County will study shelter partnership

Spokane city and county officials are looking for a way to acquire a new animal shelter without asking taxpayers for more money.

County commissioners agreed this week to split the $8,000 cost of developing a rough plan to remodel a city-owned building.

Commissioner Todd Mielke said city officials would use the plans to solicit “design-and-build” proposals from contractors.

The city is interested in contracting with the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service for animal control, but the SCRAPS shelter at 2521 N. Flora Road is overcrowded and can’t economically be expanded.

Spokane currently gets animal-control service from the nonprofit SpokAnimal organization, which wants to end its contract.

Tentative estimates are that a new shelter might cost $15 million, which would require a voter-approved bond measure.

However, Mielke said city officials have suggested using city-owned property near the northwest corner of Havana Street and Broadway Avenue, cater-cornered from the county fairgrounds.

The 6.8-acre site has a 32,000-square-foot warehouse and a 5,780-square-foot office.

Mielke said the city plan calls for the county and other SCRAPS users to forgo temporarily – maybe for five years – rate reductions that might be possible if Spokane joins the coalition.

During that period, the city would donate its building and apply its contractual payments to the renovation cost, Mielke said.

Commissioner Mark Richard said he was “uneasy” because the proposal remained sketchy but that he was willing to spend $4,000 to explore it.

Richard said he wasn’t convinced SCRAPS should have a new shelter within five years.

He said the current shelter “is obviously over capacity and it’s aging” but questioned how that ranks among the county’s priorities. Richard previously has expressed concern that building a new animal shelter would dampen taxpayers’ enthusiasm for a new jail.

Commissioner Bonnie Mager was absent.

Mielke said he thought the renovation cost would have to be less than $5 million for the plan to succeed.

“If the remodel cost comes back more than that, I’m going to be hard-pressed to figure out how this works,” Mielke said. “Somebody’s going to end up having to pay more than what they’re currently paying.”

Existing SCRAPS customers are Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Cheney, Millwood and Fairchild Air Force Base.