Construction of a new animal shelter and relocation of the county’s electoral office are on the table for a joint meeting between Trenton City Council and the Dade County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday
Both projects are expected to be completed in spring 2023, said Ted Rumley, chairman of the board of commissioners and county executive, although budgets and final plans have yet to be determined.
“This is a preparatory meeting, sort of a heartfelt discussion, a working session” to discuss ideas from both bodies where the government will staff and run the shelter, Rumley said in a phone interview.
Two locations are being considered for the relocated electoral office. One is a piece of private property near the Bank of Dade, the other east of the county courthouse. Rumley said moving the polls office is a priority and the district has about $250,000 from a land sale earmarked for the project.
The meeting will be held at 1:00 p.m. in the Commissioners Meeting Room in the Dade County Administrative Building, 71 Case Ave., Room 259, Trenton. The session is public.
Don Townsend, chief financial officer and county clerk, said there was no need to have two shelters in a county as small as Dade. The state requires collaboration on such issues to avoid duplication of service and save taxpayer money through its Service Delivery Strategy process, he said in an email.
The current election office is too small, Townsend said, because Georgia’s new election law requires voting machines to be kept where election officials work. He also said the polls office is in the same building where county offices are – making it difficult for elected officials to avoid contact with voters during elections.
“We consider both of these issues to be part of the government’s mandate under the SDS — Service Delivery Strategy — to comply with this law,” Townsend said.
Photo by Barbara Havlin / Photographed in mid-November, this Bernese Mountain Dog puppy was nursed back to health by Barbara Havlin, a Dade County animal rights attorney who is grateful that elected county officials are planning a new shelter.
Rumley agreed that having the polls office in the same building where elected officials work on a day-to-day basis was not feasible. During election season, Rumley said that on the way to voting, county residents would prevent him from speaking to candidates and asking their advice.
“Even if I’m not on the ballot, and if I’m on the ballot, it’s worse — you shouldn’t be talking to people,” Rumley said.
The 2021 Elections Law of Georgia states that no one may vote within “150 feet of the outside edge of a building housing a polling station, inside a polling station, or within 25 feet of a voter who is standing in line at an election may advertise place.”
Representatives from the Dade County Elections and Registration Committee could not be reached for comment before the deadline.
Carey Fauscett-Anderson, the county’s public information officer, said officials might be able to remodel a building already owned by local government, but all of this will be discussed at the meeting. She also said in a phone interview that building the shelter and staffing it were two separate decisions that needed to be made.
The shelter will be located near the Dade County Recycling Center on Sunset Drive, Rumley said, adding that building a joint city-county shelter has been under discussion for about 15 years. The county will be soliciting bids for the project shortly, he said.
The city of Trenton has committed about $65,000 to the shelter, and Rumley said the county will fund the rest.
“Things are getting worse as far as the animals in the county are concerned, and not just with dogs but cats and even big animals,” Rumley said. “We have an ideal place to place it with plenty of space.”
(READ MORE: Dade County, Georgia Residents Help Animals, Demand Better Services)
Plans for the Dade County shelter will be based on a facility in Canton, Georgia, Rumley said, but be about half the size and accommodate about 50 animals.
Barbara Havlin moved to Dade County from California 16 years ago. In a phone interview, she said she’s grateful that local officials are pushing the shelter forward because residents have had to do a lot of volunteer work over the years to help the county’s animals.
“We’ve needed one (a proper shelter) forever since it was first chosen for SPLOST,” Havlin said, referring to Georgia’s special sales tax on local options for certain capital projects. “This county is just awful about strays and everything.”
(READ MORE: Due to increased volume, Walker County, Georgia is considering combining animal control and shelter)
Havlin said she has largely retired from finding homes for dogs. She recently rehomed a puppy named Uno with contagious mites and rehabilitated a Bernese Mountain Dog who came to Havlin malnourished with a broken leg.
Havlin said the dog’s leg had healed and he had doubled his weight in two weeks. Healthy enough to be adopted, Havlin said the dog went to an adoption event hosted by local rescue force Trooper’s Treasures last week – freshly bathed and wearing a red ribbon around his neck for the holidays.
Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659.
