BULLETIN: Moore Picks 5 Members for Animal Control Oversight Panel; ‘Buddies’ get Pricey Pick-ups
BULLETIN: Cecil County Executive Tari Moore has selected five people to serve on a new animal control oversight panel and submitted their names to the County Council, which has to confirm the nominations.
Council members submitted a list of their own preferred nominees to Moore, who was not bound by that list. However, she had agreed with the Council to select one person from each of the five Council districts.
The nominees are:
–Madelyn B. Yelton (Dist. 1)– who owns a dog kennel and trains retrievers;
–Kerrianne Hanlin (Dist. 2)– a veterinarian who took over the North East Animal Hospital on Route 40 over a year ago;
–Kelly Kalman (Dist.3)– a horse rescue volunteer;
–Ricky Lewis II (Dist. 4)– a cat rescue operator;
–Veronica Dougherty (Dist. 5)– a Cecil College biology professor who also trains seeing-eye dogs.
None of the nominees appears to have ties to A Buddy for Life, Inc., the Delaware dog rescue group that took over animal control for Cecil County on 1/1/13, despite having no shelter of its own to house animals and no experience in operating an animal control service.
The county is paying the Buddy group over $2.1 million under a three-year contract rammed through the county Commissioners board in the final moments before the shift to Charter government in December.
Meanwhile, Cecil Times has obtained documents showing the county government has ordered two new pickup trucks and “caps” for the Buddy group that will be delivered in March. The truck purchase, which was not submitted to the County Council for approval, will cost taxpayers more than $66,000.
A full report will be upcoming later on Tuesday on Cecil Times.
