HomeMy WebLinkAboutDraft Minutes - Dog Recreation Task Force - 03/09/2021
Dog Recreation Task Force Meeting
March 9th 2021
12:00-1:00pm
Present Task Force Members: Muriel Moore, Betty Milizia, Corey Santorello, Ashley Parker (staff), Holly
Rees (staff)
Members of the Public: Ken Boyd, Jean Held, Dan Albrecht
Public Comments Not Related to the Agenda:
Dan: Couldn’t attend the upcoming Dog Park Committee Meeting and wanted to remind folks
that there are still fixes that need to be made at the Farrell Dog Park. Betty assured him she
would bring these concerns to the Dog Park Committee.
Ken: Discussed neighborhood concerns off 1) off leash dogs and dog excrement and 2) negative
attitudes of those who pass by his house and allow dogs to urinate on his private property
plantings. Ken expressed he has experience in the State Parks system that he would be happy to
share in terms of successful positive messaging to park users about on/off leash dogs. He
offered to connect with staff outside the meeting as appropriate.
Jean: Stated her desires that off leash dogs need to have a place in South Burlington and that
she feels this can be done with our existing park inventory. She shared that perhaps parks could
have posted “off leash hours” so that all park patrons knew what to expect.
Task Force Discussion:
Betty re-introduced the concept of where the “task force” work could be done and advocated for the
work to come out of the task force and be placed in the Dog Park Committee. While she initially
thought that this work would compromise the Dog Park Committee as they were strongly focused on
installing the Wheeler Dog Park, she now feels that this work could be done in tandem with park
construction. A lengthy discussion was had, reviewing the process of how we got to this point and that
clarity was needed ahead or further action. A brief time line was reviewed.
Winter 2020- Staff met in a task force to begin a process to create/update Management Plans
for the City Owned Land. In doing this work, the need to address general dog recreation and
quality of life for all park patrons became evident. Staff worked through the pandemic on a
document to outline some of the concerns and potential next steps.
October 2020- A joint committee meeting was held between Recreation and Parks, Natural
Resources Conservation Commission and Dog Park Committee to discuss the staff document,
decide if its merits were worth forwarding and chose a structure for that work: namely- would
this work happen in the Dog Park Committee or in a separate “task force”. After some
discussion and advocacy from membership of the Dog Park Committee, it was decided this work
should be completed in a newly assigned Task Force.
November and December: Individual Committees met and solicited members to be
representatives on the “Dog Recreation Task Force”.
January: An initial kick off meeting for the Dog Recreation Task Force was warned and
advertised for Tuesday February 9th 12:00-1:00.
February: Kick off meeting to introduce members, hear about their interest in attending the task
force, availability and capacity of the parties as well as laying out the first agenda for March:
which would include ordinance review of SB, ordinance review of surrounding communities as
well as rules and regulations for privately held SB lands.
Next Steps: Clarification from City Management is needed in order to press forward. Essentially, we
need to know if this work is to continue in a task force, or if it is preferable to continue in the Dog Park
Committee.
Respectfully Submitted by Holly Rees