News

Couple donates $388k to care for police dogs

By Lightning Reports, Published: February 5, 2024

The Hendersonville City Council on Wednesday is scheduled to accept a gift of $193,902 from the Frederick and Marylin Young Revocable Trust "to be used solely for the health and maintenance of the Hendersonville Police Department’s police dogs," according to a resolution the council is expected to adopt. The resolution authorizes City Manager John Connet to accept the gift, which was recorded in trust documents on May 21, 2019.

For now, though, the city can't do anything but set the money aside. It currently has no K9 program. The City Council decided to drop police dogs after one of the K9s got loose from its handler's home and mauled a man at his Crab Creek home in August 2020. The attack resulted in a lawsuit that cost the city's insurer $1.75 million. When the City Council settled the lawsuit last March, it also ordered a review of the incident to determine how it happened and put safeguards in place to make sure it never happened again.

After the incident, "We suspended all K9 programs," Connet said Monday. It's possible City Council members will look at restarting a K9 corps, he added. "Ultimately, they will have to make that decision," he said, "but we needed some time to pass on that incident to make sure we do it right."

The couple donated the same amount to the Henderson County Sheriff's Office for its K9s.

"Best we can tell, the Youngs are dog lovers," Connet said. "They are aware that we currently don’t have a program. They just asked us to hold onto it until we got one."