TCDOG Update
Ithaca Journal editorial delivers! (Feb. 10, 2005)
Contact TCDOG at info@tcdog.org.Unheeded constituency
Let's build a dog park!Daytime highs have actually climbed above freezing for a few days. Therefore, it is time to think about spring, and in Ithaca, thinking about spring means thinking about "Dog Park," the stretch of parkland behind Hangar Theatre that has traditionally and unofficially been the one publicly owned space where owners could let their dogs off-leash to exercise and play.
None of this was legal, strictly speaking, because local ordinances and state park regulations -- part of dog park's acreage lies in city-owned Cass Park and the rest is part of Allan H. Treman State Marine Park -- require dogs to be on leashes. But in one of those unspoken compromises that make civic life civil, officials allowed dog park to function as a quasi-permissible leash-free zone for more than a decade, complete with plastic poop-scooping bags supplied by Wegmans and a dumpster supplied by the park service.
But in September, 2004 a Binghamton lawyer who rented a boat slip at the marina wrote the city claiming that the dogs caused him such emotional distress that he was deprived of his rights to use public park land, Ithaca City Attorney Martin Luster told The Journal. He threatened to sue unless the city aggressively enforced its leash laws.
Park police officers suddenly began issuing tickets to patrons who walked their dogs off-leash. This past weekend, they went on a ticket blitz, sealing off the parking lot with squad cars as if they had Osama bin Laden penned in by the picnic tables, instead of a bunch of dogwalkers celebrating the thaw.
Before this silliness goes any further, city and state officials should move to establish an official, fully-legal area for dogs in Cass/Treman Park.
First to state the obvious: No out-of-towner has the right to dictate how Ithacans use a city park, bought and maintained with their local taxes. Second, state and city parks were created to serve the wide interests of the citizenry. One of the glories of Cass and Treman parks is the variety of people who use them: walkers, boaters, picnickers, joggers, softball players, rollerbladers, fishermen, soccer teams, dog owners and small children just learning which end of a slide is up. All are welcome; none has the right to exclude others.
That said, park planners should use tax money to serve, as conscientiously as possible, the special needs of special users -- such as providing a marina for boaters, or building a separate park for skateboarders. These earlier projects served -- at considerable expense -- the legitimate needs of two relatively small segments of park users while protecting the safety and enjoyment of the majority.
The same standard should apply to the controversy over a dog park. With nearly 10,000 dog-owning households within a 20-minute drive of Cass/Treman Park, dog owners are arguably the largest single category of park users. In the wan light of a sub-zero dawn, they are virtually the only users. As taxpayers, they have as much right to specialized facilities as boaters or skateboarders.
There are other reasons to support a clearly designated leash-free area for dogs in our parks, not the least of which is the safety and serenity of those park patrons who prefer to avoid dogs. Finally, it is hard to imagine how the Tompkins County animal shelter can continue its no-euthanasia policy unless the 300 or so residents who adopt dogs each year have a proper place to exercise their pets.
Dog owners in Ithaca and Tompkins County have a right to safe, legal accommodation in their state and local parks. When that accommodation is provided, everybody will be better off.
Email this story
Originally published Thursday, February 10, 2005
