Cheyenne City Council Committee To Discuss Animal Shelter Tonight

The Cheyenne City Council Committee of the Whole will discuss a resolution to terminate the city's contract with the Cheyenne Animal Shelter tonight at 6.

City Councilman Rocky Case, who sponsored the resolution, says his intention is not to cut off city funding for the shelter, but rather to force changes at the facility to address allegations of animal cruelty.

The city currently pays the shelter $505,000. The committee will take public comment on the issue.
Case says among the changes he would like to see would be to grant the city council liaison to the shelter board a vote. Case is the council liaison to the board, but the position is a non-voting one. He was forced to leave a recent board meeting where the allegations were discussed.

At that meeting, the board decided to suspend shelter CEO Bob Fecht for 60 days without pay for ordering the pepper spraying of a pit bull mix named Tanner a day after the dog bit a shelter employee. Many in the community have called for Fechts resignation or dismissal.

According to former board member Lynn Boak, who resigned this week to protest the decision not to fire Fecht, a majority of the board wanted to ask for Fecht's resignation. But CAS board bylaws mandate a 2/3 majority vote to force the CEO to resign, and the votes for his resignation did not reach that number.

Laramie County District Attorney Jeremiah Sandburg announced Tuesday that no criminal charges would be filed against Fecht or two other CAS employees over the pepper spray incident. The Cheyenne Police Department had recommended the filing of misdemeanor animal cruelty charges against the trio in a report to the DA's office.