HAL seeks ownership OK

Home At Last says the 38-year-old building — is getting more and more expensive to repair, lacks adequate heating and cooling, lacks ventilation for disease control, and is just too small. They hope to replace it.

“It’s no fault of anybody’s, it’s just wearing out. This fall we had to replace an electrical panel,” said Diana Bailey, president of the Home At Last board.

Per bylaws, she’s also serving as the interim executive director, since Kris Boler took another position last February.

But Home At Last can’t qualify for needed sizeable grants if it doesn’t own the building outright, since granting agencies are leery of sinking money into a property that could lose its lease.

Bailey said, “I’ve talked to all the commissioners and they all have valid questions and concerns and reasoning but they haven’t had a vote. We just want a vote, is the property on or off the table? If not, thank you, let’s move on. We’re still partners. We’re still moving forward, no negative recourse at all.”

The 3,245 square-foot building sits on just under an acre in the Port of the Dalles industrial area.

County Commissioner Scott Hege asked that it be put on the agenda, and HAL has been circulating flyers encouraging people to show up for the meeting.

“Everybody at the county wants them to be successful because they’ve done great work,” Hege said.

“They’ve supplanted a function we used to do. We spent a significant amount of resources. We built the shelter initially. We staffed the shelter. We don’t do that anymore so it’s a great benefit to us in many ways.”

Asked how a vote might go, Hege said, “there are more people more in tune in the idea of a long-term lease, and we’ll see.”

Home At Last formed as a private, no-kill animal shelter in 2000, and took over as the county’s animal shelter, which practiced euthanasia on most sheltered animals, in 2004.

In the last few years, county funding of the animal shelter has dried up. It went from nearly $81,000 in 2012 down to $18,700 in 2014, and nothing in 2014. But the facility is still grateful it gets the property at no charge.

Bailey said Home At Last has enjoyed a good relationship with the county for years, but now needs to replace its building. “Home At Last needs to find some security in obtaining funds,” she said.

In late September, a county committee recommended a 20-year lease for the animal shelter.

But Bailey said, “To have the property gives us much more flexibility than even a long-term lease.”

Ideally, Home At Last would like ownership, with a reversionary clause back to the county if it moves. Bailey said the county has had a similar arrangement with the Oregon National Guard, whose former armory was on county property.

A management agreement being proposed has a clause that either party can end the agreement with a six-month notice. Bailey said that would hamstring Home At Last in seeking grants. It would force it to basically say to granting agencies: “Please invest large sums in this building — and we could get kicked out in six months.”

When Home At Last asked for the property last fall, the county had questions about the difference between ownership and leasing on the ability to get grants. Home At Last went off to research, and came back last March to present their findings.

Hege said the research found that they could get grants under a lease scenario, just not as large as the grants under ownership.

Hege said the commission has had concerns because Home At Last “has shown some instability in their operations, and non-profits always go through ebbs and valley.”

The organization has been helmed by four different executives in its history.