After months of uncertainty, a nonprofit group of animal shelter volunteers and the City of Sitka have drafted an agreement for shelter operations moving forward. The 11-page “Memorandum of Understanding” between the city and the Friends of Sitka Animal Shelter comes after months of tension over shelter management that escalated following the euthanasia of six animals by gunshot last September.
The Sitka Assembly will consider approving the agreement at its meeting tonight (2-25-25).
Municipal Administrator John Leach hopes the agreement, a product of negotiations between city staff, volunteers and police, will provide a chance for the community to move forward.
“I think this is really a step in the right direction to get us something that meets the community need, and fixes, and patches some old code, and defines responsibilities a little bit better,” Leach said in an interview with KCAW last week.
The agreement includes veterinary consultations prior to euthanasia, and shores up the adoption timeline for shelter pets. City code currently allows for dogs to be euthanized after 3 or 5 days, depending on whether the dog is licensed, and gives no timeline for other pets. While the code can’t be updated without assembly approval, under the new MOU the city has agreed to keep shelter pets for three months.
“After that three month time frame, then you would go for that veterinary consultation to confirm that the animal is healthy and adoptable, and then FOSAS as a partner over there will then be given first adoption rights,” Leach said.
“It’s ‘Hey, you know, we’ve finished our police function. FOSAS, would you like to adopt this animal and continue continue efforts to try to adopt it out to the family in the community?”
Kristina Tirman is the president of FOSAS. She said the MOU isn’t perfect, but the group is hopeful it will work for now.
“Compromises have been made on both sides, but I think we all feel like it is in a place where we are ready to move forward with it” Tirman said. “[It] will allow us to at least get volunteers back in the building to be able to start caring for animals, and it will establish more clear policies, roles and expectations regarding animal care moving forward, which really at this point, is as much as we could ask for.”
The MOU also establishes a new structure for volunteering at the shelter. Leach says access to the building will be more controlled moving forward. Right now volunteers must get a key from the new animal control officer to enter the building, but the plan is to install a key card system.
Tirman said that while the three month timeline is significantly longer than the 3-5 day window that city code requires, it’s not as long as the group would want.
“The way that we see it is that the three to five days is the minimum, but there is no maximum, and it’s not common for code to stay in a maximum, because the maximum should be until the animal. Is adopted, which hopefully is as soon as possible,” Tirman said. “But for some it takes weeks. For some it takes months. For some it takes years, and by setting a maximum, you’re not taking into consideration the individual animal and what that animal might need.”
The agreement is short-term, but the groups are okay with that- it’s meant to be a stop gap while the community and assembly can work on long term code changes and restructuring of shelter operations.
“Ultimately, we need to get a structure in place that’s common in many other communities,” Leach said.
“I don’t think the community wants, nor do I think it’s really appropriate to have a police department run an animal shelter,” he said. “That’s what we need to get away from. Let them, let the police do their policing duties, and then let the folks that are good at running an animal shelter and know how to run an animal shelter, let them do that in service to the community.”
Leach said he wants to make sure that Sitka has an animal control facility and a shelter that works the way the community wants it to work, which could either be supported by volunteers or the city, and his focus is moving toward that at this point. And Tirman said she’s eager for that too.
“Then we will be able to start transitioning towards this longterm planning effort that will involve the community and will hopefully reflect public input expectations and values,” she said. “So we are ready and excited for that stage of this process, and feel like that’s where the real change is going to be made.”
If the assembly approves the MOU, it will be in effect for one year. View the full MOU here.
