Daniel Prince
July 18 deadline looms for city and county to renegotiate contract or else the agreement ends
At last Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Administrator Joe Nichols gave council several updates on city projects and other matters of concern. One of those dealt with animal control. At this month’s regular Union County Council meeting, the council voted to end its intergovernmental agreement with the city to provide animal control, saying they wanted to renegotiate the contract. Nichols said with the 60 days’ notice, the contract would end July 18, and if another agreement is not in place, animal control will fall back on the city. Nichols said he has expressed his opinion to the county on the matter:
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Nichols said at this point, the city is still paying around $31,000 a year for the service, and Hart has reached out to him about setting a time to negotiate a new contract. Nichols said he checked around with other counties, and with the exception of the City of Spartanburg, other surrounding counties handle animal control for the municipalities within their borders. The City of Spartanburg does their own animal control. He said he reached out to the city attorneys, and everything is being done legally according to the contract in place. Nichols said he doesn’t mind sitting down with Hart to negotiate a new contract, or whomever the interim supervisor will be after Hart resigns, but they only have until July 18 to get something new in place, or else animal control will belong to the city again. Council members expressed interest in having a workshop session with the county to discuss the issue.