Pet Orphans - Fulton Hires Cobb Group

Fulton Hires Cobb Group to Run Pound

By TY TAGAMI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jane Ogletree discovered that Thursday was a bad day to have a dog problem in Fulton County.

The Newnan woman said she was confronted by a snarling mutt -- it looked part Rotweiler -- in her mother's Atlanta driveway around 1 p.m.

When Ogeltree called Fulton County Animal Control for help, she said, she was told no officer could be sent, "because we're in the middle of changing management".

County officials were besieged with similar complaints Thursday and said the lapse of service was a temporary thing they hoped to have fixed today. They were scrambling to find someone to run the pound because their contract with the Atlanta Humane Society was expiring.

County staff had recommended a replacement through a two-month bidding process, but county commissioners -- the ultimate decision makers on such contracts -- rejected the results at a meeting Wednesday and ordered new bids.

That will take about two months. So county officials needed a temporary arrangement to see them through.

At about 5:40 p.m., Deputy County Manager Terry Todd said that the county had just signed a contract through May 31 with Southern Hope Humane Society, a Cobb County-based nonprofit group that was one of the two bidders the commissioners rejected Wednesday.

"Things will certainly be back to normal as soon as possible," Todd said.

Officials were in the fix because of souring relations with Atlanta Humane, which had run the pound on Marietta Boulevard under contract since 1974.

Atlanta Humane was euthanizing four out of five animals that came in the door, and county officials, bothered by complaints from animal advocates, decided last year to write new animal protection requirements into the contract and to open it to new bidders. The contract had been unchanged since 1982.

In early January, before the county had begun taking bids, Atlanta Humane announced it was ending the contract in 90 days.

Only two organizations submitted bids -- Southern Hope and a new for-profit company called Synergy Management Services, which listed an address at a Mail Boxes Etc. A panel of county staff recommended Synergy Management, which promised a smooth transition by employing the pound director under Atlanta Humane.

The commissioners questioned that recommendation. "How do you determine that a company that didn't exist 30 days ago has any kind of management expertise?" Commissioner Nancy Boxill asked.

Southern Hope, a group of volunteers who find homes for unwanted animals, will run the pound for 60 days until the county can go through another bid process. The group will be paid $175,000 a month, said Commissioner Robb Pitts, who worked with County Manager Tom Andrews on the agreement.

That works out to $2.1 million a year, just over the $2,050,000 Atlanta Humane was paid. Atlanta Humane also got about $500,000 a year in fees for licensure and impoundment of strays.

Ownership of the equipment needed to run the pound was in question until Thursday evening. The county sought a temporary restraining order Wednesday to block Atlanta Humane from removing equipment. A judge refused to grant the order, saying the county had failed to prove ownership.

On Thursday, county officials agreed to purchase the equipment from Atlanta Humane for $350,000, said Susan Laccetti Meyers, spokeswoman for County Chairman Mike Kenn. That's the amount Atlanta Humane had demanded when it announced it was severing the contract.