Queens Tribune, March 11-17, 1999
Animal Shelter Plan Runs Astray
By MELANIE CARROLL
Queens could be a step closer to getting a full-service animal shelter. Then again, maybe not.
Presently, the borough's animal shelter, run through the Department of Health by the Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC), is little more than a drop-off center. No animals spend the night and most are carted off to Manhattan's full service shelter. Only a handful of animals are adopted out of the center.
Borough President Claire Shulman has asked for a substantive animal shelter for years. So why is it taking so long? Money is not the issue. This year's city budget includes $4 million for a new Queens shelter, yet no tangible progress has been made and $1. 7 million has been transferred from Queens to the Manhattan shelter's renovation project be ginning this summer.
"The Manhattan shelter needs major renovation, and while the Queens shelter is important, we borrowed $1.7 million from Queens for the Manhattan renovation," said a Department of Health spokesman. "When Queens is ready to build their shelter, the money will be returned."
Chances are, Queens won't see the money or the shelter before the end of the century as city agencies drag their feet. The Department of Citywide Administration is charged with finding an appropriate location for the new shelter. "We are evaluating possible sites in Queens to replace what the CACC is using now," said a spokeswoman for the Department of Citywide Administration. "We are looking at three sites. They are each in the ballpark of 2,000 to 3,000 square feet."
Borough Hall wants the shelter and is chomping at the bit. At the budget hearings we asked what was causing the lag," said Borough President Shulman's spokesman Dan Andrews. We are asking for a status report on the three sites they are looking at. We still don't know what the problem is. We want it to happen."
The Department of Citywide Administration declined to disclose information about three possible shelter sites, except to say that 3,000 square feet is the maximum size. Last month, the CACC told the Tribune that the anticipated Queens animal shelter would be ten times that size -- roughly 30,000 square feet.