The Board of Directors for the Carter County Animal Shelter met with community members in City Hall Thursday night to discuss what the county needs to do to better care for neglected or abused animals in the community.

Several proposed city ordinances became the focus of the discussion, with members of the County Sheriff’s Office and City Police weighing in on the discussion.

County Sheriff Dexter Lunceford said the community needs to manage its expectations.

“I cannot enforce city ordinances,” Lunceford said. “We have to have probable cause of a violation of state law.”

Currently, he said he employs four part-time workers who take up the mantle of Animal Control in shifts, and said cost is the main factor preventing the recruitment of a full-time crew.

“I cannot have four to five full-time officers doing Animal Control at a time,” he said.

Animal Shelter Director Shannon Posada said the center currently has around 48 dogs and 178 cats, while the ideal numbers are 30 and 80, respectively.

The board said they used other neighboring counties like Knox to determine feasible ordinances, including redefining what counted as an abused or endangered animal.

Lunceford said anything the city or county passes cannot exceed what the state law regulates.

“Animal Control has to be incorporated by the state of Tennessee,” he said. “Then they can place charges on people.”

Currently, the city and county police determined there are about 5,000 animals “at large” in the community, and though the debate continued as to how to help reduce that number, Lunceford said the county has no plans to trap animals.

“I am not a trapper, and I have no plans to,” he said. “If you want to put traps on your own property, you can do that.”

The board ended the discussion with plans to look over the proposed ordinances in greater detail to determine what did and did not count as “exceeding state law” so they could bring them before the county commission.