Alachua County Commission discusses animal shelter operations, animal euthanasia procedures, and Florence landfill air quality monitoring

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their January 27 meeting, the Alachua County Commission heard an update on animal shelter operations and discussed the decision process for euthanizing animals, extended the air quality monitoring contract near the Florence landfill, and heard ideas from Commissioners about creating a Farm Stop and building capacity for nonprofits.

Click here for our article about the first part of this meeting.

Animal shelter operations update

In an update on Alachua County Animal Resources (ACAR), Interim Director Gina Peebles said a national search has been launched to recruit the most qualified applicants for the shelter director and shelter veterinarian positions. Conditional offers were extended to two veterinarians several months ago, but neither accepted the position; in the meantime, five relief veterinarians have stepped in. There are currently 33 applicants for the director position and two applicants for the veterinarian position, and interviews are beginning soon.

Peebles said ACAR achieved a 90%+ live release rate in 2025 and was the leading adoption agency in the county for the second consecutive year. She said staff conducted a comprehensive review of the dogs that were euthanized in December, and they “identified an error in the original report. Our software company was contacted and discovered that when we updated our adoption subtypes in early December to comply with paperless checkout, the new subtypes were not mapped correctly to the report. A review was then done,… and a thorough review of the past calendar year was performed… In the interest of transparency, we will continue to post the original December report, as well as the corrected December report.”

Peebles said, “All animals euthanized during the month of December were euthanized exclusively for documented medical or behavioral reasons…. These decisions… are never made lightly… Our policy requires concurrence from at least two supervisors; these cases received approval from three supervisors, and the decisions were unanimous amongst all staff involved. The corrected live release rate for the month of December is 88.21%. For dogs only, it was 80.7%.” 

Chair Cornell on renovating the existing animal shelter while awaiting the new shelter: “I don’t have three or four years of patience. I just don’t. I just don’t have it anymore, like, I’m past it. And so, if that means it’s going to cost us a little bit more money, this Commissioner is ready to spend it.”

Chair Ken Cornell said he would “love a motion with some direction that gives this department specific resources to enhance the ability to adopt dogs… I also think that will lead into better standard operating procedures for the new facility… My second point is, if we say it’s going to take two years [to build a new shelter], it’s going to take three or four, and I don’t have three or four years of patience. I just don’t. I just don’t have it anymore, like, I’m past it. And so, if that means it’s going to cost us a little bit more money, this Commissioner is ready to spend it, because I want that facility [to be a place where] staff has what they need, the volunteers have what they need.”

Cornell said that after the move to the new shelter, he wants the existing shelter to be “a usable facility for emergency situations that we’re not ashamed of… I don’t know of any other counties around us that are making this investment, but we need to, we’re Alachua County, and I just need staff to hear me… I don’t know what the budget is for the [existing facility after the new shelter opens]. I know it’s zero right now, but we have reserves, and I’m ready to use them.”

Cornell also suggested hiring another employee to increase outreach to the community.

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said her previous motion (see our article here on the earlier part of the meeting) had directed staff to bring back a budget for renovating the old shelter, and County Manager Michele Lieberman said, “We have invested quite a bit in the shelter, but I understand that there’s still more to be done.”

Cornell asked when they would have another discussion about shelter operations, and Lieberman said that staff typically brings a presentation once a quarter about the shelter, and given that the facility staff will need some time to determine what renovations are needed, she suggested that staff would bring back options at the second meeting in April; Cornell said that would be fine.

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to ask staff to bring back renovation update ideas within 90 days, “along with the information that we’ve requested with regards to the managed intake and euthanasia flow chart, and also updates from the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, with regards to their input on the efforts that you’re bringing forward to them, the low-cost spay/neuter and those sorts of things, and the euthanasia statistics process for the database.” Commissioner Mary Alford seconded the motion. 

After Cornell asked her to add funding for additional outreach to the motion, Prizzia added, “And any updates with regards to resources needed to continue to support our volunteer coordinator and staff in utilizing our community for reducing euthanasia numbers and increasing adoptions.” Alford agreed.

Public comment

During public comment on the motion, Patricia Antonucci asked the County to require that the behaviorist be present for all euthanasia decisions, and she requested advance notice of any plans to euthanize an animal so that the public has a chance to save that animal. She also suggested that all applicants for the Director position should be asked if they like dogs and cats, and she suggested asking about their experience at a successful high-live-release-rate shelter and advocated for an emphasis on hiring someone with experience on the adoption and foster side. Another speaker suggested offering mobile low-cost spay/neuter and microchipping services. A third speaker wanted to know whether the shelter keeps track of the instances when callers are told to release an animal because there’s no room at the shelter.

Requiring the behaviorist to be present for euthanasia decisions

After public comment, Prizzia added another piece to her motion — that “the behaviorist be required to be at euthanasia decisions.”

Lieberman asked what should happen if the behaviorist is out for three weeks, for example, or if the position is temporarily vacant: “From an operational perspective, as an absolute, I do have concerns… [In those cases,] it may be months before we can make such decisions.”

Cornell responded, “If that is an issue, then you should bring that back to the Board and say, ‘We’re having an issue; a behaviorist isn’t available,’ and then we can say, ‘Get someone at UF or do something else,’ or, ‘Okay, that’s fine,’ but it will cause a level of accountability that, from my perspective, is probably needed until we can change the level of trust.”

Alford suggested that the veterinarian could substitute for the behaviorist, and Peebles said the veterinarian is part of the team making euthanasia decisions when there is a veterinarian on staff. She suggested that they “either have the outreach supervisor or the behaviorist, and then, of course, the veterinarian would be a part of the group, regardless.” She said the outreach supervisor is currently part of the team making the decisions, “unless she’s sick or on vacation or something like that.”

