Attended the planning meeting for the dog park last night at City Hall and wanted to give an update on what’s going on.

In the council chambers they had set up an easel with a mock up of the proposed dog park that we’ve seen before. There were no chairs in the room to sit so it was not a ‘meeting’ per se. Across from the easel were two more displays, blank, with post-it note pads nearby to write down questions, concerns and comments. Outside of city employees, appointees, council members and their spouses, the mayor, Parks and Rec Director Sorrell and various people who are part of the status quo, there were maybe only 30 people at best with only, perhaps, 10 or so people who weren’t connected to City Hall.

There were questions of Ms. Sorrell by various people, including myself. I like Ms. Sorrell and believe she does a nice job. She answered all the questions thoroughly, with enthusiasm, as best she was able. I came away with a sense of trust in them doing the project right, in all aspects from safety to drainage to making certain all aspects of its success are, with foresight and diligence, taken care of thoroughly. In that I’m letting it go. I believe her when she says she’s gonna do the right thing and so, leave it at that.

However, I did speak with her about the lack of proactive communication with the residents and citizens about its placement before it was decided. I told her the nature of a dog park, with sanitation and environmental and noise issues was certainly worthy of alerting citizens to prior to the decision to place it somewhere, particularly in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It’s be like them allowing a scrapyard to be put there without letting the residents know beforehand. There might be some questions and concerns. Whether Ms. Sorrell is the ultimate one to be held responsible for this disrespect to the citizens, her ultimate response was, paraphrasing: ‘well, next time we’ll make sure to let citizens know beforehand’. That’s simply not good enough and, of course, no one will be held accountable for the string of disrespects, like that, to Whitehall citizens.

Honestly, I have to blame our CEO, the Mayor, for this. She does as she pleases, often to her political benefit, to the detriment of respect, public trust, ethical principles, etc. It was terribly disrespectful to the taxpayers who will be footing the bill for this dog park to not inform them of its location, let alone all those within a 4 block radius who will be impacted by its location choice. Utterly disrespectful. It will be interesting to see if anyone on council stands up for the citizens they’re supposed to be representing during this dog park’s movement to fruition or if (as is typical) they simply rubber-stamp all her projects and turn tail and whimper away in the shadow of the Mayor’s position of power.

As for me, I say, ‘Good luck residents of Beechwood and Washburn.’