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Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > November > 18
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sheba finds a home, and other animal news
Remember her?:
Well, this is her now:
Her name is now Bella. It means beautiful.
Bella, a 2-year-old Doberman pinscher, was Sheba when she was found running loose in August. The Doberman pinscher was neglected and weighed 28.5 pounds, according to Butler County Dog Warden Julie Holmes.
Back then her owner was Reita Huff, who has been charged with two counts of cruelty to a companion animal, failure to confine and failure to obtain a county license. Huff’s pretrial is scheduled for Dec. 1 in Middletown Municipal Court.
But that was back then.
Now, Bella weighs 49 pounds and has a new home in Millville with an owner who showers her with love — and sweaters and sunglasses, according to Meg Stephenson, director of Animal Friends Humane Society, which helped care for the dog.
“Her personality started to shine and she gobbled her food less, as she realized we were going to love and provide for her,” said a volunteer who helped rehabilitate the dog. “We are so happy she is in an amazing forever home.”
In other animal news, progress is now visible on the new animal shelter.
The steel skeleton of Butler County’s new animal shelter rising over a small field on the edge of Hamilton is a welcome sight for animal lovers like Nancy Bender.
Bender, from Fairfield Twp., is a volunteer at the Animal Friends Humane Society. She walks dogs, picks up animal waste and scrubs water bowls. But she calls the current shelter in Trenton “a dilapidated little building that’s falling apart on a daily basis.”
“I’m praying they will rip this up as quickly as they can,” she said. “We can’t get it done fast enough for the animals…and the staff.”
Good news for Bender and her furry friends: The project, funded with a $3.8 in levy funds is on budget. And, after delays dogged the project for more than a year, it’s on its revised schedule.
“It appears that it should be completed by the second week of April,” said County Commission President Charles Furmon. “We spent a long time getting here and we’re very frustrated, but we’re very happy to see it moving.”
Furmon’s frustration was largely with the project’s architect, Robert Treadon, who repeatedly submitted designs that would cost more than the county has to build.
After reducing the building’s scope, it will now house 139 dogs and roughly 70 cats. The Trenton shelter has room for 96 dogs and roughly 30 cats.
At roughly 22,000 square feet, it will also be more than three times larger than the Trenton shelter. The size of the surgical area will double, allowing more animals to be spayed and neutered. There will be new areas for people to get acquainted with the animals and a room for grooming.
Currently, the dogs and cats are in steel cages. The dogs only get outside when a volunteer walks them. Most of the runs at the new shelter will have access to the outside.
“I just think that service is going to amplify and really improve,” said Meg Stephenson, director of Animal Friends Humane Society, which will run the shelter. “These animals have already been through a lot, most of them have been living outside…it’s just going to make the care of these animals so greater and so much better.”
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Road rage
Received a complaint from a man today about an intersection in Butler County:
“I am calling about the intersection of Liberty-Fairfield Road and Ohio 4. When will someone do anything about the left-turn lane going north at Liberty-Fairfield Road? At times there are up to 40 cars waiting to turn left … Now they’ve put a left turn in for the new auto parts store, which is going to make it much more dangerous.”
Do you know this intersection? Does it seem dangerous to you?
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A winter weather warning
With a dusting of snow greeting us all this morning when we stepped out of the house, it seems handy to remind everyone of some warnings issued Nov. 14, when workers from agencies across the county assembled for a unique “snow summit.”
A main focus of the summit was a salt shortage that could cause slicker than normal roads if this winter is severe.
Ohio Department of Transportation Assistant Administrator Diana Clonch blamed the shortage on a late snowstorm last winter drying up supplies, which scared some states into increasing their orders up to 50 percent.
This sent prices up 46 percent in Ohio. ODOT paid $136 per ton for salt in Hamilton County, well above the $62 statewide average.
Because of budget limitations, the state ordered just less than 500,000 tons. This is enough for an average year, Clonch said, but the state has used 700,000 tons on average the last 5 years.
“Are we going to have enough salt this year? Well, a lot of it depends on whether we have a bad winter this year,” Clonch said.
Butler County Engineer’s Office Operations Deputy Scott Bressler said the county is in a better situation than some others.
“We do have a full barn, so we currently have enough on contract and we should have enough to get through the season,” Bresslar said. “There are some counties…I’m not even sure they’re going to get salt this year.”
With elevated safety concerns this year, the summit also included talk on emergency preparedness.
In the past 8 years, a Butler County sheriff has ordered a Level 3 weather emergency three times, according to sheriff’s office Capt. Richard Greer.
For that to happen, “the devil has to be coming to Butler County,” Greer said.
Once was during the Sept. 14 windstorm that knocked out power countywide, and the other two were snow emergencies.
The windstorm taught local officials that few Butler County residents follow emergency preparedness guidelines and have a 72-hour plan, with medicine, food supplies and a heating source to last up to three days, according to Emergency Management Director Bill Turner.
The storm also highlighted the importance of having numerous emergency shelters with backup power throughout the county.
During and immediately after a heavy snowfall, Turner said it’s safer and gets the roads cleared faster if motorists stay inside.
“If you don’t have to be out where the snowplows are running, stay off the roads,” he said.
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Local girl makes it big in Butler County
Just stumbled across this story in the Hannibal Courier-Post in Missouri. They are very proud of Nancy Nix, our county treasurer and formerly their Nancy Ravenscraft of Palmyra:
Butler County, Ohio — Nancy Nix, formerly Nancy Ravenscraft of Palmyra, was recently elected treasurer of Butler County, Ohio. Nancy is a CPA with 15 years financial experience in accounting and banking, and was appointed as county treasurer by the Butler County Republican Party in June 2007. Nov. 4 was her first countywide election.
While she had no opposition, Nancy still garnered 116,000 votes.
Butler County is the eighth largest county in Ohio, with 360,000 residents. The Treasurer is responsible for collection of real estate taxes and the investment of county funds.
Nancy is the daughter of Bob Ravenscraft, Palmyra, and Doris Nichols, Hannibal. Nancy graduated from Palmyra High School in 1987 and from Truman State University in 1992 with bachelor of science degrees in marketing and accounting. Nancy and her husband, Dan Nix, also of Palmyra, live in Middletown, Ohio, where they are raising their three children.
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