Lyn Brewer spoke on behalf of the Yelm Animal Alliance during the public comment section of the City Council Meeting Tuesday evening. These comments are usually reserved for 5 persons to speak 3 minutes each about topics not on the evening’s agenda. Since no one else wanted to speak, Mayor Harding let Ms. Brewer talk and the banter went on for over 20 minutes, a rarity for a Council meeting.

Ms. Brewer identified herself with a Yelm address & Founding Chairman and CEO of The Integrity Institute, Inc., a for-profit research company that predicts and indexes structural integrity of organizations. She said she was the designated spokesperson to discuss improvements in Yelm’s Animal Shelter situation including:
– better directional signs to the Shelter
– informational flier inserts in water bills
both of which she offered to pay herself
– fostering animals
– extending hold times prior to sending animals to County

The Mayor corrected Ms. Brewer and said that while policy was to hold animals for owners to reunite with their pets for 5 business days, the city holds them for up to 10 days.

Mr. Harding told the large collective of this group that they have misinformation;
specifically “we’re involved with animal control, not an animal shelter or rescue; that’s not the service we (City of Yelm) provide.”
He continued, “We’re willing to work with groups such as yours. What you want us to address, we’re addressing in an indirect fashion.”
The city would prefer to give all of the animals to a licensed shelter after the hold period. Mr. Harding said the current facilities are sufficient. He suggested this group form a licensed shelter.

Council member McGowan said, “it seems alot of the animals are dumps (abandoned pets). The group should be advocating programs to spay & neuter animals and a couple of different strategies to handle the problem.” If there was to be a a shelter, the city clerk pointed out that there are zoning restrictions for an in-city shelter.

Council member Isom suggested raising the city’s pet licensing fees to a substantial level on those pet owners that have not spayed or neutered their pets while reducing licensing fees for those that have ID chips implanted on their pets.

WHAT SAY YOU?