Longview Animal Shelter Task Force Votes to Build New Facility

LONGVIEW — Members of the Longview Animal Shelter Task Force have voted to build a new facility, and agreed it should be exclusive to the residents of Gregg County and its municipalities. The task force was formed to address the city’s burgeoning population of abandoned and stray animals. According to KETK and the Longview News-Journal, recommendations must be approved by the City Council. Residents living in cities with boundaries in multiple counties will be able to utilize the new shelter. Left without shelter service in the new arrangement would be Upshur County, Gilmer, Ore City, Hallsville, Tatum, and parts of Lake Cherokee in Rusk County, all of which have used the existing shelter’s services.

The city is facing a two-year deadline for when the Northeast Texas Humane Society shelter says it will stop accepting animals from the entities it contracts with, including Longview and Gregg County. At Wednesday’s meeting, Jearl Morris, a Humane Society board member, said the shelter would possibly be willing to continue taking animals past the two-year deadline, as long as a new shelter building is under construction.