Both Cornell and Alford said they were okay with that, and Alford said she saw “a lot of nods from the audience.”

Prizzia said that, “as an aside,” she would like a “heads-up” if the shelter again faces the euthanasia of so many dogs.

The motion passed unanimously.

Air quality monitoring at the Florence landfill

During Manager Comments, Environmental Protection Director Steve Hostetter said the six-month contract for air quality monitoring near the Florence landfill will expire at the end of the week, so if Commissioners wanted to continue it, they would need to allocate funds; he said the preliminary results indicate that none of the hydrogen sulfide gases ever exceeded levels that would violate the permit or be a health problem.

Hostetter noted, “Humans have an incredible ability to smell hydrogen at an extremely small amount.” He said the County had received a complaint the previous day about the smell, and they did see “a couple of hits of particulate matter” on that day, but “most of those were happening at night or outside the [typical operating hours of the landfill], so those were other types of causes like smoke or dust blowing up from storms and things like that.” He asked the Commissioners for direction on whether to extend the contract. 

Prizzia said, “It sounds like [the landfill is] increasing activities, so… it sounds like it’s worth it.” She made a motion to continue the air quality monitoring program and come back in six months with a report. There were two seconds to the motion, and the motion passed unanimously.

Koppers site update

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler asked Hofstetter for an update on the Koppers site, which she had previously proposed as a location for the animal shelter. Hofstetter said there has been progress in negotiations with the Department of Transportation, and “it looks like we’ve gotten to a situation where they’re making modifications.” He said the next step is to put in a slurry wall that “is basically an 80-foot-deep trench… that will create a containment barrier for the contained soil.” He said that would “hopefully conclude the strategies for containment,” and they would move into monitoring the site.

Prizzia proposes a “Farm Stop” in East Gainesville

Prizzia also told Commissioners that she had sent them information about “something called a Farm Stop. It is a model that’s not a farmers’ market and not a grocery store. It’s kind of a hybrid model that fits in between those two things, that allows farmers to consign their stuff.” She said individual vendors could have their own stalls, but there would be a central checkout system to pay for everything. She said, “It’s working really, really well around the country… And I really think it could be a solution to our lack of ability to find a grocery store for the EHEDI/Cornerstone site.” She said she also sent the information to officials at the City of Gainesville and asked to add the topic to the joint meeting between the County Commission and City Commission in March.

Children’s Trust and building capacity for nonprofits

Cornell passed out the annual report from the Children’s Trust of Alachua County (CTAC) and said the CTAC board had a workshop on Monday to finalize its strategic plan; Cornell said they also “spent two hours and went through kind of an implementation phase — the Trust is going through a self-evaluation of this idea of nonprofit lifecycles.”

Cornell said the Trust funds 80 nonprofits, and the CTAC board thought it “would be really good if we worked with the Community Foundation [of North Central Florida] and the Center for [Nonprofit] Excellence to help those nonprofits, not just from a funding standpoint, but help them identify what stage they’re in, based on startup, growth, mature, or terminal.”

Click here for the January 27 announcement that the Center for Nonprofit Excellence is now an independent 501(c)(3) organization.

CTAC gives “Nonprofit Lifecycles” book to 80 nonprofits

Cornell said CTAC started the process of evaluating themselves a few months ago, and at the workshop on Monday, they discussed their “self-evaluation of where we are and the things we need to do. We then provided this book, ‘Nonprofit Lifecycles,’ to every one of the nonprofits, and we’re asking that they take the time over the next year to think about going through their own self-evaluation, building on this idea that we want to help build their capacity, and we want to put resources at the Trust into allocating time, expertise, and dollars into helping them build their capacity. And so our board is all in on that.”

Chair Cornell: “I feel like our reliance on our nonprofits in this community is only going to accelerate. I feel like… all the nonprofits that we’re attempting to help could really benefit from this. And if you all agree with that, then we can try to set up some sort of processes over the next year or two to help build capacity in the nonprofits that we work with.”

Cornell made a request for staff to “get with CTAC, the Community Foundation, and the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, and maybe bring back a presentation to us at a future Policy Meeting, so you all can see what’s involved in this and then see if this is something that we want to maybe incorporate with the nonprofits that the County works with, because I feel like our reliance on our nonprofits in this community is only going to accelerate. I feel like… all the nonprofits that we’re attempting to help could really benefit from this. And if you all agree with that, then we can try to set up some sort of processes over the next year or two to help build capacity in the nonprofits that we work with.”

Motion

Prizzia said, “That sounds great. I think we do have standing direction to staff to work on capacity-building with our nonprofits,” and she agreed that this could be a framework for that. She made a motion to refer that to staff, but she changed Cornell’s wording to ask staff to “consider” incorporating the “Nonprofit Lifecycle” approach “because… they may have a different idea.”

Cornell agreed and said his only interest was helping nonprofits build capacity, but he also said that Meridian and the Continuum of Care are using the “Nonprofit Lifecycle” approach, and the facilitator was at the CTAC meeting on Monday; Cornell said, “She and the board… identified that the Trust is in a high-growth stage, and it’s different for the Trust, because we’re a Special Taxing Unit; we’re not necessarily a nonprofit — we have a 12-year life that will either get extended or won’t. But it was still a really good exercise.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Wildflowers Music Park discussion scheduled for February 10

Cornell announced that the Wildflowers Music Park permit will be heard during the evening session of the February 10 meeting, and it may be continued to February 17 if it runs too long.