"Oh, give me a home . . ."

“Hopewell Twp. close to purchasing land for animal shelter,” according to a story in last Monday’s Trenton Times. It sounded like the long-awaited next word on a shelter to house animals from a few communities, including Lawrence Twp.

The three towns mentioned in the first story, some months ago, may have included Ewing too, although Monday's story quotes Mayor Jack Ball, who says his town is working on building its own shelter, and “time is of the essence.”

However, Ewing council member Bert Steinmann spoke in support of a regional shelter run by a nonprofit organization. He claims having said “from day one” that “we” (presumably, the local government) “should not be in the animal business” – a belief that innumerable animal rights activists in the area would immediately agree with.

Two such different opinions from reps of Ewing township only add to the impression that one hand doesn’t know (or care?) what the other hand is doing and/or that whoever is in charge there (mayor or council?) is up for grabs and/or that Ewing reps speak with forked tongues -- all of which has sure seemed to be the case throughout the current brouhaha over Ewing's animal shelter.

Adding to the advisability of taking all this news of a shelter site with a large grain of salt – maybe a giant salt lick would be better – the animal control officer of one community likely to be involved says the story came as a total surprise to her; she hadn’t heard a thing about it.

So does that mean politicians know more about animal shelters than their towns' own animal control officers? Will they involve the ACOs only after the plan is final, if then? Any chance the ACOs might contribute questions and ideas – call it expertise -- before decisions are made?
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