Aug 24, 2021
Buddies,
In 2017, the Austin Metropolis Council handed a decision that APA! might keep on the City Lake Animal Heart (TLAC) property for 3 25-year agreements (75 years!). Metropolis employees and APA! had been directed to barter and execute an settlement over the subsequent three years.
Since then, APA!, with the wonderful assist of our pro-bono attorneys at Drenner Group, and the Metropolis has been in intense negotiations, leading to two emergency extensions to permit either side extra time to come back to a consensus. This has confirmed very tough and our precise future is unknown. We wish to just be sure you, as a valued APA! companion, are being introduced alongside extra totally as this unfolds and a remaining choice is reached within the months forward. What’s essential so that you can know at the moment is that it’s inconceivable for APA! to function with the TLAC facility service settlement at the moment in place, and because of the state of our facility, we’ve no alternative however to both renegotiate these phrases or discover a new facility. We would like you to pay attention to this as we proceed to work with the Metropolis of Austin to find out our future within the months forward.
I’m certain you might be asking: why can’t you simply maintain your present phrases? The highest-line reply to that’s that it’s difficult. The problems contain necessities across the parkland that TLAC sits upon, the campus buildings in varied levels of disrepair, the Metropolis’s Lamar Seaside Grasp Plan, operations at each Austin Animal Heart and APA!, and our imaginative and prescient for the way forward for No Kill. It’s an excessive amount of to pack into one letter. In an effort to maintain you knowledgeable however not overwhelmed, we can be sharing this info in items over the subsequent few weeks. We welcome your questions and ideas as you hear our plans unfold.
After we began APA!, our purpose was to make Austin a sustainable, No Kill metropolis. We envisioned a spot the place all pets could be really secure from loss of life and the place euthanasia as a result of area and cut-off dates would now not exist. Now, greater than a decade and almost 100,000 lives saved later, we’ve succeeded in fulfilling that mission year-over-year, making Austin the most secure place in America for misplaced and homeless pets, and spreading that territory into the remainder of Texas. This is not going to change, regardless of the result of our relationship with the Metropolis.
As we’re sustained completely on donations and rely closely on fosters and volunteers, we might by no means have achieved making, and holding, Austin No Kill with out your tireless assist. Your ongoing funding has helped us remodel Austin and present the world what it seems to be like when a neighborhood comes collectively to work in the direction of one purpose. Each greenback you’ve given, each hour you’ve spent volunteering, and each pet you’ve fostered or adopted have resulted in what has come to appear regular however is really extraordinary.
Thanks,
Ellen Jefferson, DVM
President and CEO
Austin Pets Alive!/American Pets Alive!