Bob Guenzel's Update - June 25, 2007
“Public & Private”
“Public & Non-profit” “Public & Private & Non-Profit”
Sound familiar? I hope you are familiar with those types of partnerships. I certainly hope that if you aren’t at the moment, you will be soon. At any time, these collaborations are often the very best way to create positive impact in our community. But in times of fiscal constraint, they can be the only way forward for making crucial enhancements to needed services.
The Delonis Center – providing shelter as well as services to people who have become homeless in this County; SafeHouse - dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault that provides free services for any person victimized who lives or works in Washtenaw County; both of these organizations provide critical services today largely due to public, private and non-profit collaboration.
In a presentation to the Board of Commissioners’ at last week’s Ways & Means meeting, the Humane Society of Huron Valley made a very compelling case for another public/private/non-profit initiative. The Society needs to increase their operating funds and, if you’ve ever visited the present Humane Society shelter – built in 1951 - you know that they are in extreme need of a new building.
What you might not know is that the County is statutorily mandated to round up and, essentially, euthanize stray dogs. Here in Washtenaw County we have been lucky enough to have the Humane Society of Huron Valley take a strong animal welfare approach to those regulations - something that I think mirrors this community’s culture.
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Looking at some of the data, it’s clear that the County hasn’t been putting in nearly the amount of dollars spent in surrounding counties which carry out these regulations themselves – or even in the communities like ours which help fund local non-profits like our Humane Society.
The gist of the proposal is for the County to increase the amount of money that we should be paying for these statutorily mandated services, and to expend $1M from our capital reserves towards the construction of a new facility – with an expected $6.5M coming from private donations in the community through a County issued bond. The Humane Society proposed to pay off that bond within five years.
There was a lot of interest from the Commissioners in this proposal, and there will be more discussion and scheduled votes at upcoming meetings in July and August.
Kerry Sheldon of my office provided some of the research on the feasibility of this proposal, and helped Humane Society Director Tanya Hilgendorf present to the Board. Kerry came up with an interesting quote from Mahatma Ghandi: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
This assignment for Kerry was personal as much as it was professional. (See here).
I hope you have a great week!
Bob
