City to vote on land-lease agreement with Humane Society at Monday meeting

The Ponca City Board of Commissioners, in its meeting scheduled for Monday night, will vote on several items as a part of its consent agenda, including a land lease agreement between the City of Ponca City and the Ponca City Humane Society.

The agreement is for the reconstruction of the Ponca City Humane Society facility located in Darr Industrial Park.

As an item on the consent agenda, the lease will not be discussed individually and all items on the consent agenda will be approved with a single vote. Commissioners could vote to remove it from the consent agenda and place it on the regular agenda.

The Ponca City Humane Society has undertaken a major capital campaign to renovate the existing facility. In addition, there will be construction of additional space to provide more services and hold more animals for adoption, according to a summary of the agreement.

It is anticipated that there will be at least $800,000 in renovation and construction improvements to the facility.

This lease is a modification of the current lease the Humane Society has with the city. It includes the current land and additional land on West Prospect in the Darr Industrial Park.

The total land lease with the additional land would be for approximately 1.29 acres.

There is an in liue of rent payment for services that will be provided to the ctiy. They include, but are not limited  to, operating a rescue service which will insure that all animals are either spayed or neutered and have all appropriate shots prior to placement with private individuals.

The facility will house, transport, and hold high-risk animals needed as evidence in cruelty or neglect litigation (civil or criminal).

The agreement says that while  the Humane Society will be allowed  to work with other comparable animal organizations providing rescue services, the animals from the city which meet adoption standards shall be entitled to priority placement in the Humane Society’s facility.

The agreement states the initial term of the lease is 25 years with options for five additional five-year extensions, for a total of a possible 50-year lease.

This lease would become effective on March 1, 2019.

In the details of the lease, it states all animals will be spayed/neutered and have all appropriate shots before being placed with private persons, or with a voucher system assuring such care will be provided within 30 days of placement.

Because the Humane Society does not have facilities for handling seriously vicious animals and has limited facilities for handling contagious animals, the city will retain vicious animals as it may find necessary and contagious animals will be handed on a case-by-case basis.