Many of you have been wondering about plans to resurface the park with wood chips for the warmer/wetter months. In the fall, when we decided not to put wood chips down, there were several issues that came up:
- Some dog owners felt that the chips where hazardous for various reasons including twisted paws and dogs who ate the chips. Some dogs also became possessive over chips, which prompted fights.
- Other dog owners felt that the wood chips were too much effort for what they were worth - several of these dog owners were amongst the 20 or so regular park users who performed the manual labor necessary to put down the chips. In addition, some of these dog owners felt that too much maintenance was needed to keep the chips in the park - i.e. raking on a biweekly basis to spread chips pushed to the edges and collecting the chips that ended up on the sidewalk around the park. Some of these dog owners also mentioned that only a few people pitched in on the work compared to the number of people who regularly use the park.
- Still other dog owners felt that the chips made it too hard to locate where dogs have gone to the bathroom, making the park an unsanitary mine field.
When we took an informal vote last September, and just over half of the relatively few people who weighed in were against wood chips.
Because several of you have expressed your preference for wood chips to me directly, I would like to reopen this conversation. (Unfortunately, wood chips are the only surface that does not require drainage (i.e. gravel is not an option) and it is also the only surface that the Parks Dept provides for free.) Also, one idea that has been suggested is to raise funds to hire workers to do the manual labor involved.
In order to get a better sense of what the community prefers overall, I have created an online survey. Here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZNFPKNL
Please respond by Wednesday, May 25th. I will let you know the poll results asap!
