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Pet project
Yonkers shelter kicks off fundraising campaign
By MARY SUE IAROCCI
August 4, 2008
As Yonkers City Council
president, Chuck Lesnick attends a lot of news conferences; until last
week, he’s never left one bearing a dog.
Lesnick adopted Hope, a Jack Russell Terrier named after a private
fundraising initiative campaign for a new 14,000-square-foot,
state-of-the-art shelter, “the kind of place that every other
municipality wishes they had,” Mayor Phil Amicone said.
The city hopes $1 million of the estimated $4 million project will be
raised by the initiative, called Building Hope for the New Yonkers
Animal Shelter.
“These animals deserve the best, and things are going to change for them
dramatically when the new facility is built,” said Jill Potter of
Bronxville-based not-for-profit organization Shelter Pet Alliance after
she presented the first donation, a check for $500. “We are very excited
and very grateful, and I hope that people will send money for this
project. It’s a wonderful cause and you’ll be helping a lot of animals.”
The fundraising effort is being led by Dee DelBello and Dr. Kathleen
Pistone-Carucci.
Yonkers Parks and Recreation
commissioner Augie Cambria with a Pomeranian at the existing shelter on
Fullerton Avenue.
“This is truly a
public-private partnership,” said DelBello, publisher of the Westchester
County Business Journal. “Every penny, every dime, every quarter that
you give to this effort will help making this shelter a reality.”
Pistone-Carucci said the current shelter, an old and antiquated
facility, is “not an attractive place” which lessens animals’ chances of
adoption.
Yonkers has about 200,000 residents and the 6,000-square-foot shelter is
really not big enough to accommodate the number of animals in need of
the shelter’s services.
Augie Cambria, Parks and Recreation commissioner, said police get seven
to 10 calls a week concerning abandoned animals in need of rescue.
Councilman John Murtagh with Tess,
a dog he adopted from the shelter.
“This is the cumulating
event of many years of hard work behind the scenes by so many people,”
said Rosemary Lee of the Yonkers Humane Society. “Every animal gets
treated well here no matter what their condition, and that’s what’s made
us want to go forward and volunteer and give them a better shelter,
because in the city of Yonkers, they deserve it and we deserve it.”
The city has appropriated $2.3 million in capital funds for the new
shelter, which will be built along the state Thruway adjacent to the
Ridge Hill Village site.
The new shelter will be constructed in partnership with the county.
Mayor Phil Amicone said the city has had the money to help fund the new
shelter for a couple of years, “but the biggest issue was where we could
put it, and that’s where we turned to Westchester County.”
Amicone said the easily accessible location with plenty of room was on
county property.
“We need a place that really will allow us to build the kind of
state-of-the-art facility that we deserve in a city this size,” Amicone
said.
Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone and City Council President
Chuck Lesnick (holding Hope, a Jack Russell Terrier).
With the help of county Legislator Ken Jenkins, the state changed the
designation of two acres of land on what is now the Westchester County
Municipal Recycling Facility off the Thruway and has been reclassified
so that it can be used for the shelter.
The current shelter, which has been around since 1960, is on Con Edison
property and was donated to the city.
Amicone said unfortunately, as a large city with more essential needs
like education and public safety, the animal shelter is “one of those
things that’s been left behind for too many years.”
“So many of the animals that have come through this facility and didn’t
make it out,” Amicone said.
Deputy Animal Control officer Marcos Segarra with a
pit bull up for adoption at the shelter.
Amicone said factors involved are the location of the shelter, which is
“on kind of a tough street in an industrial area” and people didn’t know
where the place was.
He said the new shelter would give the volunteers better ability to
“bring the cats and dogs that come here back to good health and make
them more attractive for adoption by families.”
The city awarded $60,000 to the architect-engineering firm, Design
Learned Inc., for conceptual designs.
“We are looking to finalize those plans very shortly and then from there
it goes into phase two where the design team and the engineers start
drawing up plans,” Cambria said.
“It’s a great intergovernmental effort and it’s going to be a great
shelter in a phenomenal location here in Yonkers,” said Lesnick said,
holding his new dog.
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