Plans for a new animal welfare center in Lawton designed by GH2 Architects call for a facility that ’s significantly larger than the existing building.
The City Council authorized city staff in December to move animal welfare operations from the current site at 2100 SW Sixth St. to a former Lawton fire station at 1701 SW Lee Blvd.
Jamie Prashaw, GH2 senior architect, presented the council on April 8 with plans that would renovate and triple the size of the new site: from approximately 4,000 square feet to 12,700 square feet. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in August, according to the city ’s communications manager, Caitlin Gatlin.
The renovated building would be designed to ac commodate 148 dogs, 153 cats, eight exotic animals, and 23 clinical spaces where animals could recover after surgery and where new intakes would be isolated from the rest of the kennel, Prashaw said.
In comparison, the existing animal welfare center has 61 dog kennels plus 42 cat cages, 16 for felines identified for adoption.
The Lee Boulevard fire station closed after a new station opened in early 2020 at 1616 SW Bishop Road, at Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport, eliminating the need for two fire stations in such close proximity.
Subsequently the building was repurposed but has been closed for about a year. Nevertheless, the building is “structurally sound,” Animal Welfare Superintendent Cliff Blassingame said.
Initially the City Council intended to renovate the existing animal welfare center on Sixth Street. Subsequently it was discovered that remodeling three interconnected buildings all constructed at different times, and bringing them up to contemporary safety codes, would exceed the budget allocated for the project in the PROPEL 2040 capital improvements program, Blassingame related.
Prashaw said the cost of enlarging the old fire station building would be $5,068,234, a price tag that would include contingency funding.
Animal shelter lawsuit parties near agreement?
In a related matter, a lawsuit that Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. filed on April 29, 2024, to resolve a technical glitch in a life insurance policy may be close to resolution. The suit was filed in Oklahoma City’s Western District Federal Court.
Susan Lawless was an employee of Comanche Nation Entertainment and participated in the tribe’s Welfare Benefit Plan.
At the time of her death on Oct. 16, 2023, Lawless had a basic life insurance policy for $83,000. On Sept. 6, 2016, she designated “Lawton Animal Shelter” as the sole beneficiary of her life insurance benefits.
Metropolitan Life was unable to find any entity “registered or operating as ‘Lawton Animal Shelter,’” but did find “two entities close to the description: Lawton Animal Welfare … and the Humane Society of Lawton Comanche County.”
On Sept. 28, 2023, Jenifer Mars, a resident of Apache, described in a court document as “the friend and former coworker of Susan Lawless,” signed Lawless out of a nursing facility and moved into Lawless’ home “to care for her.”
On Oct. 6, 2023, a power- of-attorney form was signed, “giving Ms. Mars authority to act on behalf of Ms. Lawless in certain matters.” Six days later the beneficiary designation for Lawless’ plan benefits was changed electronically to name Mars as “the sole primary beneficiary.”
On Oct. 16, 2023, Ms. Mars notified Comanche Nation Entertainment of Lawless’ death, “and the next day Mars asked CNE when she could expect to receive the Plan Benefits.”
CNE submitted a claim to MetLife for payment of the life insurance benefits “to the rightful beneficiary” on Oct. 30, 2023.
In an email dated Dec. 29, 2023, Mars wrote that Lawless changed the beneficiary designation of her life insurance policy from “Lawton Animal Shelter” to Jenifer Mars because, “She thought her dogs would go to the animal shelter, and once she arranged for them to be with me she made the changes SHE made. In the end she was trying to provide for her animals that I still have and care for as she wanted me to and will continue to do so because I gave her my word.”
MetLife notified Mars, the City of Lawton and the Lawton-Comanche County Humane Society of “the conflicting claims” to the plan benefits. “MetLife is without sufficient information or knowledge to determine which, if any, of these entities Ms. Lawless intended to designate,” the insurance company conceded.
After a closed-door City Council executive session March 31, Councilman Bob Weger proposed approving a settlement agreement in which Lawton Animal Welfare would receive one-third of the disputed funds in the lawsuit involving the parties.
U.S. District Judge Scott L. Palk wrote in an administrative closing order dated April 1, “The Court is advised that the parties have reached a compromise and settlement.” However, the city’s Legal Department informed Southwest Ledger on April 11 “The case has not been settled yet.”
If no out-of-court settlement is reached, the case is scheduled for the court’s May 13 civil trial docket before Judge Palk.