Bradley County Commissioner Jeff Yarber.CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The Bradley County Commission plans to discuss its efforts to put county animal control into private hands when it meets Tuesday.
The search for private solutions to animal control began after a lapse in Bradley County’s contact with the Cleveland Animal Shelter to provide animal pickup and dropoff services for residents outside city limits.
Those services — which since temporarily have been restored — ended July 1 over a disagreement about the county’s portion of the animal shelter’s proposed $662,000 budget for 2013-14.
“We have a two-pronged approach,” said Commissioner Bill Winters, who serves on a couple of panels studying the issue, in a recent meeting.
Since September, an ad hoc committee of Bradley County officials has been engaged in discussions with two animal rescue groups — The Ark of Cleveland and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Bradley County — that responded to the county’s request for a private partner to handle its animal control needs.