At the same time many Vineyard businesses are succumbing to the recession and closing their doors, the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard in Edgartown is taking in more money than it is spending, allowing it to expand hours and raising hopes it will continue to operate through next year and beyond.
“It’s a Vineyard success story, and there aren’t a lot of those right now,” said Dukes County manager Russell Smith, who oversees the shelter’s finances. “Things are going better than we hoped.”
The Dukes County Commission this week unveiled a financial plan for the takeover of the Island’s only animal shelter, the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown, after the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals pulls up stakes and leaves the Island at the end of this week.
The plan would use a mix of contributions from the towns and fund-raisers to keep the facility, already renamed the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard, in business.
The newly created Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard opens today at the site of the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown, quietly taking over where the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which ran the facility for the past 50 years, left off.
The old MSPCA sign came down early yesterday morning, and the last remaining animals — which included a German Shepherd mix and several cats — were adopted over the past week or sent to the MSPCA shelter in Centerville.
The Island adoption center run by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) has operated with an average annual loss in excess of $100,000 for the past five years, according to an agency spokesman.
Breaking a silence of several weeks on the operational details of the Vineyard shelter scheduled for closure May 1 by the financially troubled charity, spokesman Brian Adams told the Gazette this week that more than 50 per cent of the operating budget comes over on the boat.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) shelter was tight-lipped about details behind the decision to close the Vineyard branch of the financially troubled organization this week.
The MSPCA announced last Thursday it would close the Katharine M. Foote memorial building in Edgartown on May 1, along with two other Massachusetts branches, in the wake of a crippling 25 per cent loss in endowment money for 2008.
Moving quickly to fill the potential void created by the loss of the Island’s only animal shelter, the Dukes County Commission voted without dissent on Wednesday to take over the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown after the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Animals pulls up stakes and leaves the Island May 1.
The Katharine M. Foote memorial animal shelter in Edgartown, which is owned by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be closed, the Gazette learned late yesterday. Saying that the organization’s finances had taken a hard hit from the recession and the falling stock market, MSPCA president Carter Luke announced that the society would close three of its shelters, including the one on the Vineyard. The Island shelter is due to close May 1, according to a report on The Boston Globe Web site last night.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) yesterday denied that a lack of caution is behind a multimillion-dollar investor loss which led to the closure of the Vineyard animal shelter, announced a fortnight ago.
The Vineyard branch of the MSPCA is one of three state shelters which will close this year due to a loss of $11.5 million, or a quarter of the total endowment for 2008. Spokesman Brian Adams blamed the shortfall on the economic crisis as a whole.
Edgartown attorney Edward W. (Peter) Vincent Jr. is facing legal action after the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals filed suit in superior court, “concerned that Mr. Vincent has absconded with its money.”
At issue is a sum of nearly $200,000 due to the MSPCA from the proceeds of a $950,000 real estate sale in January.
The MSPCA hired Mr. Vincent to handle the sale of a veterinary clinic building and cottage on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, where for 50 years it had operated an animal shelter.
On the surface, not much has changed at the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard in the past few years. The unassuming building on Pennywise Path in Edgartown still draws Vineyarders old and young searching for the perfect new friend. Inside, shelves of pet care books line one side of the front office, next to a stand of colorful collars and leashes.
