Following a 6-month search, only one candidate is in the running to become Alachua County Animal Resources’ next shelter director.
After ACAR’s last director left in August, assistant county manager Gina Peebles was chosen to fill in as interim director. The county’s search for a permanent director began in November.
Nicole Watts, a shelter director from Illinois, is now the county’s sole candidate.
Her only opponent, Constance Paras, withdrew her application April 17. If the county decides not to hire Watts, county manager Michele Lieberman said, the search will start over.
Watts was most recently the shelter manager at the Humane Society of Central Illinois, where she worked for two and a half years. The Humane Society of Central Illinois is a nonprofit shelter, while ACAR is a for-profit rescue.
At Monday’s Animal Welfare Advisory Committee meeting, board members asked Watts about how her experience aligns with ACAR’s unique needs. The board questioned whether Watts would be able to adapt to working at a larger government agency after coming from a smaller nonprofit shelter.
Board member Melissa Jenkins, the operations director of Operation Catnip, asked Watts what she thinks about Trap Neuter Release. TNR — the practice of humanely trapping feral cats, sterilizing them, giving them their rabies vaccination and returning them to where they were found — is widely practiced in Alachua County to reduce cat overpopulation and the spread of disease.
Watts said she fully supports TNR and is happy to continue the county’s program. However, she said she does not support spay-abort procedures on cats, which is when a vet performs a spay surgery on an animal to terminate its pregnancy.
To Jenkins, the statement was alarming.
”When she said that she would let the cats give birth, my heart just seized up,” Jenkins said. “Letting a cat give birth in this community when spay-abort is available is breeding.”
During the board comment section, Jenkins said she hopes Watts will take her advice on TNR and spay-abort if she were to receive the position.
Board members also expressed concerns Watts does not have enough experience in euthanasia.
In her two and a half years at the Humane Society of Central Illinois, Watts said the shelter has only had to perform four behavioral euthanasias. Behavioral euthanasia is much more common at ACAR. While the organization doesn’t publicly categorize reasons for euthanasia, ACAR has already performed 39 euthanasias in the first three months of 2026.
“ She's done behavioral euthanasia four times,” Jenkins said. “Those kinds of considerations are happening, I would assume daily, weekly [at ACAR].”
Watts also said her previous shelter raised the adoption age to 21, hoping to deter college students from adopting an animal only to bring them back after graduation.
But board members agreed a similar limit wouldn’t work for ACAR, where students make up a large portion of adopters and fosters, said Julie Levy, a board member and UF shelter medicine education professor.
“We would call [them] old school ideas that college students abandoned their animals at the end of the semester,” Levy said. “We have statistics … that is not the case. In fact, we're very fortunate to be a college community.”
Board members expressed some lingering concerns whether Watts has the experience ACAR is looking for. Overall, having just one candidate in the running has made the board apprehensive about making the right decision. The board doesn’t make the final call to hire a director, but the county will consider its input when making the choice.
“Everyone is frustrated that it's been so long without a director, and that potentially we'd have to go even longer,” Jenkins said.
Despite her hesitation, she said she plans to work closely with whoever is chosen to fill the position to ensure ACAR is operating at its highest potential.
“I don't think that it would be wrong to find someone that maybe has more experience with this level of our community,” Jenkins said. “I'm kind of on the fence … I think that it could go either way, and I think either way would be workable.”
After the animal welfare meeting, the county manager’s office hosted a meet and greet with Watts. The round-table discussion allowed community members to ask her questions directly.
Watts’ priority, she said, is to promote the shelter to the public. She wants to build a strong marketing structure that models her previous humane society, she said, so ACAR animals can be adopted out more quickly.
Community members also had questions about Watts’ position on euthanizing for space. She said she is always against the practice, as she would work to find other outcomes for an animal such as a transfer or foster program.
Coming from out of state, some community members had concerns Florida is an unfamiliar environment for Watts.
Watts attempted to ease fears by acknowledging the adjustment will be a learning process. She said she’ll happily take advice from other community animal leaders to better equip herself to ACAR conditions.
“I can come in with all the ideas in the world, but until I see what's already in place, I don't know what needs to be fixed,” Watts said. “I’ve been doing this a very, very long time, but I still learn every day.”
Watts added she will be entering the shelter at a time of increased public scrutiny. In February, the county launched an open investigation into allegations of mismanagement at ACAR. She said she hopes to improve the communication problems the community is seeing by prioritizing transparency and open dialogue with the county, ACAR staff and volunteers.
“I'm not afraid to get up and talk to people in a setting like this and answer questions and be transparent,” Watts said. “Having that open communication and letting people get to know me and know what I'm planning to do here … I would hope would help the public build trust in me.”
Contact Kaitlyn McCormack at kmccormack@alligator.org. Follow her on X @kaitmccormack20.
Kaitlyn McCormack is a senior journalism student serving as the County Commission Reporter for The Alligator's Spring 2026 metro desk. In her free time she enjoys journaling and drinking too much coffee
