Smithtown animal shelter gets upgrades under new management

Thirteen months after Smithtown’s Public Safety Department took control of the municipal animal shelter, John Valentine, that department’s chief, said the shelter had rebounded.

“The potential was always here,” he said during a shelter tour earlier this month.

The shelter looked clean and had little animal odor: the result, Valentine said, of a new air-transfer system.

Workers have installed smoke detectors and clerical work that used to be conducted in a cramped front office now takes place in a rented trailer. New software tracks the records of the five dogs and 50 cats town officials said were at the shelter the day of the visit.

Other changes are yet to come: A recent $168,750 New York State grant will go toward construction of a new trap, neuter and release facility for feral cats.

Witnesses for the town had described the shelter as filthy and chaotic in a disciplinary hearing last year for shelter supervisor Sue Hansen. She was fired last summer on charges of incompetence and mismanagement stemming from a public safety investigation.

Hansen could not be reached for comment, but her supporters have called her dedicated and innovative in her approach to animal care.

Some animal advocates, including those who are not Hansen supporters, say the shelter still needs improvements. John Urbancik, a former volunteer who is suing the town after being banned from the shelter in what he claims is a first amendment rights violation, criticized officials for taking down a shelter Facebook page he said was a valuable adoption tool and for not installing a sprinkler system in the shelter. In a fire, he said, “They might be able to get dog leashes and take the dogs out, but cats are not going to let firemen pick them up in the middle of the night.”

Valentine said that the shelter meets fire code and called the smoke detectors “state of the art.” Town spokeswoman Nicole Garguilo said that the town spent $76,086 to address almost all 24 recommendations an outside consultant made in 2015.

The town budgeted $556,112 for 10 full-time shelter workers in 2018, but will spend “significantly less” because officials decided it was not necessary to fill a vet tech position, Garguilo said. Salaries for shelter employees, which are set by county civil service charts and union agreements, are lower than in surrounding shelters, she said. In addition to the employee salaries, consulting veterinarian Susan Zollo — no relation to former town attorney John Zollo — will be paid $60,000. Total budgeted shelter spending for 2018 is $895,860.

In coming years, the 14-acre parcel the shelter shares with the town senior center and firefighter training facility will be transformed into a campus-like setting with more outdoor play areas for the animals, Valentine said.