Shelby County offers animal control plan for communities

SHELBYVILLE Shelby County communities without their own animal control officer will be paying for those services under a plan approved Wednesday by the Shelby County Board

Were not obligated to do animal control in municipalities, but they know we will do it, said Brad Hudson, the county's animal control officer.

Under the new plan, towns and villages can choose to pay a flat fee of $2 per person of their population or $100 an incident for calling animal control. Moweaqua, for example would pay $3,640 under the per capita plan.

The county hopes the additional revenue will offset mileage costs for Hudsons travel within the county.

Were a big county, said Bob Jordan, chairman of the Animal Control Committee. We cant run from Siegel to Moweaqua in less than an hour.

The largest community in the county, Shelbyville, already has an agreement in place with the county.

Shelby County Board Chairman Bruce Cannon said Shelbyville would not fall under the new plan because the city already pays $5,000 a year for the service and provides the dog pound site and other services.

Shelbyville is not getting something other communities are not, Cannon said. The pound is on their land, they provide lawn mowing and snow removal, and they share the building maintenance costs with us.

Hudson said another area where Shelbyville helped the county was police dispatcher Penny Standefers campaign to find homes for abandoned dogs and cats.

She sends hundreds of them to adoption or foster or rescue, Hudson said. That saves us a lot in care and euthanasia costs.

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Shelby County offers animal control plan for communities