A Doggedly Determined Political Action Plan Knowing the political process, how it’s played and who the players are is half the battle. Do the very necessary and Kafkaesque task of learning how your local government operates. Most dog park issues involve municipal or county governments, requiring modifications in ordinances. Chart your way around city hall. City (county) clerk offices or their online equivalent are good places to start. They’ll provide lists of legislators. Set up meetings with your legislators to scope out their feelings. (See sidebar.) Identify the procedures needed to get your proposal heard by the legislative body. Battiata describes the scene well: “Finally, late into the evening, only one item remained on the docket. And in the well-established tradition of local government, it was the really controversial one.” That final one will undoubtedly be yours, so rest assured, you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about legislative procedures. If policy advisory commissions are involved, find out which ones recommend policy regarding parks, when they meet and, most importantly, how to get your item on an agenda. Policy can be shaped by a chairperson controlling agendas, so this might be more difficult than you think. In Berkeley, a process-rich city, attendance at numerous monthly meetings of four separate commissions, plus a Dog Task Force, was needed before we even got close to our first city council hearing. Note that most public meetings reserve time for public comment unrelated to any specific item; take advantage of these opportunities to introduce your proposal. Go as often as you can—hounding them isn’t a bad idea; sometimes just showing an interest in their dull proceedings and becoming a familiar, (and hopefully friendly) face, can earn you bonus points. Determine what public agencies are concerned with parks and dogs: Parks, Recreation, Animal Services, Public Safety and Health departments. Meet with the managers to assess their positions—offer to help with some park maintenance, like organizing a poop clean-up campaign. Let them know that you are there not just to ask for something but to provide a service as well. In New York City, individual directors of parks, such as Central and Riverside Parks in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, can act quite independently. So Jane Cameron’s FIDO (Fellowship for the Interest of Dogs and their Owners) group in Brooklyn found the director of Prospect Park more responsive to their demands and thankful for the assistance they were proffering, whereas Jeff Zahn’s FLORAL (Friends and Lovers of Riverside Area Life) had their adopt-a-park space taken away from them by a director with a renovation plan that didn’t allow for their good stewardship to even be acknowledged. Go figure! Civil servants can be your biggest enemies or best allies. Often it is up to them to support the legitimacy of your activity—and this might be key to your success. The Director of Portland, Oregon’s Parks and Recreation Department, Charles Jordan, understood the off-leash issue to be a classic example of a land-use conflict: “Public lands belong to everyone, yet when there’s not enough for everyone to do what they want to do when they want to do it, we have a collision.” His department took the step of accepting the legitimacy of off-leash recreation and set up a task force to find suitable sites. John Etter, of Parks Planning in Eugene, Oregon, is so enthusiastic that he provides a supportive letter to those interested in dog parks. And Dee Tilson, Park Supervisor at Point Isabel— a twenty-one-acre off-leash park in Richmond, California, established in 1975 and receiving an estimated 900,000 dog visitors per year—is also happy to send her supportive letter. Consult with any neighborhood groups that might have an interest in your proposal, especially targeting any and all homeowners and businesses abutting a park that might be under your consideration. Kevin Kraus, the philosophy professor who spearheads the dog group in the Dupont Circle, stresses the importance of consensus building. He recognizes his group’s need of first making peace with their neighborhood council so they can achieve the goal of making a de facto off-leash area part of the neighborhood’s Adopt-a-Park strategy. He adds, “We’re optimistic, we are working with really good people in the neighborhood.” Kevin teaches a program in Creative Problem Solving—skills sure to be well tested in his new dog park activism. Do not ignore the concerns of the community, as they will be addressed sometime during the public process. Better still, become a player yourself. Get appointed to or volunteer to be on a civic committee, neighborhood council or a task force. Working from within can do wonders. Task Force A model that has been used with varying degrees of success by some cities, including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego and Berkeley, is a task force appointed to study and make recommendations on off-leash recreation. A task force centralizes the “process,” but it needs to represent your constituency as well, with its public meetings conducted openly with schedules properly noticed, and in locations accessible to public participation. Since it is the park users who should determine local park needs, a task force shouldn’t just be packed with city hall pols and bureaucrats. It is extremely important that if such an issue-specific committee is convened, your group is well-represented at its hearings—let it be known that this is your issue! A recent decision to “de-list” some San Francisco parks for off-leash activity came about when opponents outnumbered proponents at the final meeting of that city’s dog task force. Speaking as someone who serves on a commission, it can’t be stressed enough that attendance at these meetings does matter—packing meeting rooms with supporters can sway votes even more than logical and heartfelt arguments. This is especially true with this issue. It might be difficult to convince dog people to attend numerous meetings—especially if its takes four years, which is about average for most of the successful dog park resolutions—but remind them that the game is theirs to lose. (What can be the most frustrating is that even after you convince people to go to these meetings, to write their letters, to do e-mailing, the effort might only be good for one particular time frame, or one meeting. The next time you go before a committee, its members might have changed and you have to repeat the whole show all over again. Sisyphus and his old rock look like a piece of cake to off-leash advocates.) Gathering Support If the dog park idea starts with just a handful of supporters, you’ll need to increase your numbers—few politicians are brave enough to turn their backs on a large number of earnest voters (especially in election years). Unfortunately, volunteers often only come flocking to the cause when citations