall into the lines of animal neglect or cruelty got it that's helpful and helpful to know it might be something that we look at down the road after these pieces done sorry yeah go ahead one one one one of the key points i think is allowing the community to know that marketing piece allow you know the more you know the more you need to know and one of the things i think that is consistent with what you said with this transparency is that you are allowing and will allow community to know exactly what you're doing and that in itself becomes a pivotal point in this whole issue of animal services and that sort of thing so i think that marketing piece as it relates to the number of animals that has been euthanized whatever that issue are i think it's needful for that community to know exactly what we're doing thank you we are very well aware that is just as much as the community may seem like quote-unquote the problem they can be just as much the solution we can't see the problem too yeah exactly right yes ma'am thank you thank you one more really quick slide and then we'll move on sounds good so at our last committee meeting we did briefly touch on the fact that we were undergoing a space planning study the talk around this did start late in 2022 we went through an rfq process in several architectural firms we ultimately decided on animal arts out of colorado and in june of this year they did come and spend a few days at our facility to assess our operations our working spaces animal housing they have come back with a full informal report that is still under review we just received that a few days ago but the nutshell of it is we're currently operating at about 31 000 square feet they are they feel that we do need at least 35 000 square feet and mostly this is based on our current structure accommodating animal housing but not so much staff housing it is no secret if you come to our facility that we have program coordinators working out of conference rooms and break rooms and wherever we could establish a network hookup we've evolved so much over the past several decades we now have program coordinators for these lifesaving programs and really no adequate space for them to work efficiently the estimated cost for new building falls between 22 and 25 million and again we are still evaluating the the full report that was recently given to us we just wanted to give everyone an update on where things were with the space planning study part of the issue to the location you know the location of the age of the facility that it's not as much as square you can build a lot more square footage but that will get full to and that was how do you balance like you know correct the problem just get bigger you don't want to the the the additional square footage would not be to be to accommodate additional animal housing space perhaps we would work in an isolation component somewhere there we do lack that right now for certain illnesses it would really be to accommodate staff working spaces there have they obviously proposed demolition of our current structure due to improper draining and air ventilation systems very common for animal shelters to have these issues but they were recommending in a perfect world to build up with the appropriate drainage and air ventilation as well as office spaces for staff so many existing buildings that we might find would it would need substantial renovation or this is the estimated cost to build from new which is which is a big number yeah three four thousand so the council has talked talked about a new facility for animal control and if we could get one an old shopping center or an old one or something donated and then work something like that you might be able to absolutely to do it for less than 25 million dollars when the biggest component there is mostly that drainage system we did look at existing structures and the the feedback was the amount of work that it would take to implement the proper drainage here would cost more than it would be to build up yeah there's a lot to take into consideration yeah no this is helpful we're gonna we're we'll have some more detail to present next time we're just now getting the draft of the study can you do like a option b of if we had an existing i think there were some properties we were looking at so okay definitely most definitely this is really hot off the press for well i said i'm excited thank you victoria this is helpful and i'm looking forward to hearing about the updates to the licensing program you know one of the beneficial things i think that the bustles talked about this last time but we talked about it the last time is having a continuous conversation on animal services allowing you to do what you did today and excellent presentation very helpful thank you thank you ma'am executive session i will entertain a motion so madam chair i move we're going to executive session for discussion of negotiations instruments proposed or contractual arrangements pursuant to sd code 30-4 s 782 homeless service contracts