HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Dog Park Committee - 04/09/2008 DOG PARK COMMITTEE
MINUTES
4-9-08
The meeting of the Dog Park Committee was held on Wednesday evening,April 9, 2008
at 6:30pm in the small conference room of the Municipal Office Building.
Present: Lisa Ventriss, Chair; Jamie Heins, Vice-Chair;Joan Jarvis, Secretary; Howard
Goldberg, Lori Valburn, Claire Williams
Also Present: Tom Hubbard
The meeting was called to order at 6:35 p.m.
The minutes from the last meeting were approved as written.
The committee was excited about the results of the survey that was handed out with dog
license renewal. About 100 responses have been received to date. Also about 30 people
have expressed interest in being involved in some way. The committee reviewed the
results of the survey.
Donna Kinville would like to meet with the committee at some point to discuss some
options for registering dogs and the possibility of increasing fees to help offset fees/use
for dog parks.
There was a discussion on why registration of dogs is down from 850 to less than 400 as
of April 1st.
Lisa says we will continue to review surveys and will refer to it at public comment day.
There was discussion on how to put a survey online or a way to get it out to more
potential responders.
Tom Hubbard will draft an ad for The Other Paper to announce public meeting.
Review of the site walk around:
Visited Red Rocks, South Village and landfill area. Attendees for the walk around
were Tom Hubbard, Joan Jarvis and Lisa Ventriss.
Lisa reviewed what we saw at each location:
Red Rocks unused parking areas would provide the potential for the location.
Issues-would have to educate public to the area that dogs can not be off leash elsewhere
in park, it's an environmentally sensitive area, logistics of parking in off-season.
South Village: Location would be on the southern tip of South Burlington near the
Shelburne Town line,just north of the power lines. The committee viewed the
approximate area from Spear St. Tom says that the city will insist on off road parking.
Landfill site:
We were there at the time fighter jets took off. Tom mentioned that Stantec engineers are
currently conducting a site analysis of the area.Noise from the military jets is the main
concern. Discussion on finding out how many flights take off on a monthly basis.
Questions on what kind of data we could get from airport to know how to evaluate the
location based on noise.
Discussion on informally bringing the additional committee members to the reviewed
sites.
Claire commented on the perception of removing the Patchen Road Park and replacing it
with something similar in the area would be a good thing.
Discussion on getting photos of each area for the public meeting.
General consensus was that each site had good points and some downfalls.
Lori suggested approaching Humane Society for them to use and provide area for training
and activities for their use, along with general public.
Discussion moved on to what other sites may be suitable for review:
Locations included: Technology Park,Butler Farms areas, Dorset Park natural area.
There was some comparative discussion on each location.
Review of the other city park areas and suitability was discussed.
Committee felt that Tech Park, Butler Farm areas and Dorset Park were the only other
available areas to the ones already visited.
Committee discussed long-term viability of approaching developers, as was done with
South Village, as future projects are being discussed.
Discussion by committee members as to location of public meeting and date_
Thursday, May 8th was chosen as the best date from 7-8:30 p.m. Meeting is best
categorized as a community meeting or public forum. There would be an initial
presentation and then possibly breaking out into focus groups.
Items that could be discussed and included in a handout for public meeting:
Ideal Standards
Wish lists
Charge of committee
Statistics on number of dogs in South Burlington
Statistics on average number of dogs/population
Current issues of why a dog park
Funding
Possible breakout groups for 20-30 minutes on various topics and review at the end of the
session.
Key topics for focus groups:
Financial—funding& sponsorship possibilities
Locations-site
Public needs and wants-essential elements
Guidelines,rules of dog park- etiquette
Operations-maintenance of park,volunteer roles and city's role
Discussion of how to summarize the feedback from the focus groups.
Next regular dog park committee meeting will be Thursday May 15 at 6:30 p.m. This is
a change from originally planned.
Presentation of City Council on progress of Dog Park Committee will be in June.
Adjourned at 8:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Joan Jarvis, Secretary