SAN ANTONIO — It's been two years since road construction in front of the Converse Animal Shelter began, causing concerns over safety, parking, and limitations with donations.
The president of the shelter, Lezlie Grimes says as the deadline for construction continues to be extended, so have the issues it's caused.
"In summer of 2022 it started, and ever since then, constantly we've had something been going on," Grimes said.
Flooding was the shelter’s latest concern.
"It splashed onto our fence that we had to put up,” she said. "People couldn't get in, we couldn't get out."
Before the flooding last week, the construction company overseeing the road project started leaving their material on the shelter's private property.
"Our parking lot was used as storage for a long time,” Grimes said. "I personally came out and asked the supervisor one time, ‘Why? Can you please move your stuff?' He was told by the city that he could use our property."
Grimes says no one asked the nonprofit's permission to leave the mess behind.
The only communication Grimes has received from the construction company about the road construction is a notice about asphalt paving on Rocket Lane being completed in two days in October of 2023. Eight months later, it still isn't complete.
Grimes says communication between the city and the construction company has been mainly word of mouth.
"This used to be like where people would park,” she said.
Grimes says the traffic in front of the shelter is so close to the entrance, making it tough for people to get to the no-kill shelter, to adopt or even donate.
"We got a few bids to move our entrance, so move the one out at front by the road so people don't have to walk right by these cars and step out into a highway," she said.
Grimes says she doesn't want to appear as though the shelter is attacking anyone. Instead, she says all she's looking for is accountability.
"We don't feel that we should be fully responsible financially for all of this that has been done to our private property for this construction," she said.
The next step for the shelter will be going before Converse City Council on July 2 to explain the issues they've been experiencing.
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