Encinitas may change
direction on dog parks

DENIS DEVINE
Staff Writer

North County Times
March 20, 2002

The debate stems from a March 19 commission meeting, when the panel began what it expected to be a six-month review of neighborhood parks to decide which ones could host off-leash dog hours.

City officials said this week that they've received a flood of calls and e-mails on both sides of the issue, from dog park supporters to parents worried about their children's safety in parks where dogs run free.

On Friday, Mayor Christy Guerin said the Encinitas City Council wants the commission to go in a different direction and first find a few sites to fence off where dogs could run free at any time of day.

It was a statement she also made earlier in the week, in front of a large crowd at a Cardiff Town Council meeting.

They (commissioners) have inserted evaluating parks for off-leash hours (into their agenda), and that's not the direction we want to go," Guerin said Friday. "It doesn't seem like a necessity to agonize over that before we establish some parks, that may resolve it for everybody."

But Councilman Jerome Stocks said Guerin doesn't speak for him on the issue.
Stocks, who served on the parks commission before being elected to the council, said Friday that the commission should feel free to explore any ideas residents suggest for city parks.

Moreover, he said, he didn't want the council to spend time gathering residents' input on whether they wanted a dog park in their neighborhood.

"Let people tell the parks commission about park usage," Stocks said. "I don't want to do that as a councilman, that's a commissioner's job. Then they can tell me as part of the recommendation, and I can see how that fits into a policy issue."

Parks commission Vice Chairman Robert Nanninga said Wednesday that the council should allow commissioners to continue hearing residents' opinions about dog parks.

"We heard five hours of it (on March 19) and that was just about two parks," said Nanninga, who also writes a column for the North County Times. "Does the City Council want to give the residents that much time to vent their frustration and ideas over the issue? That's what our commissions are for, to take some of that pressure off the City Council."

"Now we have a roomful of people and everybody's discussing what their community looks like," he added. "Why would anybody want to put the brakes on that kind of public participation?"

The chairwoman of People and Dog Zones, a year-old group that advocates for dog parks in Encinitas, said her group felt "we need to have a combination of both" fenced-off areas and hours at neighborhood parks.

Lu Meyer, an Olivenhain dog trainer, said off-leash dog parks and hours allow the large number of Encinitas dog owners a chance to give their pets the exercise and socialization they need.

"Why are they objecting to having dogs off their leash nine hours during the week when people aren't there anyway?" Meyer asked. "People are saying parks should be for people. Well they are, they're for people who own dogs."

Councilman James Bond said Friday that he supported dog parks, but was "not a fan of mixing unleashed dogs in our people parks."

"No matter how many good arguments there are on one side, there are too many hazards on the other," Bond said.

Dozens of residents packed City Hall for the March 19 commission meeting, giving hours of testimony. The commission ultimately voted to recommend to the council that Glen Park in Cardiff should offer off-leash dog hours and that Hawk View Park in new Encinitas should not have a fenced-off dog zone.

The city has off-leash dog hours at Orpheus Park on Orpheus Avenue in Leucadia and Encinitas Viewpoint Park at D Street and Cornish Drive downtown.

The parks commission is set to discuss at its next meeting April 16 whether off-leash hours should be added at Cardiff Sports Park on Lake Drive. In the following months, the commission is scheduled to discuss setting such hours at Leo Mullen Sports Park, Scott Valley Park, Sun Vista Park, Leucadia Oaks Park and Hawk View Park.

Addressing a crowded Cardiff Town Council meeting Tuesday, Guerin indicated her displeasure at reading about the parks commission's decisions in the newspaper.

"The only thing we asked the commission to do was look into fenced areas," Guerin said at that meeting. "They were led into this off-leash hours issue that we never wanted them to address. ... I honestly believe that the council will re-evaluate that. I also don't think the parks and recreation commissioners will continue with the other parks."

Guerin said Friday that she would meet with parks commissioners in early April to "give them a sense of our goal-setting process and a sense of what we're trying to work on."

In January, the council set a fiscal year 2002-03 goal of "exploring opportunities for dog parks in the city of Encinitas." Guerin said Friday that Councilwoman Maggie Houlihan, the council's point person for animal issues, had convinced the council that fenced-off areas dedicated to dog parks was the way to go.

Houlihan and Councilman Dennis Holz could not be reached for comment Friday.
Guerin said Friday that she hoped the commission would recommend locations for fenced dog areas "as soon as possible."

The sites being considered for fenced-off areas include:

* James MacPherson Park, a sliver of city-owned land between Orpheus Avenue and Interstate 5 just north of Leucadia Boulevard.
* A San Diego Gas & Electric Co. easement off Mountain Vista Drive east of El Camino Real.
* Part of the 59-acre Indian Head Canyon preserve in Leucadia.
* The 43-acre Hall property west of Interstate 5 and south of Santa Fe Drive that the city bought last year.
* A vacant city-owned site on Quail Gardens Road designated for a park.

Contact staff writer Denis Devine at (760) 943-2313 or ddevine@nctimes.com