With 20 months left on the City’s 2½-year contract with King County, officials are poring over a local proposal that offers to answer the community’s long-term animal control service needs after the contract expires.

That proposal comes from a group a veterinarians and community members that recently formed the nonprofit Auburn Valley Humane Society and hopes to establish a partnership with the City to make things happen.

Councilman John Partridge, the City’s liaison to the group, said Monday at the Council’s Municipal Services meeting that as potential partners, the group is asking the City to do two things:

• Make the capital improvements to the city-owned building at 4910 A St. SE necessary to turn it into an animal shelter. The City would then lease the building to AVHS at $1 a year for an indefinite period of time. The AVHS would raise the money to remodel the interior and use the animal licensing fees, donations they raise and grants to provide the animal shelter in Auburn.

Years ago, the City planned to turn the site into a fire station, but it abandoned that idea upon the formation of the Valley Regional Fire Authority, and has since marked the building for surplus.

The original idea was for the shelter to meet the City’s needs until a capital campaign could be completed, giving AVHS time to raise long term funding, buy land and build a permanent structure. But then AVHS brought architect Alan Keimig and Donavan Bros Construction on board and the thinking changed.

“Now the idea is that, done right, we could make this a state-of-art shelter,” Partridge said. “We’ve got the resources. That building has turned out be a more promising location than originally understood. The new thinking is that this building could be the long term solution. Donavan Bros. said there is room to expand on this site. That’s when things went from good to excellent.”

• Hire and equip a full-time animal control officer for Auburn. When the City signed the contract with King County, it also gave up its designated animal control officer, Tom Harris. Today Harris is responsible for covering 300 square miles of territory stretching from the eastern boundary of Federal Way to the eastern county line in the Cascade Mountains.

“This would get us an officer again,” Partridge said.

Partridge outlined other benefits as follows:

• The City would maintain ownership of the building and capital improvements for future use or sale.

• The City would gain the control and receive personalized service of a designated animal control officer, providing a much higher level of care to the community.

• The City would gain community ownership of the program

• The City would realize a substantial savings annualized costs in comparison to the county contract. A portion of the savings would be invested in onetime capital improvement and animal control equipment charges, but both would be assets of the City.

According to an AVHS letter, it will provide all removable furnishings, including kennels, cat condos, furniture, computers and appliances. The goal is to have the facility fully operational by January 2013, when the City’s contract with King County expires.

Funding for the furnishings will come from private and corporate donations. The first fundraising drive will ask people and corporations to buy a kennel or cat condo and place their name on it. This will be part of a mailing and e-mail campaign in the city of Auburn. A neighboring Humane Society has already donated $20,000 worth of cat condos. AVHS will operate a booth at Pet Palooza in May and plans to hold a black tie event this fall. AVHS will also apply for grant money from private foundation and governmental sources. It anticipates raising about $80,000 in 2011, $90,000 in 2012 and $100,000 for 2013.

“There appear to be significant savings,” Partridge said, adding that between the years 2013 and 2015, the City could save an estimated half-million dollars over what it would have paid King County in that same period of time.

But the City wants time to verify the numbers and won’t release the financial figures until the April 25 meeting of the Municipal Services Committee.