Above: Faith Nandor, 11, of Helmetta, makes friends with a kitten during the grand-opening celebration of the Helmetta Regional Shelter on June 26. Below: Visitors check out the cats at the shelter in a renovated building on the old snuff mill property on Main Street. PHOTOS BY SCOTT FRIEDMAN The new Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter has officially opened for business, providing animal impound and adoption services for a growing number of municipalities.
Officials celebrated the grand opening of the facility on June 25 in a renovated building on the old snuff mill property on Main Street. The two-story, 3,000-square-foot animal shelter will be staffed by municipal employees from Helmetta and volunteers.
During the grand opening, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) addressed the few hundred people in attendance, including many representatives of Helmetta’s and surrounding municipalities’ governing bodies.
Volunteers showed their support and conducted tours of the facility. Many applications were completed for cat and dog adoptions during the event, Helmetta Mayor Nancy Martin said.
ShopRite representatives also attended and provided donations in support of the shelter, she said.
The borough purchased the shelter site for $110,000 from Renaissance Properties of Old Bridge. The purchase price and building renovations were funded with a $1.9 million bond ordinance adopted by the Borough Council last year.
“The borough took an area which was in need of redevelopment and built a beautiful state-ofthe art facility,” she said. Helmetta used the architectural services of Michael Testa for the project. “It is unbelievable what he was able to do with the building,” Martin said.
The shelter began operations a few weeks ago, but officials waited for the site to be fully cleared before holding the grand-opening celebration, Martin said.
The small borough has been winning animal control contracts from several towns in Middlesex, Monmouth and Mercer counties over the past couple of years. Helmetta has animal control and impoundment agreements with Spotswood, Sayreville, South River, Plainsboro and Jamesburg. It has impoundment agreements with Manalapan (servicing Manalapan, Freehold Borough and Freehold Township) and Marlboro.
“We are currently under negotiations for animal control and impoundment with three other municipalities,” the mayor said.
Helmetta’s interlocal agreements bring in varying amounts of revenue for animal control services, such as responding to reports of sick or attacking wildlife; stray and domestic animals; or impounding the pets of incapacitated or arrested individuals. Plainsboro will pay Helmetta $18,000 a year. Helmetta already receives annual charges of $28,800, $9,500 and $5,727 from Sayreville, South River and Spotswood, respectively, for animal control services. There is an additional charge of $50 for each call outside of normal business hours. The most calls Helmetta receives are from Sayreville, at about 200 to 250 per year.
The shelter currently has two full-time employees and a part-time employee.
“We have several dedicated volunteers, and we have been fortunate to have received many applications for volunteers,” Martin said.
Prior to the new facility, Helmetta was using two different shelters — the Sayreville Pet Adoption Center and Blumig Kennel in East Brunswick — for its own animal control services and for those of the other towns that initially contracted with Helmetta. When officials looked into expanding the animal control program, they decided it would be more beneficial to use one shelter that would be owned by the borough, rather than having employees travel to the facilities in Sayreville and East Brunswick, according to Darren Doran, public works director for Helmetta.