City Could End Animal Protection Unit

New Port Richey city leaders are ready to consider putting the city’s volunteer-run Animal Protection unit out to pasture.

City Council members indicated Aug. 20 that they are ready to talk about having Pasco County once again take over the animal control services in the city limits.

Concerns were raised recently about the unit after its kennels in Land O’ Lakes were quarantined due to an out break of parvovirus.  Two dogs died and one is sick, according to a post on the unit’s Facebook page. It was posted after the Tampa Bay Times reported the outbreak.  The unit is no longer taking in animals.

“It’s really not working out,” Mayor Bob Consalvo said. “I think we should really be looking at going back to animal control services with the county. Because we owe it to our citizens to take care of these animals in our town, and right now, we can’t even do that.”

Interim City Manager Susan Dillinger said the city and the county are drafting an inter-local agreement to have the county handle animal control services in the city again and will bring it to the council for approval next month.

The city council created the animal protection unit last year. Before that, it paid Pasco County Animal Services to handle animal control in the city.

The volunteer unit is run by volunteer and business owner Sharon McReynolds under the oversight of the New Port Richey Police Department.

It didn’t take long before troubles with the unit and the way it was run came to light. The Tampa Bay Times reported that tension arose between McReynolds and former police chief James Steffens over some of her decisions. One was her choice to treat a pitbull that was involved in an attack on a man and then shot instead of euthanizing it or adopting it out.

The Suncoast SPCA kicked the unit out of kennels next to the SPCA’s offices in Congress St. this past March after the SPCA’s  director claimed an outbreak of parvo was traced back back to the animal protection unit, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

That was when the unit moved its kennels to Land O’ Lakes.  Now, former volunteers are criticizing McReynolds for the way she runs the unit, according to the Times. One volunteer has filed a lawsuit against the city concerning her access to public records about the unit, according to the Times.

Council members praised Interim Police Chief Kim Bogart's handling of the situation. Deputy Mayor Bill Phillips complimented Bogart on his professionalism on handing a situation "we (the council) created."

"I'd like to get you back to police work," Consalvo said.

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