By: Jacob Sexton — jacobs@977thebolt.com
Humboldt, IA — Controversy usually doesn’t surround animals; however, Humboldt County is where this has become true.
Over the past couple of days, tensions have risen surrounding the Humboldt Community Animal Shelter and Animal Control Officer Merri Hansen. Hansen is in charge of the 260 square foot facility off of Iowa Avenue in Humboldt as director for the Humboldt Community Animal Shelter.
Tuesday, was her last day holding her title with the Animal Shelter.
Hansen was given a notice of termination signed by Humboldt Community Animal Shelter President Michelle Erickson informing her it was effective immediately (left).
Hansen has been helping animals in Humboldt for three years as she signed a contract with the county back in 2017 to be the Animal Control Officer. However, the Humboldt County Animal Shelter portion was recently made part of Hansen’s involvement as she volunteered to be a part of the 501c3 when it was formed in November of 2018 when it filed for the 501c3 status with the Iowa Secretary of State per city Administrator Travis Geodken.
A board was then formed of different community members and a meeting was held Monday night without an invitation sent to Hansen who was promptly terminated by the board on a unanimous vote.
Frustration has been building for some time for Hansen as a new shelter building was in the plans to be built with the help of funding from the city and county but according to her article in the Fort Dodge Messenger, talks have stalled many times with promises of the new building coming sooner than later along with funding issues and dispute over the location. Hansen also claims that the current building has become overcrowded because of the influx of animals being sent to her without warrant.
The Animal Shelter Board had plans to use their Tuesday meeting to vote to approve the motion for the new facility to be built with funding and a construction company ready to head the project.
However it all came to a head, amidst a critical Facebook post by Hansen’s daughter this past week and the news article in the Fort Dodge Messenger on Monday morning regarding the Humboldt Community Animal Shelter board, Hansen was let go from her director position.
City Administrator Travis Geodken is part of the board and spoke in the Messenger article and also went before the Humboldt County Supervisors on Monday morning to speak about the issue. The board has released an official statement on all that has transpired and can be read below.
The Humboldt Community Animal Shelter wishes to start by apologizing to all those that have been negatively impacted by all the disinformation being spread on Facebook. This group was granted status as a 501c(3) organization in November of 2018 and has made significant progress since its inception. Much more goes into a project like this than throwing up a building and hoping it works out. This group has already laid the ground work in establishing bylaws, articles of incorporation, and standard operating procedures, (many of which have been violated), preliminary blue prints and more.
A series of Facebook posts and an article ran in the Fort Dodge Messenger has been very counter-productive. Most of these posts have been directed at City Administrator Travis Goedken, who currently serves as a voluntary board member for HCAS. These posts contain half-truths, false information, and outright lies. Travis has been nothing but a participating partner for this project. Travis was the member who initially proposed the new location and began discussions with the owner on the purchase of the property. He has participated on the building committee and helped formulate the financing plan to construct the facility. All of which were set to be approved this week. Instead, we met to discuss this. We’d like to apologize to Travis, Dave Lee, Sheryl Tegtmeyer, Jim Gronbach, and any others that were unfortunately pulled into this mess.
The Board unanimously voted to terminate our involvement with Merri. We thank Merri for all her hard work and wish her well in the future. The Board has stayed unified and will proceed with HCAS plans.
Signed,
Humboldt Community Animal Shelter
Board of Directors
As a result of the article and Facebook post, many people from the Humboldt area have spoken up in the comment sections of each post calling out Geodken, the city, and the county.
Geodken spoke with KHBT and says that the disgruntlement of members in the community has resulted in many unkind phone calls and messages. Because of Hansen’s termination, the Humboldt Community Animal Shelter part of the Humboldt County ACO page was asked to be taken out of the title per the termination letter received by Hansen from Board President Erickson.
The Animal Shelter Board plans to move forward with the plans of the new building for the shelter and Geodken says action on that approval could be done soon.
KHBT reached out to the Humboldt County ACO Facebook page to try and contact Hansen but no answer was given and later posted to the page saying she will not comment on her termination.