Sudden public interest in animal shelter plan

CLINTON — Suddenly, residents are interested in the county’s plan to build a new animal shelter. On Thursday, a normally sparsely attended public safety committee meeting became a full house of interested parties, some admittedly led to the meeting by rumors, others curious about the process the county was using on the project.

A number of people were listed on the agenda to speak to the committee about the new shelter. Local businessman Rick Sullivan was concerned about two issues, whether Morton Buildings would hire local contractors for the project and about the proposed building site.

“I’m no expert on compaction, none whatsoever,” Sullivan said. “But if there are plans to put four feet of dirt on the site where they want it to level up with the other buildings, you’re going to have major, major problems in a year or two years, when that concrete settles.”

The members of the committee were not by any means certain fill would be brought in to the site.

“We have nothing yet from Morton Builders that tells us that we need to have anything brought in to be able to get the site prepared,” said county board chairman Melonie Tilley.

For the complete article see the 07-06-2012 issue.

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