BRADENTON — At Tuesday’s meeting, Manatee County Commissioners discussed the animal services kennel situation. District 5 Commissioner Bob McCann added the item to the agenda in response to animal advocates opposed to the prefab kennels the county is adding at the Bishop animal shelter.
In 2023, the previous board approved building a concrete-block kennel on the recently donated Bishop Animal Shelter, as the existing Palmetto shelter was both over capacity and experiencing crippling maintenance issues, and a proposed animal services facility in Lakewood Ranch has been canceled.
Later that year, the board approved a pivot to prefabricated kennels, similar to what they had seen at Nate’s Honor Rescue, a private facility in Manatee County, to reduce construction time, as the gap between the Palmetto facility’s usability and the time required to build the concrete facility seemed unmanageable…