La Quinta looks to Riverside County for animal control

The city of La Quinta is looking to put its animal control services in the hands of the county. It already provides on-call services after hours and on Sundays for La Quinta, but a new proposal would bring the county in full-time.

“There’s been a growing interest in ensuring we have adequate staff resources to address code compliance matters throughout the community,” said La Quinta Community Development Director Les Johnson.

Right now La Quinta’s code enforcement division also handles animal control. Personnel cuts during the recession have the department stretched thin.

“We have seen an increase in certain violations in our residential communities, it could be a matter of storing vehicles improperly as well as debris not being properly taken care of,” said Johnson. “We’ve also seen in our business district some additional activities going on that in the past we may have been much more proactive in addressing than we’ve been able to do in the recent year and a half to two years.”

Now with more funds available, the city council is looking for solutions. One option is to outsource animal control duties to Riverside County.

“There would be officers dedicated to the city and then in the evening and weekends, it would be an on-call service similar to what we are experiencing now,” said Johnson.

“We have a whole army of officers and many of them have 10, 15 years experience in investigating animal cultural cases,” said John Welsh, spokesman for Riverside County Animal Control.

Johnson said this option would free up staff and allow them to focus on code enforcement violations throughout the city.

“Increase our opportunity to be both responsive in a quicker fashion as well as being proactive with certain code compliance matters again throughout the community,” said Johnson.

Pet owners we talked to like the idea.

“I think it’s nice that someone will be dedicated to pets, so many people in the valley have pets and consider them part of the family. I think it’s great that they found part of the budget for it,” said resident Jennifer Hunt.

“I think it would be okay as long as someone is stationed here to do animal control, I don’t have a problem with it,” said Barbra Johnson.

“We are just in the discussion stages right now, the city council still hasn’t approved anything yet for the city of La Quinta,” said Welsh.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors would also need to sign off on the deal if that’s the direction La Quinta decides to go.