Pet adoptions, lost and found assistance, microchipping, and volunteer opportunities return to Lompoc as county Animal Services opened its Lompoc shelter—located at 1501 West Central Ave.—for the first time since 2020, Animal Services Director Sarah Aguilar said.
When the facility first closed, a lot of people were at home and adopting pets, providing the shelter with high adoption numbers and low surrender and stray numbers. At the same time, county resources were spread thin with minimal staffing available, Aguilar said, causing the county to consolidate services from Lompoc to the Santa Maria shelter.
“It did impact the number of animals coming into the Santa Maria shelter. When strays are taken 20 minutes or more from where they actually live, that can create a barrier to them getting home,” she said. “There was an increase to the number of animals housed in Santa Maria and a reduction of pets getting back to families within the same day.”
In December, Animal Services shelters reached their capacities—with 85 dogs in Santa Maria and 42 in Santa Barbara—causing the agency to send out adoption and fostering calls to the community to find relief. Opening the Lompoc shelter is intended to give more relief to the Santa Maria shelter and connect families back with their pets sooner.
Lompoc’s shelter was set to open at the end of 2022, but hiring and training needs set the date back to January. Now, people can access the shelter Fridays through Mondays from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., Aguilar said.
“We are piloting this different schedule to see how the community responds. We’re making sure we’re open for hours after work and seeing what that effect has or what the need is,” she said.
In the first few days, the shelter already had strays come in and be found by their families immediately, she said. Animal Services isn’t housing animals there full time until it can get staffing for seven days a week, instead of four, with rebuilding the volunteer program becoming its highest priority.
“It feels as if we’re rebridging relationships, and it’s really exciting to know that we’re moving in a direction that the city wants and the community wants,” she said.
However, Lompoc City Council initially didn’t want to contract with County Animal Services again. During its June 21 meeting, the City Council voted 4-1 to accept a new contract after a lot of frustration because council members had no time to look at other options.
The five-year contract started out at $347,260 for the 2022-23 fiscal year, and it’s expected to increase 1.6 to 4.1 percent each year over the next five years, according to previous Sun reporting. If the city didn’t accept the agreement, then it would have violated laws requiring the city to provide animal services to its communities.
At the time, Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne also disagreed with how the county handled the situation and the service level the city would be getting, but she said she didn’t want to see the city lose required service in the meantime. Osborne told the Sun on Jan. 10 that she’s thrilled the county reopened its Lompoc facility to provide local resources.
“I look forward to the kennel space being rehabilitated and reutilized; that was our biggest concern given the amount of money we pay to county Animal Services,” Osborne said. “Given the pandemic, I absolutely understood the temporary closure and revamping of services, but it’s really important to restore services to our community.”
After multiple years of ongoing frustration with increased costs and inconsistent service, she said the city is still monitoring the county’s progress in reopening its services—which will impact the city’s decisions regarding future contracts. Animal Services Director Aguilar said that city staff seemed to be satisfied with their service thus far.
“I felt nothing but support from the city. Several city staffers came out and toured on Friday [Jan. 6], including the city manager and the city clerk and some other folks,” she said. “It was a great opportunity to connect and explain what we’re doing as far as county Animal Services go.”
City staff will present a report about Animal Services during the Jan. 17 City Council meeting. Aguilar said she hasn’t seen the report and doesn’t know the details, but it was planned to be released by Jan. 13—after the Sun went to press.
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2023.