Authorizing the Committee of the Whole to hold hearings to investigate the City of Philadelphia's ability to provide animal care and control services through Animal Care and Control Philadelphia.

WHEREAS, Animal Care and Control (ACCT Philly)'s mission is to provide shelter, care and life saving efforts for homeless, abandoned, and abused animals and protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Philadelphia, providing a benefit to all of the citizens of the City regardless of race or economic status; and

WHEREAS, ACCT Philly is the region's largest animal care and control service provider and provides animal services to the City of Philadelphia by contract. Their animal control officers provide hands-on service to the City's more than 1.5 million residents and ACCT Philly's facility in North Philadelphia handles more than 32,000 animals, from dogs and cats, to small animals, reptiles, birds and wildlife, annually; and

WHEREAS, ACCT Philly relied on more than 1,100 hours of volunteer labor to adopt out hundreds of animals from its facilities, according to its most recent report in 2012; and

WHEREAS,

ACCT Philly must explore the relocation of Vector Control from 111 W. Hunting Park Avenue to another location in an attempt to provide ACCT Philly with the space it needs to properly serve the public and to meet its' growing needs; and

WHEREAS, City Council has the ability to

explore the ways to improve collection of dog license fees, review and discuss ACCT Philly's budget and investigate issues related to ACCT Philly staff morale and compensation; and

WHEREAS, City Council has a responsibility to

review and discuss the responsibilities given to ACCT Philly by the City of Philadelphia through local ordinance and to investigate to the extent by which those responsibilities have an unfunded or underfunded mandate; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the Committee of

the Whole b

e authorized to hold hearings to investigate the City of Philadelphia's ability to provide animal care and control services through Animal Care and Control Philadelphia.

End