During Monday’s special called meeting of the Selma City Council, many run-of-the-mill steps were taken to ensure that the city continues to function – the council approved a building expansion for Liberty Disposal and a contract extension for Selma Police Department (SPD) Interim Chief Robert Green, all standard decisions that have to be made – but the revelations about the situation being endured by the workers at the Selma Animal Shelter were disturbing and infuriating.

As is mentioned in an article on the meeting, the council had to hire someone at a rate of $175 per trip to pick up dead animals from the shelter and dispose of them due to the fact that the department generally tasked with this job, the City of Selma Public Works Department, remains inoperable amid a “sickout” over wages, staffing and other issues.

Simply put, this has to end immediately for the sake of this city.

Already, trash is piling up throughout the city while workers are refusing to do their jobs, despite many still being paid for full days – if dead animals are also piling up at the city’s shelter, it’s more than a dereliction of duty on the part of the Public Works Department and the mayor – it’s a public health hazard.

The people who run the Selma Animal Shelter work hard each day to care for animals without a home and strive to place them with a family that can care for them – why should they also be obligated to navigate an issue such as the disposal of deceased cats and dogs when there is a department with 12 employees meant to address this problem?

That the mayor has not mandated an end to this so-called strike is evidence that it, in one way or another, is working to his benefit – if it were not, the “sickout” would have already ended.

In fact, if the strike was not somehow a strategic political move working to the mayor’s advantage, it should have never been allowed to start – after all, the most basic necessity for any department to run is workers; therefore, the most basic requirement of any manager is ensuring that workers are present.

The “sickout” has to end now – we’re currently facing a growing trash problem and now a public health hazard.

What’s next and when will it be enough?