Residents push to keep Maricopa County animal shelters open

PHOENIX — A Mesa woman has launched an online campaign in an effort to block a decision made by Maricopa County officials that would consolidate the county’s animal shelters into one location.

The petition was started last week by Mesa resident Kelly Richardson. More than 25,000 people have signed it as of Sunday.

The county announced last month that it would consolidate its two animal shelters — located at 7th Avenue and Durango and another at the Loop 101 and Rio Salado — into a “into a renovated and expanded central location” on the county’s Durango campus.

The Board of Supervisors has already approved $1.8 million for the shelter in an effort to use “the latest science about animal behavior and workflow in this type of facility,” the county said in a news release.

This, the county explained, would be the “next step in Animal Care and Control’s mission to save lives and provide better customer service.”

“Centralizing our services to one high-functioning center that meets the standards of care expected today would be a good step for all of Maricopa County’s homeless animals and the people who care about them,” director Mary Martin said in the release.

“This move would allow us to reallocate staff to services that reunite people with their pets and prevent the break-up of families in the first place.”

The county has been running into some major issues with its East Valley location, namely the lack of ability to expand its facilities and a recent outbreak of “strep zoo” that may have claimed the lives of three dogs.

But signers of the petition say consolidating the shelters would “negatively affect shelters that border Maricopa County by inflicting the same over-population issues that the MCACC-East facility faces.”

“The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors needs to recognize that 70 percent of Maricopa County’s population resides east of 27th Avenue, thus making it in the best interest of the community for all approved money to be spent on land and a new MCACC facility in the East Valley,” the petition reads.

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