Jonathan,

I appreciate your willingness to create a Website Forum regarding the Millrace Dog Park. I also appreciate your invitation to address my position on the park as well as to explain some of the reasons behind concerns that some park users have expressed on your
website.

I am sorry that somehow I have given park users the impression that I do not support the park or that I hate dogs and dog owners. I am a "parent" to two dogs as well as a cat that I rescued from the Taylorsville/West Valley Animal shelter. I do not use the park as my animals are exclusively indoor pets but I do recognize the value of the facility to many who have dogs that need a place to run and play.

I have certainly had some public disagreements with some of the park supporters as well as some who oppose the park. The city has tried to walk a very fine line to assure that the park can stay open while at the same time responding to neighbors and other users of the main park who consider the dog park a nuisance.

Originally, the park was to be open 6 days a week and be closed only on Tuesdays for maintenance that we contract with the county to perform. Because of some less than respectful dog park users and some less than tolerant neighbors the city was asked to consider closing the park altogether. Instead, the city got the two groups together and a compromise was made to close the park one weekend day to allow a quiet evening for park neighbors. That policy remains in affect today.

I have also ordered the park closed for a time after someone vandalized the gates and surrounding fence to the park to gain access on a day it was closed as well as several incidents of vandalism to signs at the park. This is a policy consistent with our other specialty park, a skateboard park. Vandalism has decreased dramatically at both parks
since that policy went into affect, mostly due to responsible park users who now help police the parks.

Obviously it would be better if the city had resources to monitor the park but unfortunately we do not. Some park users insist that the fees collected to use the park should pay for better maintenance and security but the revenues received from park fees are not sufficient for that. Quite frankly the fees were assessed to reduce the numbers of park users rather than to maintain the park. Zero tolerance of the "no tag" violations come as a result of people who buy tags complaining that the city does not do anything about those who refuse to do so. Many dogs found in the park without park tags also are not licensed and do not have required shots. Requiring tags also helps
the city to deal with the problem of restricting vicious dogs (or owners) from usage of the park.

Some park users have also complained about the city's failure to maintain grass at the park. We designed the park believing that grass would be sustainable but now have been told that the use of the park is just too great for grass to survive. We have looked at several options to replace the grass to minimize the muddy conditions that exist and hope that using wood chips will provide groundcover that will not be hard on the dogs feet as they run around the park.

I am also told that some think that the water feature was removed to "punish" the park users. Two things accounted for the removal of the water feature. One was that many park users used the pond for disposing of dog feces, thereby creating a festering cesspool of feces and worms that was about 1-2 feet deep and created a health hazard. The other problem was that the engineers had improperly designed the drainage for the pond to discharge into the Jordan River, creating high readings of E-Coli bacteria downstream from the drain. The cost to reroute the drain into a sewer system as well as the health hazards of the animal waste forced the city to remove the pond.

I recognize that most park users are responsible and that many of them have volunteered time and materials with maintenance and repairs. It seems that I have been negligent in recognizing and expressing gratitude for those efforts. For that I apologize.

Taylorsville has been very fortunate to have many volunteers who help control costs in our city in many areas.

I am happy to meet with you or others to discuss concerns, problems and hopefully mutually beneficial solutions. I hope that we can work together to make the park the special socializing place for dogs and their owners that was originally intended. Thanks again for your efforts to create a forum for the park users. I would be happy to provide a link to your website from our city website if you wish. Feel free to post this on your website.

Respectfully,
Russ