Wednesday, Jul. 23, 2008

No-kill clinic for pets gets OK

Head of competing pet facility says decision by Richland, Lexington counties is ‘a disapointment’

Project Pet on Tuesday won a long-disputed decision to construct and operate a new spay-and-neuter clinic in the Harbison area.

Richland and Lexington County councils voted unanimously to grant the private, well-funded organization the authority to run a 25,000-square-foot clinic to be built on Bower Parkway.

Each county is to contribute up to $1.5 million in public funds toward the construction. Project Pet said it has $1 million in donations it can put toward the facility.

Richland County Council, which is partnering with Lexington County, also gave the plan final approval Tuesday.

But construction cannot begin until Lexington County gets permission from an out-of-state development company to use 950 feet of frontage for the center.

The county gave control of that narrow strip of land to developers years ago as part of the landscaping along Bower Parkway.

County administrator Katherine Hubbard told the council that staff members are having difficulty contacting the out-of-state company. Council Chairman Billy Derrick estimated construction likely would not begin until early next year.

Project Pet won the right over Pets Inc., which submitted an alternative proposal to use the $3 million commitment from the two counties for a spay-and-neuter fund.

Pets Inc. contends that would allow the counties to deal with the pet overpopulation problem in rural and poor communities, which it said is the crux of the issue.

Efforts on Tuesday to reach Delores Mungo, Project Pet’s leader, were unsuccessful.

Pets Inc. said it is a waste of money to build a center near middle-class neighborhoods and a business district, where pet owners have the resources to spay and neuter their animals more readily than in outlying areas.

“It’s not a surprise,” said Jane Brundage, of Pets Inc. “But it’s certainly a disappointment.”

She continued to take issue with the two counties investing public money in an organization that has little track record in spaying and neutering animals.

“The people who are doing the work have been left out. The people who are talking about what they will do are getting all the funding. It’s so sad.”

The center has been disputed for almost a decade.

The plan is for the center to rescue a total of 2,400 pets yearly from both counties’ pounds.

Yet the two pounds held 30,300 pets during the past two years. Together, they euthanized nearly 90 percent of those animals.

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.