www.mercurynews.com<\/a><\/p>\nMountain View officially pulled the plug Tuesday on its long-running partnership with Palo Alto for animal services, approving a new agreement with a Santa Clara-based joint powers authority.<\/p>\n
The city council voted 6-1 to contract with the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, or SVACA.<\/p>\n
Council members said the decision was motivated by a desire to expand services, cut costs and have a greater say in financial decisions. As a member of the joint powers authority, Mountain View will get to vote, for example, on changes to fees, something it couldn’t do under its agreement with Palo Alto.<\/p>\n
“I think we’re getting a good service. I think we’re getting some … political input to at least have some control over those costs and to at least have some say about things,” said Council Member Tom Means.<\/p>\n
Mountain View expects to pay upward of $300,000 to join SVACA. The expenditure will cover the purchase of a vehicle to serve the city and an expansion of the joint powers authority’s shelter. Overall, the city expects the agreement to slash annual operating costs by about 10 percent, or $40,000.<\/p>\n
SVACA is set to take over animal services in early November, according to the contract approved Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Council Member Laura Macias cast the dissenting vote largely because of concerns about the $150 fee SVACA charges for animal surrenders. She said it would likely lead more residents who are down on their luck to abandon their pets.<\/p>\n
“People are going through trying times in their lives and that’s not when they have an extra $150 lying around,” Macias said.<\/p>\n
By way of comparison, the Humane Society of Silicon Valley charges a $160 fee and the Peninsula Humane Society charges $20. Palo Alto charges nothing to residents from its partner cities and San Jose does not accept surrenders.<\/p>\n
SVACA Executive Director Dan Soszynski explained that the fee was set at $150 to reduce the number of animals being surrendered.<\/p>\n
Macias’ concerns were echoed by nine public speakers who also urged the city council to stick with Palo Alto because of its popular low-cost spay and neuter clinic and close proximity to Mountain View.<\/p>\n
“I know it’s expensive, but sometimes it’s worth spending the money,” said Mountain View resident Gloria Jackson.<\/p>\n
Council members acknowledged that the decision wasn’t an easy one, but said residents ultimately stood to benefit from the switch.
\n“We didn’t take this lightly. I hear what you’re all saying. Try to be open about it,” said Council Member Jac Siegel. “Palo Alto has a wonderful facility … but I found the same thing at SVACA.”<\/p>\n
The new agreement is also expected to take pressure off the city attorney’s office and police department, both of which are currently required to handle certain animal-related issues. SVACA will pick up those duties.<\/p>\n
Mountain View’s decision to switch contractors is expected to create a $470,000 hole in the $1.7 million annual budget of the Palo Alto Animal Services division. As a result, Palo Alto City Manager James Keene has recommended outsourcing animal services, possibly to SVACA.
\nMeans said he wasn’t worried about any ramifications to Palo Alto.<\/p>\n
“I’m not concerned about them. I’m concerned about our city. This is the one we represent,” he said. “I think we’re making a good decision tonight. I think we’re getting good services.”<\/p>\n
Email Jason Green at jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jason Green Palo Alto Daily News\/San Jose Mercury News May 9, 2012 Read original article at www.mercurynews.com Mountain View officially pulled the plug Tuesday on its long-running partnership with Palo Alto for animal services, approving a new agreement with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pafriends.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}