Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office special assistant Henry Hofschneider said a new animal shelter facility would be built in Lower Base after the original was damaged by Typhoon Soudelor in August last year.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office animal shelter was heavily damaged when Soudelor ripped through the island with the facility\u2019s tin roof, windows, and part of the walls torn apart like paper by the typhoon\u2019s tornado-like winds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is like building a new one. We\u2019re going to build from the ground up and put the facility back to where it was before. Better and stronger materials will be used,\u201d said Hofschneider, who added that they are set to receive public assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe submitted a public assistance application to FEMA and they approved it on Dec. 18, 2015. That\u2019s why we want to get the project going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hofschneider added that they are also hoping construction of the animal shelter would only take three months since dogs housed at the Lower Base facility are already getting sick.<\/p>\n
Volunteers from the Saipan Cares for Animals have been taking care of the dogs and several cats, which were either caught by the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Animal Control Office. Most of the animals are getting sick since they are getting wet when it rains.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office is now waiting for the Department of Public Works to finish developing the scope of work, drawings, and plans for the new facility in order for the project to move forward with the bidding process.<\/p>\n
\u201cDPW is doing the drawing and the specifications that would comply with the electrical and building codes. Hope all necessary documents needed to start with the bidding process would be completed for the project to get going,\u201d Hofschneider said.<\/p>\n
FEMA has awarded $300,000 for the repair of the animal shelter, which is near the estimate that the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office submitted when they applied for the public assistance program.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office will also be receiving more than $355,000 from FEMA as reimbursement for what they spent in removing typhoon-related debris in the villages. The CNMI central government would release FEMA\u2019s monetary aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as possible we want the project to go in the bidding process so construction could start once a winning contractor is awarded the project. We\u2019re hoping it would only take two months to finish the animal shelter and not more than three months. Some of the materials will be shipped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers and staff of the Animal Control Office have also been busy assisting veterinarians Dr. Jennifer Landis and technician Bambi Leone with the Mayor\u2019s Office\u2019s spay and neuter program since Jan. 4. The program ends on Feb. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office special assistant Henry Hofschneider said a new animal shelter facility would be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9322,493,187,1507],"class_list":["post-219355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-animal-control-office","tag-fema","tag-lower-base","tag-saipan-mayor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}