Menlo Park: Dogs have their day: Council OKs two bark parks Menlo Park: Dogs have their day: Council OKs two bark parks (November 17, 2004)

** Nealon, Willow Oaks tapped for fenced, off-leash areas.

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

The Menlo Park City Council has given the go-ahead for two off-leash dog park areas at Nealon and Willow Oaks parks. Menlo Park residents and their canine companions will be able to romp freely -- albeit in special, fenced-off areas, and only at certain times of the day.

But before the dog parks become a reality, the city will have to find money in its tight budget to pay for fencing, signs and dog-poop bag dispensers.

City Manager David Boesch said at the November 9 meeting that he would bring a proposal and more precise cost estimates back to the council in about a month. The council voted 4-1, with Councilman Chuck Kinney opposed, to have city staff move forward on the dog park projects.

At Willow Oaks Park, on Willow Road at Coleman Avenue, the off-leash space will be the kidney-shaped grassy area. It will be open for limited hours, and users might be required to obtain a key to get in.

At Nealon Park, on Middle Avenue near University Drive, dogs could roam the ball field from 8 to 10 a.m. on weekdays.

Mr. Kinney said he was opposed to the off-leash area at Willow Oaks Park, and said that fencing in a portion of the park would detract visually from its aesthetics.

Currently, there is nowhere in the city that dog owners can legally let their dogs be off-leash. At the meeting, council members acknowledged that, due to lack of leash-law enforcement, several city parks have been de facto dog runs for years.

The issue has been a volatile one for Menlo Park for the past two years, as evident from the many meetings, public hearings, surveys, petitions and e-mails on the topic.

Council members asked a number of liability-related questions of City Attorney Bill McClure, who said that while a dog owner has the primary liability in a dog-bite case, the city's exposure to liability will undoubtedly increase if its laws are changed to allow off-leash dogs, even under limited circumstances.

At the meeting, 38 people spoke, some passionately, about safety concerns, the need to let dogs exercise and socialize off-leash, the noise problems and the mess. Some objected only to the notion of off-leash areas at specific parks, others to the hours, and many said they wanted off-leash areas fenced off.

"I would not do anything to jeopardize kids, and giving us a fenced area to run dogs off-leash does not do that," said Mary Watson, a Menlo Park resident who said she had two children and a standard poodle.

Youth soccer representatives complained about damage to fields that they pay to use, and the danger loose dogs pose to their players. A plastic surgeon showed a slide of one of his patients, a 6-year-old girl with a large dog bite on her cheek.

Elizabeth Houck, who said she's dedicated hundreds of hours of research to the dog park issue, said that dog bites are the No. 3 reason children are taken to emergency rooms. She advocated that any off-leash areas be double fenced to make sure that dogs can't escape.

"I'm for dog parks in Menlo Park, but they've got to be done correctly," she said.

Councilman Paul Collacchi noted that there appeared to be a consensus in favor of fenced-off dog runs, and explained to the crowd that the council would do its best to "cook up an imperfect government solution."

Mayor Lee Duboc, who said that for her 10 years on the city's Parks and Recreation Commission, "playfields were my life," confessed that a part of her cringes at the thought of using Nealon Park's ball field as a dog run.

"But I think we do have to compromise," she said, adding that limiting the hours it's open to dogs would decrease wear and tear on the refurbished field.

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