by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The two local veterinarians in town met with members of the Wellington Humane Society Monday night at the Wellington City Council work session to discuss the future direction of the proposed clinic.

After a one hour discussion, it was apparent that of all the strife the Wellington City Council has had recently, the humane society may not be one of them.

The local humane society hopes to build a 8,000 square foot shelter facility in the Industrial Park that will cost about $1.5 million.  If you add up start up costs, including getting a facility director about $2 million is needed. Linda Stewart, a representative of the humane society, said they are about half way there with funding and are looking at various funding options including getting a grant writer.

The big concern from Wellington veterinarians Richard Heersche and Dan Hefley was that the Humane Society would hire an outside veterinarian for consulting work and certain medical procedures and cut into their business.

“I can tell you, there are two vets in Sumner County and that is enough,” Heersche said.

Humane Society representatives at the council meeting did not indicate that would be the case and would indeed use the vets.

Heersche said he has been working as the primary city shelter since 1986 when there was a city pound at the landfill that was neither heated or air conditioned. Since that point he has taken in an estimated 500 to 700 animals per year.

“I lose money on the dog pound,” Heersche said. “And nobody else really wants to take over the responsibility of it.”

However, he would like to continue doing the city business and be able to release the dogs/cats after a 72 hour time frame to the humane society once the shelter is built.

Much of the discussion centered around the future of animal control in Wellington. Both Hefley and Heersche said they would like to retire in say 10 years. But they would also like someone to buy their clinic. There is nothing to guarantee that this would happen – especially in an era of online vet services.

So there is a possibility that they may shut there doors and Wellington would be without animal vet care. Thus the need for an animal shelter is confounded. Both Heersche and Hefley said they are in full support of the proposed shelter.

Stewart opened the meeting stating that even though pet care is up, and the number of animals continue to grow, there are less people taking their dogs and cats to the vets.

“But the not-for-profit organizations like the Humane Society are being blamed,” Stewart said. “And that is not true.”

Much of the discussion centered around the logistics of taking care of the animals. It was in agreement with everyone in attendance that Wellington has a cat problem, even with a city ordinance that says a home owner can’t own more than five felines.

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In other news, Wellington City Manager Shane Shields updated the council in attendance with Vince Wetta not present on a couple of other issues:

•Wellington resident Terry Nunemaker had contacted the city and said he could procure a bid to fix the road for $395,000. That did not address the base or any long-term solutions, Shields said. The council took no action until they could hear from City of Public Works Jeremy Jones.

•The council agreed to renew a current lease due to end in 2016 with APAC to use a strip of land on U.S. 81 for storage purposes.

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