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March 25, 2003

City Manager Meeting

Dottie Rhodes and Laurel Pruski went down to City Hall to talk to the City officials assigned with the task of getting GR a dog park. All-in-all a great meeting!

Click on the link below to read our notes.

List of the attendees: Kurt Kimball, Jay Steffan, Tom Zelinski, Victor Vasquez, Dottie Rhodes, and Laurel Pruski

Jay informed us that the County is considering a dog park just North of Riverside Park at Lamereaux Park. There are 20 acres available and the park is located on the South side of the river.

Even though the County is planning for a dog park, the City officials were very open to the idea of a City sanctioned dog park, too. Jay also shared with us a budget estimate that the City Commission generated for the costs of a 1 acre dog park. The estimate to create the park is approximately $25,000; however, it does not include the costs for ongoing maintenance. The $25,000 included everything from 6' fencing, double gated entrances, water fountain to a pavilion for shade. It will be determined within the next 30 days as to whether the dog park budget will be included in the city's budget for fiscal year 2004, which actually begins July 1, 2003. The city's total budget is over $300 million and the officials reinforced that the budget of $25,000 is really not large in the scheme of things. (We learned that the poop scoop bags cost the city $6,000/yr and they were cut from the budget for the next fiscal year.)

The city would like to pursue with the establishment of one dog park instead of multiple parks within the city. We shared the benefits of a couple smaller parks versus one large park, but it seems the city wants to start with one park and see how things go.

The City Commission had not made progress on determining proposed sites. We shared our list of five proposed parks and Kurt suggested either Fuller or Wilcox parks since they are most centrally located. Plus, if the County will have a park just North of Riverside, then it wouldn't be ideal to have the City dog park at Riverside: so close to each other.

Tom mentioned that the City should plan to talk with neighbors of the proposed dog park areas.

Victor mentioned that we should consider obtaining non-profit status. Laurel has already done research into non-profits and we should plan to discuss this at our next meeting.

We will be checking back with Mr. Kimball at the end of April to see if the city has actually put the $25,000 in the budget and proceed from there.

Overall the meeting went very well and it was stressed that our group wants to partner with the city and work as a team to get this project under way.

A few miscellaneous comments that pertain to the agenda:

~ An additional consideration for an ideal facility would be an emergency "blue" phone, suggested by Jay Steffan.

~ We discussed park enforcement and the city does not have money for this, so we would have to be a self-policed park.

Posted by Gwen at March 25, 2003 10:48 AM

Comments

The meeting with the city officials went great! I was very encouraged with the amount of research and thought they had put into our proposal so far and feel very optimistic about the reality of a city sanctioned dog park happening in Grand Rapids.

I would like to thank Mr. Kimball for taking the time to meet with us and we (The Grand Rapids Dog Park Enthusiasts) look forward to partnering with the city on this project.

Posted by: dottie at March 25, 2003 11:52 AM