FROM
the asheville Tribune
September 12 - September 18, 2013
COMMENTARY
Should dog park rise above others?
By Leslee Kulba
Asheville City Council held a special work session Tuesday to talk about
a dog park. That's not exactly cause for carving a couple hours out of the
work schedule. In fact, after the meeting, one man expressed his awe
that the representative from CIBO (Asheville Council of Independent Business
Owners) would attend that kind of meeting for years and years. "Can you still
count to ten?" asked he.
It wasn't until later in the meeting that City Manager Gary Jackson explained
council was backing into the reason for having the meeting. On May 14,
council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution stating, "City council
supports and endorses efforts to establish a dog park in north Asheville."
Council also promised to commit $5000 in public funding for the project. In
return, a group known as Friends for the North Asheville Dog Park promised
to match the $5000 contribution and take responsibility for the park's
maintenance. The city's upfront contribution was to help with design costs.
This Tuesday, however, council was asked if they wanted to forget the private
contribution part and assume responsibility for the project altogether.
Representatives of Arc Development, the current developer of the Thoms
Estate, located off Beaverdam Road, had consented to dedicating about 8 acres
of land to the city, subject to a memorandum of understanding (MOU). Jackson
argued the odds of the city getting a similar swatch of free land were pretty
slim.
At one point in the meeting, Mayor Bellamy was looking around with that look
kids get right before somebody shouts, "Who dealt it!" Smiling with her usual
charm and grace, she was finding no support for what seemed a
straightforward application of the rule of law. Her argument was simple. The
city had a list of park projects identified by various master planning activities.
Some people had been waiting for a long time to rise above the cutoff line
determined by the city's annual budgets. The city also had priorities and
policies for determining what gets funded. The city could only fund the dog
park by crowding out another project that had been waiting ever so patiently.
Advocates, for the dog park could win only by making losers of those who had
played by the rules.
Marc Hunt had a different view. He said he had probably attended every
planning meeting where park projects were prioritized. Dog parks were never
part of the discussion because they are a phenomenon that emerged only a few
years ago.
Cecil Bothwell was concerned about the environmental impact the park would
have on algal blooms in Beaverdam Creek. He was told that variable would be
resolved later in the order of operations. Bothwell also asked if the park could
be designed so as to require users to walk to it, but he was informed the park
would be used by residents from all over. Hunt conjectured few people would
walk their dog half a mile and back to go walk their dog.
Jan Davis noted people from all over the city are already willing to pay $50
each year for permission to walk their dogs around Beaver Lake, and he
supposed that lake was subject to worse environmental impacts than the creek
would be. This prompted Chris Pelly to suggest that staff look into raising the
fees. Jackson said with council's direction staff could evaluate that with the
entire fee schedule during the next budget cycle.
As time for the formal meeting drew near, Bellamy expressed frustration. "This
is not like anything I've ever seen," she said. Council is typically presented with
deadlines, point persons, and dollar amounts. That was when Jackson
explained the motivation behind taking total control of the project. As long as
the city was partnering with the developer and the community activists, staff
was at their mercy for setting parameters.
In the end, council agreed to stick to the resolution they had already supported
because of its noncommittal language to only "endorse and support efforts."
The next step was to present the MOU, which had already been drafted, to the
developer. After he responds, council will be able to make more stop and go
decisions.
During the public comment portion of council's formal meeting, long-time
opinionator David Stewart said he wanted to talk about another animal: Two
decades ago, when downtown was practically a ghost town, carriage horses
were banned during rush hour for safety reasons. He asked by what logic it is
now considered safe to run carriages downtown along with more motorized
vehicles, trolleys, a nun on a huge tricycle, a pubcycle, a drum circle,
emergency vehicles and more to spook a horse. He further asked how it was
humane to make a horse pull half a dozen people uphill on hot pavement while
inhaling toxic carbon emissions. The new attraction, he said, would not easily
be dismissed as an unforeseeable source of accidents in a court case.
No comments:
Post a Comment