The City of Auburn on Monday authorized Mayor Pete Lewis to enter into a 2½-year animal control contract with King County.

Over the duration, the City will pay $250,000 a year, or $125,000 for the rest of 2010, minus the increase in license fees over the 18 percent being collected by the county.

In so doing, the City said no to the six-months-and-out option, disappointing a group of Auburn veterinarians who had banded together to solve the most vexing part of the City’s problem – providing a permanent alternative to the cramped, aging King County animal shelter in Kent.

Their plan was to establish a non-profit organization, form a board to include four community members, hire a full-time director and have the Valley Regional Animal Park and Shelter ready to go at the site of the old Montessori School on Harvey Road when the City’s six-month contract with King County expired.

But six months wasa not enough time for the veterinarians to get everything together and raise money, Council members said, and being under the deadline to act before June 30 when the current contract with King County expires, they reluctantly chose the longer option.

Councilman Rich Wagner explained his vote.

“I think that six months is just not enough time, no matter how sincere and capable these people are … and I strongly believe that these kinds of services should be regional,” Wagner said.

“I really wished the county had given us a choice of 1½ years, because we don’t need 2½ years to put this thing together, but six months isn’t enough,” Wagner added.

Councilwoman Nancy Backus said she hoped to continue to work with VRPAS to reach kind of agreement for a future partnership in the next 2½ years “so that they have time to get their board in place and do capital fundraising projects that I believe have to be in place to be a strong, viable organization and partner with the City of Auburn.”

Veterinarians said later that they would need to regroup and examine their options.

“The main thing is we want to make sure the animals are taken care of and the city has a good facility,” said Don Edwards, chief veterinarian at the Green River Veterinarian Hospital. “It’s a long haul, and we have a lot of reorganization to do, because this changes the whole perspective.”

“I think that time constraints were part of the issue here, getting things together,” said Kimo Jow, chief veterinarian at Auburn Veterinary Hospital. “I think that the grassroots efforts of this organization and those who wanted to be part of this here will continue. We will have to see how this is going to continue to grow.”

Partridge, who first brought the proposal to the City, said the time constraints imposed by the County were the problem.

“We ran out of time to get all the formalized agreements done that needed to be done, and that was no fault of the City, no fault of the group, just the time limitations the County put on us to get that done. It was a leap of faith for the Council members to approve an agreement with contracts that had not yet been signed,” Partridge said.