Calhouns Can(n)ons

Woof! Woof!

The Tribune ran an editorial Jan 12 on the proposed off-leash dog park down in the five cities area, “Let dog owners in Arroyo run with their idea.” One statement in the editorial was a perfect example of the curious thinking that surrounds dog parks and another, a perfect example of our curiously muddled approach to “private” and “public” spaces as well as an illustration of how degraded our idea of The Commons has become.

First, the editorial notes that it will cost $11,500 to build the park and about $4,124 a year to maintain it, a cost that is expected to be covered by a private group calling themselves the Five Cities Dog Park Association. Then the Tribune adds, “What puts the wag in our tail about this plan is that all of the improvements and maintenance won’t cost taxpayers a dime: donations from area businesses, service clubs and the 200-member association will foot the bill.” And then concludes, “This is an excellent example of what can happen when residents take responsibility for providing for special recreational needs, such as dog parks or community gardens, rather than looking to government to underwrite their desires.”

I volunteer on the Board of the group that created the first off leash dog park in the County at the El Chorro Regional Park off Highway 1. When we started that project about 7 years ago, I was amazed at how clueless people in this county seemed to be. Letters to the editor always concluded, --We don’t need parks for dogs! We need parks for people! -- the writers completely missing the point: Dog parks are for people who just happen to be with their dogs. Indeed, after the park was finally built, it was amazing to observe just how intensely social a place it was – not for the dogs, but for the people. In short, dog parks WERE people parks.

The second thing that became clear at the time was that “recreation” has been defined in a certain narrow way. When city or county departments of recreation and parks fund a baseball field, or soccer field or skate board park or kids’ playground equipment, they do so using public funds and nobody says a thing. Those activities are considered “public recreation,” even though very few people own in-line skates or a baseball bat. Indeed, I suspect that there are more dog owners in this county than there are skateboarders or baseball players. Yet using tax money for those forms of recreation doesn’t raise an eyebrow.

But here’s the Tribune on the proposed Five-Cities dog park: “This is an excellent example of what can happen when residents take responsibility for providing for special recreational needs, such as dog parks or community gardens, rather than looking to government to underwrite their desires.”

First, of course, community gardens are limited to those assigned a plot. The public is NOT invited to come in and pick tomatoes at will. Dog parks, on the other hand, are open to all the public. Indeed, you can enjoy dog parks and socialize with the people in dog parks even though you don’t own a dog.

But, can you imagine the Tribune editorializing that parents wanting a baseball field should “take responsibility for providing for [this] special recreational need” and go raise the money needed to build and maintain it?

Hence the ongoing problem of defining what “recreation” is and who benefits.

But there’s another, far more troubling reality at work throughout the country and certainly here in this county. The devaluation of The Commons, that is, the idea that there are certain things that we, as citizens, should hold and pay for in common since they offer all of us, in one way or another, a benefit.

But since the so-called “Reagan Revolution,” a counter philosophy has been at work, that of Privitization of the Commons, which says that, except for a standing Military, most everything else should be paid for by private funds. Want a park? Go build it yourself. Think Yosemite’s nice? Privitize it and charge people the market rates to go see it, just like Disneyland. It is this philosophy that’s at work in the Tribune’s description of a dog park – but not a ball field – as a “special recreational need,” forgetting entirely that a dog park IS a public park for people, exactly what the various taxpayer-supported Departments of Parks and Recreation are funded to provide – parks for people.

This distinction with no difference is exactly what allows various cities and counties to foist their Common responsibilities off onto the private sector. If the taxpayers no longer believe in The Commons and refuse to adequately fund public parks, (a real problem in this county, where Parks & Recreation, properly funded, could be buying up land for more parks but now has no budget to buy OR run them, a tragedy in the making once park land is eaten up by development and everyone – too late – stands around saying, Oh, well, too bad ), then the situation is simple: You want a park, go build it yourself – unless, of course, it fit’s our definition of “recreation,” i.e. baseball, soccer, playground equipment, THAT we’ll fund with tax money, but . . . dog parks? Oh, no, that’s a “special recreational need” and you’ll have to fund that yourself.

Fortunately, as we found with the El Chorro dog park, there is a middle way: Public/Private Partnering. The key thing that makes the El Chorro Off Leash Dog Park so successful IS the participation of the private sector, park users who help with maintenance, fund-raising, park improvements and amenities. It is their commitment to this particular form of public recreation that keeps that park such a wonderful place for anyone to go to and enjoy. This type of partnering can also help keep ball fields working, skate-parks safe and maintained, our own Elfin Forrest here in Los Osos clean and invasive-weed-free, and so forth.

So, Tribune Editorial Board, I hope you’ll stop and think a bit on what you mean by “special recreational needs.” The Five Cities Dog Park Association isn’t trying to build some private enclave just for them. What they’re trying to do, as PRIVATE citizens, is to build a PUBLIC park. And to do that, they need equal partnering from the county and the surrounding cities’ Parks and Recreation Departments.

After all, that’s what Parks & Recreation Departments are all about: Parks and Recreation for people, whether they’re holding a tennis racquet, a baseball bat or a dog leash.



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