By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The request for a dog park in Bowling Green – closer to the city’s two- and four-legged residents – was repeated Monday evening to Bowling Green City Council
Earlier this month, a small contingent of dog owners pitched their request for a dog park to the Parks and Recreation Department. On Monday, one of those dog owners, Lona Leck, echoed those remarks to City Council.
The licensed dog population in Bowling Green grew during COVID to 3,477, “to help us to simply get through the lonely days of our isolation,” Leck said.
The dog owners are looking for a more walkable location than the county dog park next to the Wood County Dog Shelter on East Gypsy Lane Road.
“The dog park we are proposing would be much more accessible, being located within existing parkland,” the letter from the dog owners stated.
Creating the dog park may qualify for COVID relief funding – since it would be a one-time funding opportunity.
“We truly feel that a more accessible, well appointed dog park would be most beneficial to the dog owning residents of Bowling Green, and a real attraction and asset to our community,” Leck read from the letter. “It will bring all types of people in the community to one spot.”
The county dog park is less than ideal, according to the dog owners, because of its location and because so few dogs use it – defeating the purpose of using the park for canine socialization.
But adding a dog park did not make the cut in the recently proposed master plan for the city’s parks and recreation department.
According to a recreational needs survey conducted in 2021, the number of people wanting a dog park was similar to those wanting outdoor pickleball courts – less than 2% for both, Parks and Recreation Director Kristin Otley explained at the meeting earlier this month.
Pickleball courts are in the planning stages now, Otley said, but that is because the city already has a dog park on the outskirts of town – and local pickleball players are raising funds for the courts.
Otley estimated it would take at least an acre to create a dog park, with separate areas designated for small, medium and large dogs.
“It’s one thing to build it – it’s another thing to operate it,” Otley said. “It’s not just putting up a fence.”
Parks and Recreation Board member Emily Keegan suggested those advocating for a dog park do some research on the best location, the space needed, the types of amenities desired, and the cost to maintain the park.
Board President Jodi Anderson said if a suitable location was found, the site could be fenced in, then amenities could be added over time. And City Council member Bill Herald suggested that a committee of parks and recreation people and interested citizens be formed to research a dog park.
Also at last week’s City Council meeting:
- Mayor Mike Aspacher reminded that the 2022 State of the City Address will be held March 30, at 8 a.m., in the Veterans Building in City Park.
- Aspacher asked council and citizens in attendance to remember Bill Culbertson, “a selfless servant to this community,” he said. Culbertson, who died on March 15, served eight years on City Council, 11 years on the Board of Public Utilities, and was one of the original trustees of Bowling Green Economic Development.
- It was announced that City Council Committee of the Whole will meet May 12, at 6 p.m., to review the results of the citizen questionnaire on American Rescue Plan Act funding ideas.