increase or the status in a park changes. The spark that caused the formation of Seattle’s COLA (Citizens for Off-leash Areas, one of the better acronyms; their opponents are called UNCOLA) was an increase in city-wide citations in one year from 300 to 1,200. SFDOG got its push when dogs were banned from Ocean Beach, an area within the the jurisdiction of the National Parks Service, because of unsubstantiated claims that dogs were disturbing Snowy Plover nestings. But you can also be proactive, like Mary Anne Morrison-Roberts, a founder of Santa Barbara’s Dog PAC (Dog Political Action Committee), who recommends making handbills and brochures and posting them at de facto dog parks, vet offices, pet stores and dog-friendly businesses around town. She also suggests that memberships not be subject to dues; she says it is “more important to get the people enrolled—those wishing to donate, will.” Their organization, a registered 501-(c)4 nonprofit performing political action, has 1,000 members and has made remarkable strides in a very short time. Dr. Paul, a veterinarian from Coral Springs, Florida, set up a table at his community’s annual fair, getting people to sign petitions in support of a dog park. And Bash Dibra, a NYC dog trainer and author, has organized events, including doggie parades, to benefit Van Cortlandt Park, persuading celebrities (whose dogs he trains) to attend and contribute support —impressing both park administrators and park users. His fundraising skills and willingness to work toward consensus led to the building of a Canine Court, a state-of-the-art dog area in that Bronx park. Bash told us that “Henry Stern (Mayor Giulaini’s Park Commissioner) loves it: I bring celebrities in and they are amazed at the response. You have to show that you have a commitment, and that members of the community participate, so we do these annual fundraisers in the parks.” You should also look for support from veterinarians and humane organizations. Most vets, especially those with behaviorist training, understand the benefits of off-leash exercise to the health and well-being of their patients. Solicit letters of endorsement from them. Dr. Paul, inspired by what he saw during a conference in Boston, came back home and started one of his state’s first dog parks. He tells of seeing “ten or fifteen dog owners having a blast in the Boston Commons, their dogs chasing each other, the people socializing and at the other corner of the park, nobody was talking to anyone else, nobody was doing anything together.” But it took him four years to get the park up and running—with no encouragement from the other vets in his area. Dr. Lynette Hart, director of UC Davis’ Center for Animals in Society, addressed many key points in a letter of support for a Sacramento dog park initiative: “Dogs especially facilitate friendly interactions among people, as they so actively solicit play and offer greetings … establishing a dog park creates a community center of activity where friends and neighbors gather to relax … users of dog parks are self-policing so as to maintain the appealing environment .… Creating dog parks is a method for more efficiently educating dog owners and facilitating them in assuring excellent behavior with their dogs.” Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Tufts University veterinarian and behaviorist (read the complete interview in E-Zine), answering a question about a dog’s need for aerobic exercise, stated,“Walking them on a leash is not sufficient exercise. It is not that they die if they walk on a leash, and it’s not that a human being dies in solitary confinement either. It is just that it is not optimal for their physiological and psychological well-being.” He adds, “It is important for a dog to be provided with natural outlets—to be able to run and exercise and chase things and do as a dog was bred to do.” There is plenty of expert testimony—we hope you will be able to get the vets in your community to write letters as well. Humane organizations and animal shelters should be willing to endorse your efforts as well. As a nationally respected leader on all issues relating to companion animals, San Francisco’s SPCA has been a staunch proponent of off-leash recreation. This is evidenced by an excerpt from their statement to the Advisory Dogs Off-Leash Task Force: “We feel that because of the growth of our City’s population, in human and canine terms, now is the time to accommodate for the future of our dog-friendly parks … Off-leash recreation is not only an essential part of how many people care for their pets—it is a way to give a little something back to the animals who give us all so much.” The SF/SPCA cares so much about this issue that they have even offered to contribute financially to the development of a state-of-the-art dog park in San Francisco. CONTINUE to Running with a Pack... TO PREVIOUS PAGE HOME | TOP | CONTACT US | ABOUT THE BARK | WEBMASTER Jan Drago Legislator of the Decade If only every dog park struggle could be blessed with having someone like Jan Drago, City of Seattle Councilmember, pulling for them. She has been a tireless supporter. She issued a position-defining press release on October 9, 1995, “… As I listened to the concerns of these Seattle residents, I thought back to the time when I served as a member and chair of a Park Board … when I developed a personal philosophy that ALL residents of a community had a right to utilize park facilities, not just SOME residents.… Why NOT have some areas where dog owners could exercise and play with their pets, socialize with other dog owners?… I came to agree with what Seattle dog owners from all over this city were saying: this is not a DOG issue; it is a PEOPLE issue. It is about recognizing off-leash activity as a valid recreational activity. It is about Seattle residents who pay taxes to support our parks system, who willingly pay for those swimming pools, tennis courts and fields that they may never use and who ask in return only that they be allowed in some places in some parks and to be able to engage in their favorite recreational activity.” She then introduced legislation to implement Seattle’s off-leash area pilot program. John Etter, Parks Planning, Public Works Maintenance, Eugene, OR “…The trial period came to an end, and following public hearing, the decision was made to retain all five locations. Testimonials include the fact that people have moved into a neighborhood because of their existence, and that people derive enjoyment in sharing this activity with others; it is as if these locations are community centers for people as well as canines. There have been no complaints about people having failed to clean up after their dogs.…introducing a new activity to a park can bring out the kind of people you want in parks, which can help control some of the undesirable activity that may be taking place [in the park].” Mr. Etter signs off with “best wishes for your off-leash venture.”