POCATELLO — Barbara Stone says there is a long list of reasons that Pocatello needs a new animal shelter, but toward the top of her list, she said, is efficiency.

Stone, a long-time member of the Pocatello Animal Shelter Advisory Board, elaborated, saying there is not only a need for a more efficient facility to reduce the time-consuming daily task of cleaning of the shelter, but also to make it a much safer task.

“Cleaning the dog kennels, for example, can be a very stressful situation,” she said. “To clean them, the dogs must be removed from the kennel and taken outside and the entire kennel is then cleaned. It creates a very slippery area inside and can be especially difficulty during the winter.”

In the new facilities, the kennels will be constructed in such a way that the animal can be easily segregated to a smaller portion of the kennel while the remainder is cleaned.

The drive to build a new animal shelter started several years ago with a fundraising effort that operators of the shelter hoped would included grants and community donations. But the fundraising was slow and with about $200,000 raised as of early this year, they opted to seek out the approval of Pocatello citizens for a $2.8 million bond to build the new facility.

The $200,000 that was raised has been used to have plans for the new facility drawn up. If voters approve the bond in November, Mary Remer, director of the Pocatello Animal Shelter, has previously said construction could get under way as early as next spring.

To help get the word out about the importance of building a new animal shelter and to advocate voters approved the bond measure, a political action committee, “Citizens For a New Animal Shelter,” was created in June.

Stone, who also serves as treasurer for Citizens For a New Animal Shelter, said people should not confuse the PAC with the Friends of the Pocatello Animal Shelter, a group established 16 years ago to help raise money for animal services and adoptions at the shelter.

“They have been working for years and years to help the shelter and cannot take any kind of political stance whatsoever, or risk losing their nonprofit designation,” Stone said.

She also said that any fundraising currently being done for the Pocatello Animal Shelter is being done by the Friends of the Pocatello Animal Shelter to help the shelter, not to advocate for the bond initiative.

Fundraising for the Citizens For a New Shelter finished long ago. Stone said they had a set figure they believed would adequately support their cause and reached that goal early on.

“We are not raising any more money,” she said.

Volunteers, however, are welcome. The group is meeting a noon today in the Omni Conference Center, suite 260, at the Omni Business Center, located at 275 S. Fifth Ave., in Pocatello.

The effort to get that bond passed took another step forward on Monday when the Pocatello City Council, meeting in a special work session, nailed down the exact wording of the bond initiative and approved placing it on the Nov. 6 ballot.

If passed, the $2.8 million bond will be repaid over 15 years. Remer told the Journal earlier this month that the bond’s approval would equate to an additional annual cost of $9.58 per $100,000 taxable valuation.