Manatee County Animal Services takes control of Downtown Meowtown from Animal Network volunteers

MANATEE -- Downtown Meowtown is no longer run by the nonprofit Animal Network.

Manatee County Animal Services took over the cat adoption center Monday in downtown Bradenton. Sue Kolze with Animal Network emailed the volunteers formerly running Downtown Meowtown about the administrative change Dec. 22.

"Due to a recent liability issue involving DTMT, Animal Network has been advised that it is not beneficial to us to continue as we have in the past; there must be an Animal Services staff person manning the facility," Kolze said in the email. "I've discussed this with the county and thankfully they have agreed to assign a MCAS staff member on site to replace the Animal Network DTMT admin team, which will allow DTMT to remain open."

Kolze said the request was initiated by Animal Network, adding it was "completely mutually agreed."

Last February, the Manatee County Commission approved adding Animal Network to its list of authorized charitable organizations.

"It's all positive," Kolze said Tuesday. "It's just a little bumpy right now because of the transitional period. ... It's going to streamline things a lot."

Bob Smith, county Public Safety Department director, said Downtown Meowtown "turned into a little bit too much for them to handle on a volunteer basis."

"It's been successful," Smith said of Downtown Meowtown. "We want to continue it and support it as much as we can."

Animal services staff members will rotate on site every day with a couple of senior shelter staff members, Smith said.

"Our intention is to ultimately appoint someone as full time staff over there to supervise facility," Smith said.

When Downtown Meowtown opened in January, Animal Network opened an account called Doing Business As Downtown Meowtown with the state. Kolze said they are canceling the account.

The estimated $1,300 left in the account will be spent on the cats, Kolze said.

Downtown Meowtown will initially remain open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, but the hours may be expanded in the future, Smith said.

"We don't want to do a whole lot of change until we get everything settled," he said.

Animal services volunteers are still needed, Smith said, including former Animal Network volunteers.

"They've done a great job and we want to continue to do that because it's been a great help," he said.

Sandra Hiland, a Manatee County Animal Services volunteer since April 2014 who has volunteered at Downtown Meowtown since January, said the volunteers don't know what is going on.

"We are all afraid they are just going to shut it down," Hiland said.

Hiland said she's rarely seen someone from animal services at the facility.

"How all of a sudden would we trust animal services has a staff person to be put out there?" she said. "It doesn't make any sense. I don't trust animal services taking over this place is really going to happen."

Debara Mathews, a lead volunteer at Downtown Meowtown and part of the Animal Network administration team running Downtown Meowtown, said they got off to a rocky start Monday but Tuesday was "much better."

"In anything that changes, there are bumps in the road," she said, adding she got positive phone calls from volunteers Tuesday. "We really do want to work with animal services and the people that are volunteering are all about the cats. We don't care about who is running it, but what we care about who is letting us take wonderful care of and love these cats."

Nine cats remaining at Downtown Meowtown were all adopted Tuesday and five new cats brought in, Mathews said.

"We want to continue a partnership," she said. "We are all about the cats."

Smith said the county has no intention of closing Downtown Meowtown.

"We've got to replenish the number of cats down there," he said. "It helps alleviate some of the head count in Palmetto. No intention whatsoever of closing it and we are going to keep it well stocked with cats."

Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024. Follow her on Twitter@Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Manatee County Animal Services takes control of Downtown Meowtown from Animal Network volunteers ."