Pettis Co. Sheriff and City Administrator Both At Fault In Dog Mess

The following is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the view of Townsquare Media Sedalia / Warrensburg or its employees. 

Pettis County Sheriff Brad Anders and Sedalia City Administrator Kelvin Shaw took to Facebook late last week to air their dirty laundry regarding a situation in and around Covered Bridge Estates where several people were bitten by wild dogs.

Sheriff Anders, after multiple incidents with wild dogs biting county residents in and around Covered Bridge Estates, got a court order to seize some wild dogs that had bitten people. Sheriff Anders then needed the help of the City of Sedalia to hold and care for the dogs at the Sedalia Animal Shelter after their capture.

Believing he was only going to seize no more than six dogs, Sheriff Anders agreed to have the Sedalia Animal Shelter care and hold the dogs for $40.00 a day and expected the dogs would be in the shelter's care for about a month.

The Sheriff's Office would up seizing 16 dogs and bringing them to the shelter. City Administrator Shaw says the shelter took in the 16 dogs, even though the shelter isn't equipped to handle that many dangerous dogs.

At this point, the process went off the rails, and the stories Sheriff Anders and City Manager Shaw diverge with each telling a different story about what happened. And each one blaming the other for wasting the taxpayers' money because of delays and what amounts to, in my opinion, poor communication between Mr. Shaw, Mr. Anders, the Sedalia Animal Shelter, and the Pettis County prosecutor.

Cut the crap gentlemen. What's clearly apparent to me after reading both posts is this: Neither Mr. Shaw nor Mr. Anders bothered to pick up the phone or make an actual effort to truly work with each other. Or work together to get answers to each other's questions and solve the problem of how to get the dogs looked at, euthanized, and or adopted. At least not beyond a flurry of emails to each other that sometimes went ignored or got passed on to someone else. That to me is a big part of the problem.

And the problem is obviously continuing since both Mr. Anders and Mr. Shaw have decided to air their dirty laundry on Facebook instead of sitting down, clearing the air, and figuring out how the Sheriff and the City can work together when necessary. Or even better, to see how the City can be fairly compensated for the animal services provided to the County while minimizing the cost to the County's taxpayers. In this case gentlemen, you both failed, spectacularly.

You can read the Sheriff's Facebook post and the City Administrator Shaw's response below: