County Rejects Long-Term Animal Control for Mission Viejo

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposal for the county to provide long-term animal control and shelter services to Mission Viejo and indicated that those agreements with cities, as they have been written, may become a thing of the past.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, in recommending that the Mission Viejo proposal be killed, told his colleagues that the county expects to lose $2.6 million this fiscal year providing animal control services to nearly all of the county’s 27 cities at below cost.

To continue to approve similar contracts, particularly to new cities, he said, would only worsen the situation.

“The county is no longer financially able to absorb these costs and cannot continue to run this program in the deficit,” Vasquez said.

He recommended that the matter be studied by a panel of city and county officials that meets quarterly. The board’s vote approved that recommendation.

The vote also allows the county to continue providing the services free to Mission Viejo, as it had when the city was unincorporated and under the county’s jurisdiction, until Sept. 30.

Four-Month Contract

If the city wants to then enter into a full-reimbursement contract with the county, it could have a four-month contract.

The contract Mission Viejo had sought would have required the county to provide full animal control and shelter services to the new city in exchange for the revenue collected through fees for licensing dogs and retrieval of them from shelters. The county has traditionally provided the services to cities under those terms, Vasquez said.

County officials determined that a contract with Mission Viejo, under the below-cost terms, would cost the county $109,437 annually. All other contracts between the county and the city require full-cost reimbursement, county officials said.

As an alternative to contracting with the county for animal control and shelter services, they said, Mission Viejo could contract with nearby cities such as Laguna Beach or San Clemente.

In another action Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved a contract to provide fire and emergency medical services to Mission Viejo. Those services will be paid for through tax assessments on the city.