Options for the new shelter are inadequate

Woodbridge Township has started grasping at straws when it comes to the question of what to do with the animal shelter.

The bids for a new state-of-the-art shelter have come in almost a quarter of a million dollars higher than the township is willing to spend, leaving those poor animals, quite literally, out in the cold.

This is not acceptable.

If the true test of a society is its treatment of the least among them, then the state the Woodbridge animal shelter project is in does not bode well for Woodbridge. Yes, the bids came in too high. Yes, a million plus is a lot of money at a time when the coffers are not exactly overflowing with money for generosity. But there must be something that can be done to provide some sort of respite for the animals living in conditions unfit for man or beast.

The current shelter, which is unfortunately placed in the center of an arsenic-contaminated site, is horribly inadequate and received 20 violations from the Office of Animal Welfare over a seven-month period back in 2005. The township squeaked by and did not have to pay any of the fines levied for those violations on the condition that they build a new shelter. It is a year and a half, and all the township has to show for it is rejected bids and a very daunting drawing board.

The newest option is to rent space in the basement of an abandoned synagogue. While this may be a temporary solution to a problem rife with temporary solutions, it is hardly what the township requires and certainly not what the residents were promised.

The animal shelter problem has spanned three mayors and has not come to any real conclusions other than high bids and angry residents. We applaud the township looking into other options, but feel that the best solution is to give the people and the animals what they were promised: a new shelter.

Doing that may be hard, but not impossible. In the story running in the Sentinel this week, one resident suggests giving the public the chance to raise the difference between the bids and the township's $750K. That is a good start, but ideally, the township should do what it can to add a little more than it already has planned.

Another option might be to scale down a bit the size and capacity of the shelter in order to reduce cost. That is something that should be looked at as a last resort because the need is there for a larger facility.

We strongly believe that the township has options that could appease everyone if they are willing to dig deep and pull out a little extra money.

Whatever the outcome, making the temporary shelter permanent by lack of action is completely unacceptable and moving the shelter to an abandoned synagogue may not be the right choice either.

We encourage Mayor McCormac to bring the shelter his two previous successors had promised.