Kansas City plans to cut ties with KC Pet Project for animal control after years of complaints | KCUR

After years of complaints about how Kansas City Pet Project runs animal control, Kansas City officials plan to bring the division back in-house.

A review committee rejected Kansas City Pet Project’s proposal to keep running animal control services. The issue will now come before the City Council, which will ultimately decide the fate of animal control.

City Manager Brian Platt said KC Pet Project wasn’t responsive enough to dangerous animals.

“We’re getting a lot of complaints in all neighborhoods of Kansas City about loose animals, about timeliness, and about the quality of the responses,” he told KCUR.

He said after evaluating KC Pet Project’s contract renewal proposal the city decided the best way to “make sure that everyone can be safe” was to return KC Pet Project to just running the shelter near Swope Park. The shelter has been highly praised since opening in 2012.

The news came as a surprise to KC Pet Project, whose contract with the city runs through April 2025.

“Transitioning such a critical operation will create massive disruptions to the quality of care and responsiveness that Kansas City residents have come to rely on,” Tori Fugate, chief communications officer for KC Pet Project, said in a statement. “Moreover, this shift will result in a considerable financial burden on taxpayers, introducing unnecessary costs for the city to rebuild infrastructure, hire and retrain staff, and establish systems that are already effectively in place through KC Pet Project.”

Fugate said they hope to continue to provide animal control services to the city in the future.

KC Pet Project was criticized for slow response to dangerous animals

Ever since KC Pet Project took over animal control services in 2020, residents have complained that the nonprofit was too slow to respond to dangerous dogs.

One of the complaints came from Jacquie Gering, who lives in Kansas City’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. Her dog, Olive, was attacked by two pit bulls on Memorial Day weekend. KCUR discovered that the pair of dogs, named Duke and Daisy, had attacked several pets over the same weekend. The incident made Gering a vocal critic of KC Pet Project and an activist for pet safety.

“My general reaction is thank goodness,” Gering said when she learned KC Pet Project was at risk of losing the contract. “Our personal experience has been very traumatic. We love living in the city (close to downtown) and we want others to want to live here too,” she said in an email.

Last month, 46-year-old Chris Culbertson was attacked by a pack of dogs while riding his bike in south Kansas City.

Culbertson suffered 300 bites and died after two days in the hospital. His family complained that KC Pet Project did not seize the dogs the night of the attack. The case was investigated by the Kansas City Police Department and is now being reviewed by the prosecutor’s office for possible charges.

KC Pet Project took over animal control in 2020 with a promise to write fewer citations and work harder to make pet owners more responsible — a change from how the city had been approaching enforcement.

The committee that evaluated KCPP’s proposal in 2019 unanimously rejected it. But the Kansas City Council overrode the decision and approved the $2.3 million contract.

KC Pet Project wasted no time implementing its plan. A 2023 KCUR investigation discovered that in the two years before KC Pet Project took over, Kansas City animal control officers wrote 3,683 citations, according to Kansas City Municipal Court data. In the two years after, KC Pet Project officers wrote 1,973 — a 46% drop.

Fugate said KC Pet Project manages more than 15,000 calls for service each year — more than the division handled when the city ran animal control. She said their division is one of the “most respected animal control programs in the nation.”

“We believe our professionally trained Animal Services Division is in the best position to continue providing the most effective and efficient services for residents and animals in Kansas City, ” Fugate said.

Kate Quigley, who runs the Chain of Hope animal rescue group, said the city must re-dedicate itself to enforcing animal control ordinances.

“Particularly the mandatory spay/neuter ordinance of pit bulls whose failure of KCPP to enforce has led to increased overcrowding and euthanasia at the shelter,” she said

Councilwoman Melissa Patterson Hazley said she will introduce an ordinance Thursday that would direct Platt to start the process of resuming the city’s animal control operation.

“I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from neighbors and that’s what they want,” she said, adding that she was getting weekly emails with concerns about animal control.

If the council approves the ordinance, the city manager would have 30 days to come up with a plan to transition the division. That would include hiring staff and buying vehicles. Some of each may come from KC Pet Project, Platt said.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to rethink the entire service from scratch, knowing all of the complaints and the concerns that we’ve heard from so many residents across Kansas City,” Platt said.

Kim Wallace Carlson’s dog was attacked by two other dogs in Beacon Hill two years ago.

She said she is “cautiously optimistic” animal control services improve under city control.

“I never want anyone to experience the fear I experienced after being charged by two loose dogs while on a daily walk with my dog, who was bitten in this attack,” she said.