On Tuesday, the Kansas City Parks Board decided not to implement its rash decision to ban dog parks from 90% of the city's parks. They have now decided to actually wait until the task force they had recommended actually gets assembled and makes its recommendations. A task force will be made up of 15 people - -12 nominated by individual city council members, 2 from the WOOF group, and 1 member of the city's animal control division.
Obviously I applaud this decision by the Parks Board -- they were very hasty in their decision to ban dog parks from all parks under 100 acres. It was a rash, and very arbitrary decision.
Hopefully the task force approaches the dog park situation from a global perspective first...without starting by first looking at the Sunnyside Park Proposal.
Kansas City would do well to start with what the Parks Board intended by looking at adding another 2 or 3 larger regional dog parks. Using a couple of KC's larger parks, like Hodge Park in the North, Minor Park in the South, Swope Park to the East and (Penn Valley Park can serve the inner city for now. although Barkley Riverfront Park is another underutilized viable option for another park), would give KC residents a couple of larger parks that would be destination parks. There would be plenty of parking available, and more than enough space for good, quality dog parks.
Then, once those parks are built, we can look at doing smaller, neighborhood dog parks that could be evaluated on an individual basis and built to suit that neighborhood. Sunnyside would be a consideration for such a park, but with multiple larger dog parks available, the size and scope of the WOOF proposal could be downsized to utilize less space -- and would also need less parking because it would be primarily serving the Waldo Neighborhood -- thus taking out the primary complaints of the few opponents of the park.
The key is to get the regional parks established very quickly so that the WOOF group could redevelop a new, smaller-sized plan and begin discussions on that for Sunnyside Park. The Parks Board is not overflowing with money, but it seems that private money could be available by soliciting sponsorships/naming rights from various area dog-related companies (hat tip Mark Forsythe). If at least half of the funding could come from corporate sponsorships, the city would be able to act on these fairly quickly.
This would be a great solution to the underserving of the dog-loving public, take few funds from the overall parks budget, and still rightfully allow neighborhoods the opportunity to build smaller, neighborhood dog parks.
Everyone would win...let's make it happen.
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