i attended my first public meeting last night at olbrich. according to the presenters, it was the largest meeting they have had there and they had to get out about twice as many chairs. i saw quite a few familiar faces, so that was nice.
it was to discuss what’s going to happen with the area that you see directly across from the creek in this picture of my backyard:
it’s unofficially referred to as the “garver north platt”, and apparently, this development had already been decided upon by the board of parks commission in 2009 and the city is now getting around to doing something with it. the city has a pretty nice plan to keep and preserve the nature that’s there while cleaning up the contamination from operating the feed mill. unfortunately, there is a loud and vocal contingent that wants a 2-acre dog park included in the plan.
i say unfortunately for three reasons. one, there will be no additional parking (this part is fine by me because cars suck) which means people who don’t walk to the park will have to find parking on fair oaks or dawes (don’t get me started on the bridge they want to build connecting dawes to the garver yard). two, the draw of people to the area is going to adversely affect the wildlife and nature that live over there, and to add the popularity of a dog park which will bring more humans and perceived predators into the area won’t have a positive effect on the wildlife. three, the ground is contaminated.
and i don’t really care about the micro-lodges that will be available for short-term stays that will abut the feed mill building, but they’ll have a dog park out their back window to see, hear, and smell.
i think it’s probably inevitable, however. we dog owners can be pretty vocal about dog owner rights and i don’t have the energy to go up against the gal who’s been trying to make this happen for over 10 years.