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August 16th, 2007, Five Cities Times Press Recorder
Arroyo Grande OKs off-leash park
Dog owners howling with glee
By April Charlton/Senior Staff Writer
Members of the Five Cities Dog Park Association can no longer ask “Where’s the dog park?” like they’ve done for more than a year now.
With a 5-0 vote Tuesday, the Arroyo Grande City Council approved development of an off-leash dog park at the south end of Elm Street Park near the site’s three pump houses.
“I think this will be a valuable asset to the community,” Mayor Pro Tem Ed Arnold said about the proposed 2/3-acre dog park. “It’s a great idea, and I look forward to using it myself.”
The 200-member Five Cities Dog Park Association will raise the funding needed to construct the dog park, which will be fenced, with four double-gated entries and divided into two areas — one for small dogs and one for large dogs.
Councilman Joe Costello said he had issues with separating the off-leash park into two areas because he has both a small, 12-pound dog and a large, 50-pound dog that “play together all the time.”
“What happens if I take my dogs to the dog park?” Costello asked.
Although the park will be separated into two areas for small and large dogs, partly as an insurance requirement, dog park users will be allowed to let their dogs run and play in either area.
“We are going to leave it up to the owner (which area they choose to recreate in),” said Cynthia Eklund, Dog Park Association president. “You enter at your own risk.”
Eklund added that when association members used Costa Bella retention basin in Grover Beach as an off-leash dog park, the site wasn’t separated and there weren’t any problems between large and small dogs.
The dog park group has been searching for a site in the Five Cities that could accommodate a dog park since early 2006, when the city of Grover Beach started ticketing dog owners who let their canines run off-leash at the Costa Bella retention basin.
After getting the boot from the Grover Beach site, dog owners who used the retention basin formed the nonprofit Five Cities Dog Park Association, with the main goal of developing an off-leash dog park in the Five Cities area.
There are 3,500 licensed dogs in the Five Cities area that have nowhere to run off-leash, according to the Dog Park Association, which has more Arroyo Grande residents as members than from any other city or town in the South County.
“We have an unmet need,” Eklund told the council during a presentation on the proposed dog park she believes will create “community” at Elm Street Park.
“Dog parks are the only kind of park that invite total strangers to talk to each other,” she said. “No matter our age, we love to talk about our dogs. Now that’s a community.”
During the group’s more than yearlong quest to secure a dog park site, their mantra “Where’s the dog park?” has been printed on bumper stickers and T-shirts. However, that mantra no longer holds true.
acharlton@timespressrecorder.com