ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Wider Net for Animal Care

Animal lovers may be thrilled with Mission Viejo’s state-of-the-art city animal control shelter, and no doubt the animals must be too. According to City Councilwoman Sharon Cody, the facility in less than one year of operation has spared more than 1,000 animals from being euthanized.

But in these tight budgetary times, emotion might not be enough to hold sway over the bottom line. The shelter has barely had time to work out the kinks, and still finds itself buffeted by the winds of local politics.

It seems that a $2.3-million facility for the city made a good deal more sense through the planning window of the optimistic 1980s than it does in this decade of retrenchment.

For that reason, the future of the shelter has become a hot issue in the race for City Council. Some candidates are even talking about unloading a facility they say the city can ill afford to maintain at the current annual operating budget of $355,000.

In hindsight, perhaps the city should have gone with a less ambitious project in the first place. However, it is not possible to turn back the clock. It makes sense now to look at what the facility might evolve into. Now that it is in place, this facility is well positioned to serve the sprawling new suburbs of the South County.

The existence of a corps of enthusiastic volunteers who supplement the work of the paid employees ought to suggest that there are broader possibilities for operating the facility than merely sticking the city with a huge annual cost for operation and upkeep.

Cody has the right idea. That is, to regionalize the facility so it serves the communities of San Clemente, Dana Point, Laguna Niguel and San Juan Capistrano as well.

While it appears that neighboring cities would initially pay more under such a system than they do by contracting with the county animal control department, it is possible that costs could be reduced as more cities joined.

They are certainly likely to get more for their money. If such a facility is able to better serve the region, it is worth trying to bring more communities into the fold.