ATLANTA — Fulton County officials confirmed to 11Alive Tuesday afternoon that they have received the intergovernmental agreement signed by the Atlanta mayor that would move to resume normal operations for animal control. Officials added Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts will add a resolution to the county Board of Commissioners agenda for the meeting Wednesday so the board can act to resume services.
This comes after The Atlanta City Council took steps to restore animal control services with Fulton County on Monday.
County officials announced earlier this month that its agreement to provide animal control services to cities within Fulton County had expired at the end of 2023. A new agreement was put in place, but commissioners said Atlanta was the only city that hadn't signed it at that time.
Services to the city stopped on April 5, with Fulton officials saying the county was operating out of good faith efforts for more than three months without a signed intergovernmental agreement in place. On the other hand, Atlanta city officials claimed that the county had backed out on a tentative agreement that had been reached to provide services.
"Since April fifth, we probably accepted about 93 or 95 cats and dogs from the City of Atlanta at the shelter. So, there was never any real animosity between the County and Atlanta. There was just a technical legal issue that we had to overcome," described Pitts, adding he was confident they would come to an agreement.
On Monday, Atlanta City Council members unanimously passed a resolution to get the ball rolling on having a signed agreement and having service restored with the county.
"This item was an immediate consideration and sent to the mayor’s office post-haste," a City Council release said.
On Tuesday, Councilmember Andrea L. Boone said the services are "essential" and described it as "disheartening to see politics get involved in such a very important subject, such as animal services."
She added the services are also something people in her district rely on.
"Members from Adamsville all the way to the Bankhead area and Vine City suffer with stray dogs, dead dogs and animals that need care," Boone said.
The purpose is to authorize the mayor or his designee to execute an agreement with Fulton County for services within the city 24 hours a day for five years -- with the contract ending on Dec. 31, 2028. A caveat to this is that it's a multi-part process to have a binding agreement.
The first part is the resolution, and then the City Council will have to pass an ordinance about services as well. In general, the resolution asks that the agreement with the county be consistent with a draft version.
A draft agreement provided by the city and mentioned in the resolution said the contract would be for five years. In addition, it said the city will pay for the services based on a percentage of the total program's Annual Shared Costs calculated by the county. This means the city's payment is based on its proportional monthly calls for service, the classification and the location of calls received by the animal control services vendor during a month of services -- relative to the other cities in Fulton County that use the service.
The resolution also agrees that the City Attorney will prepare the agreement for execution, negotiate the payment funding formula and later approve it. An agreement will not become binding until it's signed by Mayor Andre Dickens and later delivered to the county. In general, the money could be of some contention as Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts previously told 11Alive that the new agreement, which had been in discussion since July 2023, showed cost increases to cover inflation and operational costs.
During the meeting, council members expressed their frustration about the stopped services. Questions were also raised about whether Monday's effort would be enough to convince the county to change its perspective and allow services to resume.
"There are regressive tactics and messiness coming from the other side. I think what we're doing right now, we're playing with lives," Councilmember Antonio Lewis said. "We should have kept the agreement that we had. We should have performed the services."
Councilmember Michael Julian Bond also said that during his years with the city, he had never seen the divide between Atlanta and Fulton County governments become so apparent.
"This is something that has to be done. There are a lot of issues between Atlanta and Fulton County," he said. "Thirty years ago, there was an extremely close working relationship between Fulton County and the City of Atlanta. I have never seen it as far apart as it is today. It is past time to reconcile and deal with those issues."
He also stated that almost 49% of the county is the City of Atlanta.
In the meantime, the City said that residents should call 311 for minor matters and 911 for emergencies.
11Alive asked for data regarding calls for service since it stopped on April 5. The City said 311 received 21 calls. As of 6:30pm, 11Alive had not received numbers from the City regarding APD's calls.