McComb Police chief Scott McKenzie and Deputy Chief Rodney Nordstorm, along with their staff and volunteers, have been diligently working to restore the McComb Animal Shelter.
At the May 17 work session, McComb selectmen approved spending up to $10,000 for a new central air conditioning system and other upgrades at the shelter.
Police Chief Scott McKenzie told the city board at a recent work session that he was capable of doing the work himself, with the exception of the installation of the air conditioning.
McKenzie said if he was able to get donations, it would cut the cost even more.
He said plans to renovate the animal shelter began almost five years ago, but city officials didn’t start the work until November 2015.
McKenzie said he and Norstrom, along with animal shelter volunteers and members of the Aiding Shelter Animals Project, used what little they had to begin the repairs.
He said up until a few years ago, he referred to the shelter as the “Green Mile” for animals — a reference to condemned inmates walking to their execution.
McKenzie said the city had a rule in effect during that time that if an animal wasn’t claimed in six days, it was euthanized.
So, work began to turn the shelter into a no-kill shelter. McKenzie said now euthanization is done in only the most extreme cases.
“We don’t do it unless a vet declares that it’s in the best interest of an animal or it’s an animal that’s vicious and we can’t tame the animal, and it cannot be adopted out,” he said.
He said he hopes one day the shelter will be able to have a behavioral room that can retrain vicious animals so they may be adoptable.
McKenzie said there is an account set up solely for the purpose of building a new animal shelter.
He’s said it probably won’t happen anytime soon, but he’s hopeful that it will.
In the meantime, he wants to renovate the shelter into one that will make the city proud.
“There are people who still don’t know where the shelter is,” he said.
The shelter, located just east of the railroad tracks on Michigan Avenue, can easily be missed if a person isn’t paying attention.
“You can’t tell the animal shelter apart from anything else,” he said.
The shelter is beside the city’s public works office and it’s very hard to tell the two buildings apart.
He hopes he can one day improve its visibility.
As for the first bit of work at the shelter, McKenzie said volunteers got rid of the rancid smell that plagued the facility for years.
McKenzie said the inside of the walls were of a styrofoam material that absorbed foul odors.
“It knocked you off your feet. It made you want to get back in your car and turn around,” he said.
McKenzie and Nordstrom also removed the styrofoam material all the way up to the ceiling.
McKenzie said volunteers repainted the walls of the shelter with epoxy paint but ran out of paint.
“That stuff is potent. Once it’s on it’s not moving,” he said.
McKenzie said now he’s working on getting cat crates to replace others that need new hinges.
He said he went before the board and asked for help to build a new shelter. However, right around that time, the city approved the building of Fire Station
No. 3.
McKenzie decided to do the renovations on his own — with help, of course.
He said he went to work over the Thanksgiving holiday to begin needed repairs.
McKenzie said Nordstrom took days off to go over to the shelter to help with the repairs.
“He took about three to four days and just went and worked on the animal shelter,” McKenzie said.
He said some money has been set aside to build a new shelter, but he knows a new shelter will take time.
“It’s probably not going to happen in the very near future,” he said.
In the meantime, McKenzie said he’s going to try to make the current shelter better.
McKenzie said that without the help of volunteers Theresa Johnston, Nancy Lazenby, the animal shelter would be in much worse shape.
“We have volunteers that take just loads of towels and blankets to their home to wash,” he said.
McKenzie hopes to have the new central air conditioning for the shelter up and running very soon.
“I can do some of the repairs on my own, but I don’t know about actually putting it in,” he said.
He said plans are in place to install a Fiberglas covering to make the walls easy to clean.
McKenzie said there also are plans to take roofing materials that will be replaced at the police department and use them to create an awning for the shelter.
He said the shelter is only for animals that are picked up in McComb city limits.
The shelter often sends its animals up for adoption out of state to places where there is a shortage of adoptable animals.
“Now, if we’re doing a transport and someone in the county has puppies and we need some to fill the cages (for the transport), then we’ll work with them,” he said, “But (the animals) have to have their health certificates before we do any of that. ... They can’t be transported without them.”
