New Animal Care Director introduced to Assembly

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Animal Care department has a new director who was introduced to the Mat-Su Borough Assembly for the first time during the Assembly approval of Ordinance 21-052. Christopher Loscar discussed to the Assembly his plans for the Animal Care department that has come under scrutiny during the budget process each of the last two years.

“Thank you for the opportunity to serve in this role, to serve our community. It’s an honor and privilege to do so. I will do my best,” said Loscar.

Ordinance 21-052 allowed for $14,874 in donations to be used by the Animal Care department to mitigate suspected black mold in the dog kennel.

“The building of that room only put kind of a plastic kind of coating about to the four to four and a half foot level around the room and the black mold is growing or what appears to be black mold is growing above that line on the regular drywall,” said Deputy Borough Manager George Hays.

Hays said that the estimated cost of the project is $25,000 to remove the black mold from the kennels. While individual Police Departments are the enforcement agencies of duty for animal-related issues inside city limits of Palmer, Houston and Wasilla, the four Animal Care officers provide regulation and enforcement services to the entire borough, as well as caring for lost pets and allowing for adoption of cats and dogs.

“One of the things on my near future goals is to bring in a company that specializes in the design, building and renovation of animal care facilities and have them do a baseline assessment just to see where we’re at, so to use these existing funds that we have an any funds in the future appropriately,” said Loscar.

Ordinance 21-052 passed without opposition.