- April 25, 2024
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The Flagler County Commission voted unanimously at its regular Monday meeting not to reduce fees for SAFFARI Animal Rescue’s applications for a variance and special exception that would let its owner maintain a shelter at her Hammock-area homestead.
The Monday vote concerned only the fee reduction for the application process, and has no bearing on whether or not the applications themselves will be approved, County Administrator Craig Coffey said.
“I think that something like this needs to have a full public investigation,” Commissioner Barbara Revels said, “and it takes the county money that all our residents pay in their taxes.”
SAFFARI owner Ruth Repprecht, who was not present for the meeting, had requested the county to reduce the variance application fee from $345 to $172.5 and to reduce the special exception application fee from $300 to $150.
Commissioners expressed concern that reducing the fee, which pays for the cost of investigating and processing the application, could set a precedent.
“It always makes me a little nervous when you waive a fee for one and you don’t waive it for another,” Commissioner Frank Meeker said during the meeting.
Commissioner Nate McLaughlin said he understood that “the reduction money would go toward feeding animals,” but that “having lived through the previous incident, I’m concerned about the viability of this business.”
The “previous incident” McLaughlin was referring to occurred in 2010, when the county euthanized an entire sanctuary of about 400 pot-bellied pigs that were found neglected and diseased at the Pig Tales Sanctuary in western Flagler County.
After the pig incident, the county enacted ordinances regulating animal shelters and requiring would-be household-animal shelter owners to go through an application process.
“I’ll make a motion that we deny the reduction based on the fact that it does cost money, time and money,” McLaughlin said at the meeting, “and it’s really not the best policy to set down this road of fee reductions.”
