Frisco Residents Sent to Collin County for Help
As you may recall, the Frisco City Council met for a work session meeting focused on their recent Animal Services’ efforts. The meeting was promised to Frisco residents the evening of February 7th after the City Council removed the Citizen Bond Committee’s recommendation of a $5 million item for an animal shelter from a proposed bond package for voters. At the time of the decision, Council Members asked the City to return to them within 60 days with other shelter options and ideas for more local services.
After some reminding, the Council, FriscoPD/Animal Services, and Frisco residents and animal advocates met on Tuesday, May 16th to discuss next steps. After a presentation by Animal Services, followed by noted concerns from citizens, it still appears that the two sides do not agree on what services Frisco should provide to residents and their pets.
Instead, Frisco Mayor Cheney suggested, “It seems to me that those that advocate on this position and come to every single meeting, this is something that you’re very passionate about, the lowest hanging fruit is meeting with your Collin County commissioners and advocating for their expansion to be a satellite shelter in Frisco or nearby to start serving the growing part of the county, which is Frisco, Prosper and Celina,” Cheney said. “And that is the short-term mission of the dream of having a local shelter, is use that loud collective voice to help influence your county commissioners into a paradigm shift about how they think about delivering the service for the entire county. And then our council that wants to share in that mission and initiative can also be a voice.”
Since then, Frisco residents and advocates have followed this advice, meeting with a couple of the Collin County Commissioners to discuss the Mayor’s idea. Commissioners were adamant they would not support nor could the County afford to operate a “satellite shelter in Frisco”. They believe that CCAS’ request for an expansion of 10K square feet at a cost of $5.7 million to be placed on the bond package is a more practical option.
In support of this effort, Frisco and Collin County animal advocates are now combining efforts to raise awareness for the Shelter’s request. The first step is a writing campaign encouraging the public to reach out to their Commissioners Court and ask them to please place this proposal on the ballot for residents to vote on in November.
Read more at —
http://friscospetproject.org/be-a-voice-for-animals-in-collin-county/