Park leaves pet owners in the dark | LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Published 10:23 am Friday, November 27, 2015
To the editor:
When I helped design the Strawberry Hill off-leash dog park over one year ago, advocating for direct, drive-up access to the front gate (unlike Eagledale Park’s hike-in), a roomy “air lock” entrance to gauge dog chemistry, and a few other amenities, I never dreamed that 18-months later we’d all still be in the dark about where the second, third, fourth or fifth off-leash dog park would be situated.
Those were the numbers promised by the Bainbridge Island parks district to service the genuine needs of an estimated 6,000-plus canines on “The Rock.”
The sloping, tree-stoked, two-acre plot tucked behind Strawberry’s arts and crafts building was barely suitable for any human purpose, so it was an easy choice for the park district board to approve. The cold, dark fact is that the venue is also barely suitable for dogs. It is covered in forest shade over the summer months and in the winter turns pitch black by 4:45 in the afternoon.
Guess what? That means our island’s only centralized dog park is closed for four to five months out of the year at 4:30 p.m. and out of reach for any commuter’s “after-work” dog walk. Yet, there are towering banks of lights on the other side of the parking lot illuminating the park’s football fields.
In January of this year, a Bainbridge Island Dog Park Social Club was created on Facebook by Christopher Kueny and wife Lisa. The social interaction was very much appreciated. Park-goers could log their park arrival times on the page and meet up with friends. Chris reports that his informal polling indicates the group desperately wants to see safety lighting installed at the venue. The park district has a four-letter word for that idea: “Next!”
Dog park lighting? Well, no! How about a “Web cam” for security? Um, sorry. Rain tarp canopies in a few trees? Uh-uh. Not a single improvement has been made to the dog park since the day it opened. That is simply shameful.
The Facebook group recently got together for a “Poop Safari” picking up an entire trash can full of canine waste. Guess our property tax dollars don’t go far enough to have the district maintain its park grounds feces-free. What’s more, the last word heard on the promised new dog parks was that the district wanted to see whether they could be privately funded! Tax dollars, where art thou?
The dirty little secret is that adding new off-leash areas for our faithful companions, and improving current ones, is really about dog poop. The district needed an off-leash area to point to in order to issue tickets and fines to dog owners who let their beasts poop in on-leash parks. It’s got that now. So it stopped!
Let’s get the park district out of the dog (and horse) business. Let the city of Bainbridge Island provide the needed leadership and initiative. Don’t let the feckless park district be the tail that wags our dogs! They’re keeping us all in the dark!
LARRY SIVITZ
(and “Bailey”)
Bainbridge Island
