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•🧑⚖️ Who: Niceville City Manager David Deitch, PAWS Director Tracey Kinsley, Mayor Daniel Henkel, Niceville City Council
•📜 What: PAWS ended its contract with Niceville, forcing the city to explore new animal control options
•📅 When: Decision announced just hours before the February 2025 City Council meeting
•📍 Where: Niceville, Florida
•❓ Why: Dispute over pricing and service terms, with Niceville officials feeling their rates were unfairly high compared to other municipalities
The conflict between PAWS and the City of Niceville continues. Niceville City Manager David Deitch reported to the City Council on Tuesday. Long story short – PAWS ain’t coming back and the City of Niceville is looking for options to replace them. Leaders at City Hall say they’ve begun to look into several options on the table.
The manager, who’s been the subject of several lines of discourse on various social media for his decision to allow the contract with the animal shelter in Fort Walton Beach to lapse, explained to the council that he thought the two organizations were on the path to collaboration again.
That is until 3:36 PM, about two-and-a-half hours before the start of the regular council meeting.
Deitch explained that he and the director of PAWS, Tracey Kinsley, met in his office on January 31st to see if differences could be resolved and fences mended.
He thought it went well.
“We sat down for almost two hours and talked just her and I. We had a very polite, cordial, and productive conversation,” Deitch explained.
But at 3:36, he claims Kinsley sent him an email informing him that the City wouldn’t get service from PAWS at any price: the board of the nonprofit had decided to cut the City loose.
Six people got up to speak on the issue at the council meeting. Three were in favor of the City’s moving on from PAWS, two spoke against it, and a final person said that both options worked out the same way.
HOW DID NICEVILLE AND PAWS GET SIDEWAYS? HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED.
After the regular council meeting ended, Mayor Daniel Henkel noted that the City would look at several options for animal control post-PAWS.
He mentioned that the City was looking at several options to perform that function – including hiring a cross-trained employee that would serve part-time as a member of the code enforcement team and another use the rest of their work week to serve as animal control for the City.
Henkel mentioned that they might also partner with the City of Crestview.
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People still had questions about what happened next with animal control in Niceville – so City Manager Detich told the crowd he would stay after the meeting and answer as many questions as people could ask.
Deitch explained, again, that Niceville’s contract price – already the highest rate PAWS charged in the area – was to go up another dollar without an explanation. Deitch told the crowd of about 20 that he found that to be unacceptable when, he claimed, other cities were started at lower prices and not coming up to where PAWS expected Niceville to be. “my question I asked was, if a county resident and a city resident walked into a grocery store and grabbed the same jug of milk, and that grocery store charged the county resident $5.50 for that jug of milk, and the Niceville resident $7.50 for that jug of milk – is that fair?”
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