King County Plans to Transfer Animal Sheltering

King County plans to close its animal shelters in Kent and Bellevue by Jan. 31, and leti the cities and regional, nonprofit animal-care groups take over the care of the region’s unwanted pets. The King County Metropolitan Council voted Monday to direct County Executive Kurt Triplett to end the county’s role in the sheltering business. In addition to asking other jurisdictions to take over the care of unwanted local pets, the Council also wants the cities to handle animal-control field services by June 30, 2010 unless the entities can ink new agreements allowing the county to recover the full cost of providing such services to the cities.