Leavenworth County Humane Society, Inc, has completed a survey of residents it began last year and says residents overwhelmingly stated that they want an animal shelter to be built to serve all county residents, and they are willing to pay for it. LCHS also just announced that it purchased nearly four acres of property in Lansing Monday.

But officials with the county aren’t sure that LCHS’s plans are the best solution or even a necessary solution.

LCHS’s new property, located in the Lansing Business Center, includes three lots. Two of them were actually purchased by LCHS, and one was donated by Lansing Business Center.

“We’re confident we’ll be able to build a shelter in this business center,” Crystal Swann Blackdeer, LCHS president, said in a media release. “We hope to contract with several cities and with the county to do sheltering for their residents.”

Blackdeer said a draft contract is with LCHS’s attorney, and once it has been finalized, LCHS will start asking cities to include payment for LCHS animal shelter services in their 2016 budgets.

Blackdeer said LCHS also would need to launch a capital campaign to raise enough to get started on the building, with the goal of opening in 2016. She said support for the building is proven by the results of last year’s survey.

LCHS conducted the online survey over a three-month period in 2014, totaling nearly 500 respondents. Of those who took the survey, 97 percent responded that they want an animal shelter, many respondents specifically requesting a “no kill” shelter.

“The demand for services is clear. It’s time for citizens to tell their elected officials to include the provision of animal sheltering in their budgets,” Blackdeer said in the media release.

LCHS’s results show that 80 percent of respondents would be willing to pay $10 per household annually or $10 per pet per year for sheltering services. LCHS suggests this fee would be collected by the city or county and paid to LCHS, Inc. on contract.

But Dennis Bixby, county commissioner representing the Basehor and Tonganoxie area, said the county put together a committee to study animal control in the county and found that the primary problem was not domestic animals, but deer being struck by vehicles and wild animals.

While Blackdeer says LCHS publicized the survey and tried to get responses from people across the county, Bixby said the survey was not scientific and he thought the questions were somewhat leading, so it was not surprising that LCHS found such support for an animal shelter.

LCHS reports that currently only the residents of the city of Leavenworth have an animal shelter that will take found pets or unwanted pets from their citizens. Leavenworth Animal Control may accept animals from certain other areas of the county if they have space and if the municipality or county pays intake and holding fees.

But there are other organizations that help with animal control issues, like the Hope Spay and Neuter Clinic in Leavenworth and the Leavenworth Animal Welfare Society, which helps rescue, foster and find homes for unclaimed and stray animals and provides funds to help Leavenworth County residents who can’t afford to spay or neuter their pet.

Don Brown, who operates Hope and is now on the board of LAWS, said he thinks building a shelter would help, but funding really should go to efforts to reduce the stray animal population. He said Hope spayed or neutered 1,855 animals in 2014, funded largely through donations from LAWS.

“The solution is to try to eliminate the unwanted litters, puppies and kittens,” he said. “We choose to try to eliminate the problem before it’s born and there’s a pet that needs a home.”

The Animal Control Authority for Leavenworth County is the Sheriff’s Office. Under Sheriff Maj. Jim Sherley said the office does meet the legal requirements for providing animal control and addressing neglected or abused animals, but the office’s budget has not allowed it to provide sheltering services.

He said while the Sheriff’s Office already has a working relationship with LCHS, if the organization builds a shelter, there still could be problems providing animal control services in rural areas.

“The limiting part of that is there’s not a ‘leash law’ out in the county as there is in the cities,” Sherley said, referring to a law defining what animals should be picked up by animal control.