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ANIMAL SHELTER
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“I’d like to have an off-site location, like we did at the mall,” she said, referring to the Shelter Hope Pet Shop that used to operate at the Westfield Valencia Town Center.
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Councilwoman Marsha McLean said the Castaic Animal Care Center is really a county responsibility, so it shouldn’t be the city’s job to pay for needed upgrades.
“I think we need to ask the county to step up because it’s their facility, and the more money that we put into it, the less they will,” McLean said. “If the shelter needs to be expanded, they need to step up, for goodness’ sake. And so, I would be very much in favor of, a bunch of us should go down there, now that they’ve opened it up, and ask them to step up.”
She also supported looking at other ways the city could augment shelter services.
A Citygate study commissioned by the City Council found the shelter was under capacity and meeting the needs of the city of Santa Clarita, a claim that several local volunteers challenged during the public-comment portion of the meeting.
After advocates showed up at City Hall in February 2022, the City Council authorized Citygate to spend up to $40,000 to conduct a study as to whether the Castaic animal shelter was adequate to address the city’s needs.
A few of the public commenters, including three who claimed heavy involvement in the shelter as volunteers, openly questioned the accuracy of the numbers shared by the DACC.
Marcia Mayeda, director of Animal Care and Control for L.A. County since 2001, verified the data given to the consultants was accurate.
Those numbers, which were shared during Tuesday’s City Council meeting by Community Preservation Manager Tracy Sullivan, indicated the shelter’s intake for the SCV’s service area was approximately 40 dogs and 47 cats, on average, during the times studied of the highest demand, prepandemic years of 2017-19. The shelter’s capacity for each animal is 51 and 56, respectively.
The city spends about a half-million dollars each year contracting its services with the county Department of Animal Care and Control, according to the Citygate report. The study didn’t mention what it would cost for the city to build a shelter.
