Community Affairs Committee advances mayor’s IACS appointments after director’s shelter update

The Indianapolis City Council Community Affairs Committee voted to send two mayoral appointments to the full council with a “do pass” recommendation after hearing a presentation on shelter operations and plans for a new facility.

Kelly Diamond, director of Indianapolis Animal Care Services, described 2024 as a year of both challenges and organizational changes and outlined priorities for 2025 including finishing the department transition to an independent agency and preparing to move into a new shelter. “At the heart of our work is a commitment to animals,” Diamond said, noting that “87 percent of the cats and dogs that entered our doors left with a positive outcome,” meaning adoption, reclaim by owners, or transfer to rescue partners.

The committee’s action moves both proposals — Proposal 5, the mayor’s appointment of Diamond as director, and Proposal 6, the appointment of Danielle Hines to the Animal Care Services Board — to the full council for final confirmation.

Diamond told the committee the shelter broke ground on a new facility at 5001 East Raymond Street earlier this year and expects to move into the new location in early 2026. She said the current shelter has 191 dog kennels and that the new facility will provide substantially more capacity and more medical and isolation kennels, describing the new total as roughly 258 to 280 kennels that include public-facing and behind-the-scenes spaces. She said the new building’s design will support more in-house medical services and larger, more humane spaces for animals.

Diamond described several operational changes implemented in 2024: participation in a Best Friends Animal Society embedded-staff program that brought national expertise into the shelter, creation of a workplace culture agreement, formation of a staff social committee, and expanded off-site adoption events. She said the agency took animals to four off-site adoption events in the latter half of 2024 and organized three intensive adoption events in five weeks that included transporting 34 dogs to Illinois, an effort she said helped clear the shelter of wire crates.

Diamond also described policy shifts toward “open adoptions,” a practice intended to reduce barriers to adoption by treating applicants as individuals rather than relying on rigid, pre-adoption screening tools. She said the agency moved away from using a broad third-party criminal-search tool because it brought in unrelated records and created opportunities for bias. “We focused on using our own in-house system,” Diamond said, referring to the agency’s internal database of past calls and shelter interactions to inform adoption decisions.

On staffing, Diamond said the agency’s overall vacancy rate was about 20 percent at the time she spoke and that 20 of 23 animal control officer positions were filled. She said the shelter lacked a full-time veterinarian after a departure mid-year and had been filling the role through contract veterinarians; she described hiring a full-time veterinarian as a priority for the expanded medical suite at the new shelter.

Donna Casamento, CEO of Indie Humane and a member of the Operation Indy Animals steering committee, submitted a citywide plan developed by local animal-welfare organizations and urged continued partnership with IACS. “Together, we can make a difference,” Casamento told the committee and said the plan had been distributed to council members.

Danielle Hines introduced herself to the committee as a registered veterinary technician who has worked in the Indianapolis veterinary community since 2005, volunteers with Indianapolis Animal Care Services and previously served on the IACS advisory board.

Council members on the committee praised the agency’s progress and discussed remaining needs. Councilor Nick Roberts made the motion to send Proposal 5 to the full council with a do-pass recommendation; the motion was seconded (the transcript does not identify the seconder) and advanced by voice vote. A similar motion and second advanced Proposal 6. The committee recorded the recommendations by voice vote; an individual roll-call tally was not recorded in the transcript.

If confirmed by the full council, the appointments would advance while the agency continues work on hiring a chief financial officer and manager of operations, finalizing the transition to an independent department (effective January 1), and preparing the new Raymond Street shelter for occupancy in early 2026.

The committee adjourned after advancing both proposals.