The councilmembers argue the location is challenging for those who live on the south, east and north sides of town to access and it is inefficient.
SAN ANTONIO — To increase visibility and efficiency, several city councilmembers are proposing adding a new Animal Care Services facility to the east side of San Antonio.
Jalen McKee-Rodriguez of District 2, Phyllis Viagran of District 3 and Marc Whyte of District 10 filed a joint city council consideration request (CCR) to see if a second ACS facility could be built.
“We hear consistently about the loose and dangerous dog problem across the city. We’ve also heard about how access resources are really stretched thin,” Whyte said. “The kennels are full at the facility that we have now. You know, they can’t move them out of there fast enough.”
The current facility is located on the far west side. The councilmembers argue the location is challenging for those who live on the south, east and north sides of town to access and it is inefficient.
“The time it takes for an officer to respond to a call, or to get an animal off the street,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “It requires so much traveling from the east side of, of San Antonio all the way to, the campus on the west side. And so it just makes sense to one double our capacity and also, increase the presence that exists on this side of town.”
Jenna Loos’ passion is saving dogs across the city. The independent rescuer does it in her free time, due to the need she sees on a daily basis.
“Kind of everywhere in San Antonio, dogs are popping up, animals are popping up everywhere that are needing help,” she said. “So I kind of go wherever I’m needed.”
Loos supports the idea of a second facility, if it happens.
“I know when I talk to people about animal care services, most people don’t even know that we have it, let alone where it is, or that it’s an option for adopting dogs,” she said. “And I think having a facility over in this area, it’s going to reach a whole new network of people. And so I think it’s going to help, definitely, with the life saving rate. for networking and advertising and getting more dogs adopted to people that aren’t aware or that don’t travel down to animal care services where it’s at right now, I think it’s going to be super beneficial.”
McKee-Rodriguez proposes that if a second facility were to be built, it would be done without general fund dollars.
“We use inner city TIRZ dollars,” he said. “We find a location that fits within the boundary, and we can use the funding for site acquisition as well as design and ideally, ideally, the design would be complete by the time we have the 2027 bond. So we would be able to fund this through the ’27 bond program, not touching our general fund dollars.”
Animal Care Services in a statement to KENS 5 regarding the proposal wrote:
“A Council Consideration Request (CCR) is a request that a topic be included in a future Council Discussion. Animal Care Services will work to obtain the information needed to put together a presentation and possible suggestions at a future Council Committee meeting.”
The CCR next goes to the Governance Committee for consideration, which is expected in the spring.