I have been the 4th District Park commissioner on the Minneapolis Park and
Recreation Board for just over 5 years. The issue of creating Off Leash
Recreation Areas(OLRA's) came up shortly after I joined the board. My first
appointment to a Citzen Advisory Committee(CAC) was to the Olra committee.
The CAC began meeting biweekly in April 1998 and brought their Findings and
Recommendations to the MPRB in October 1998. All CAC meetings were
publicized and open to anyone interested. There were a series of
informational meetings to gain additional input from the public, held in
various parts of the city, following the CAC report. The Park Board then
took action on establishing OLRA's. The Park Board agreed that we didn't
want any area to be overused and so promised that we would begin by
establishing one dog park in each of the 6 Park Districts. We have not kept
that promise. To date we have four parks and there is not one in the 2nd or
the 6th. I was glad that Jean Johnson pointed out in her post that there are
6,400 acres of parkland in the system and less than 10 acres for dog parks.
I believe the Park Board needs to better serve our changing population in
Minneapolis and needs to consider that less than one fourth of the cit's
population has school children. It is estimated there are approx.45,000
school age children in Minneapolis and over 90,000 dogs. All those dogs have
owners ,who are Park users ,and I think it is time we better serve ALL
recreational users of our Parks. When the Park Board voted to establish Dog
Parks they also stated that OLRA's were a legitimate recreational use. I
heard all the arguments that are currently being used against the Wm. Berry
site when the Isles site was brought forward.I can report that there have
not been ANY complaints since Isles has opened about traffic, parking,
noise, etc. In fact the only complaint I have received since it opened is
that the Park Board should provide some benches that better fit this great
site than the furniture people were bringing from hom. Dog Parks are the
best Community builder I have seen in my 5 years as a commissioner. Any day
of the week you will see non dog owners at the fence, or observing from the
Midtown Greenway this wonderful form of recreation for People and their
dogs. Dog wners and dogs deserve better than the dregs of the system (the
most recently suggessted site under the 35W bridge) Doubters should go visit
and see for themselves this wonderful recreational activity. It is also
important to point out that most users of dog Parks WALK with their dog to
the site and that is another reason it is important to have more of them and
have them available in each Park District. Vivian Mason, 4th District Park
commissioner and CIDNA
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