An effort to be proud of

By Heber Taylor
The Daily News
Published December 1, 2011

Galveston County voters should be feeling particularly good about a decision they made in 2008.

It was just after Hurricane Ike hit, and many people wondered whether large parts of the county would ever recover. Still, voters said yes to a big bond issue. A lot of good things have been done with the money. This week, the county opened a new $5 million animal shelter in Texas City.

The old shelter was built in 1993 to house 4,500 animals a year. By the time the new shelter opened this week, the shelter was handling twice that number. It’s hard to do your best when your facilities are overwhelmed.

The new shelter comes with a change in emphasis — adoption, as opposed to housing. That’s reflected in the design of the new building and the focus of the staff.

It’s a nice facility, and people in Galveston County should be proud of it.

As we celebrate the achievement, it would be wise to remember the advice of the committee that oversaw the construction of old shelter in the early 1990s. That committee pointed out that the county is growing and urged county leaders to review the operations of its shelter every 10 years, with a view toward keeping up with growth. That’s still good advice.

(News Media: For more information contact Kurt Koopmann, GCHD Public Information Officer, 409-938-2211 or kkoopman@gchd.org)