The Alger County Commission will stay with its plans to evict the non-profit currently operating the animal shelter after a meeting held on Monday, Dec. 19.

Members of the public spoke out about the decision to evict, but concerns often focused on the false claim that the county would begin euthanizing animals.

“I received 12 to 14 emails on this and every single one of them said that we were killing dogs,” County Commissioner Mick Rondeau said. “This isn’t the truth and these rumors need to stop.”

Members of the public alleged that the county was acting nefariously for their actions in the evictions as well, saying the information had not been publicized enough for people without computers. Members of the county staff and other elected offi cials countered those claims by citing public posting notice procedures and local news reports of the eviction process.

“This was extended month by month by month to redraft the lease. The civil attorney said we should something else and even then the board pushed back against that legal advice,” Alger County Prosecutor Rob Steinhoff said. “In all of these meetings, they never even mentioned the word ‘kill’ and it’s never even been considered for the animals of Alger County.”

Humane Society of Alger County President Greg Beatty was in attendance for the meeting, but did not speak publicly regarding the situation. No additional public comments have been made by the shelter’s Facebook page regarding the eviction since Monday’s meeting.

As it stands, the non-profit will have to be completely out of the county-owned building before 11:59 p.m. on December 31. All animals will have to be housed in an appropriate foster facility, transferred to another shelter or adopted by that time as the non-profit has not currently found an approved site to operate a shelter in state and federal guidelines.