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Vote to Support an Online DogPark Resource Guide

Ann Dorfman of Newton Dogs is trying to obtain a $50,000 grant through Pepsi’s ‘Refresh Anything’ program in order to develop a website and online resource guide to help communities create off-leash areas.

Go to http://refresheverything.com/DogParks, read about the project and cast your vote.

Don’t want Pepsi to spam you?  Use a mailinator.com email address (just make one up, like dogsaregood@mailinator.com).

Here’s Ann’s email:

Creating off-leash areas is difficult, but wherever you live the steps are pretty much the same: convince city/town officials and residents that off-leash areas are a reasonable use of public property; figure out the best model for your community; identify possible areas; secure funding; then design and implement the off-leash areas.

Communities across the country have done this before, and many have done it alone, reinventing the wheel.

I intend to develop a website and on-line resource guide to provide communities with the tools to develop off-leash areas without starting at ground zero and reinventing the wheel. Below is some of the information the website and resource guide will provide:

For communities in the early stages:
*  Benefits of off-leash areas.
*  Examples of rules and regulations.
*  Sample language for leash laws that permit off-leash areas.
*  Examples of successful models with links to existing website.
*  Information on municipal liability.
*  Information on public health risks. 
*  Tips for preparing for a public meeting.
*  Talking points to use when speaking with officials.

For communities in the developmental stage:
*  Criteria for selecting and evaluating locations.
*  Features to include in an off-leash area.
*  Surfaces.
*  Fencing.
*  Entry systems.
*  Waste collection systems.
*  Fundraising resources and strategies.
*  Links to articles in professional journals on designing and building off-leash areas.

I also envision developing a “workbook” for groups that are past the “if” stage and into the “how and where” stage to help guide them through the steps of developing a plan, identifying locations, etc.

Please feel free to email your thoughts and ideas about what would make this project better to newtondogs@yahoo.com. But remember, first I need to WIN THE PRIZE, so please, vote at http://refresheverything.com/DogParks as frequently as you can and forward this email to every friend and dog owner group you know, and help make this a reality.

Many thanks.


© 2010, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in News.

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By sldogpac – Thursday, February 4, 2010

Dogs shocked in Chicago

There’s a report that last week two dogs were shocked in Chicago.  This time of year can be particularly dangerous – recall that in February 2007 a dog was electrocuted in Grant Park – so be careful out there.  The SLDogPAC would like to hear about any incidents and has put this issue on its agenda.  Unfortunately we have a LOT going on, so if you’d like to help, please let us know –  join, email, or tweet.  Thanks to Blair Sorrel of StreetZaps for the heads-up.  We’ve put a link to the StreetZaps site in our sidebar.

© 2010, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Chicago, News.

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By sldogpac – Thursday, January 14, 2010

Coliseum DFA gravel areas – a proposal

How about changing from this:

these_patches_must_be_replaced to this:    gravel_bs

The former is the way the worthless little gravel areas in the Coliseum Park DFA are currently ‘designed’. Features include:

  • Gravel is at or above grade level
  • Gravel spills out all over the place (and out of the park)
  • Odd little triangles throughout the ‘DFA’

The latter is they way the dog relief areas at the Burnham Station Condominiums were built. Features include:

  • Space is defined by landscape timbers.
  • Space was excavated to put the gravel below grade level.
  • No spillage at all.

However, the cost for four (4) of these spaces at Burnham Station was about $3600, total.  That’s a lot of money.

If we focused on one or two  areas in the Coliseum Park DFA – say, the north and south ends of the run – and did away with the rest, maybe this would be feasible? The gravel areas would still require cleaning and gravel replacement every year or two, but there wouldn’t be gravel spilling out all over the place onto the walkways and onto the street.  And the DFA would look one increment less of a dump.  It may be worth a shot, but at this point who knows whether the user community would support the cost.  (Hint:  the CPD is not going to do this – we asked)??

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Coliseum DFA.

2 comments

By sldogpac – Thursday, November 5, 2009

Good news & bad news at Grant Bark Park

IMG_0312 :-)  Good news – we finally installed a ‘Dog Waste Bag Dispenser’ at Grant Bark Park and have committed to keeping it filled. If you forget a bag, feel free to take one.  And if it’s empty or near empty, please please call us, email, or tweet @sldogpac – DogPAC members are NOT going to be patrolling it on a daily basis, if that.

:cry: Bad news – the water timer installed at the Bark Park has finally broken!  It lasted, what, a month!?!   But it did NOT fall apart like the first one.  Instead, it seems to have fallen victim to crappy user interface design - it looks like someone twisted it the wrong way until the internal mechanism broke.

:-) Good news – no big deal, it’s getting colder and the Chicago Park District will probably be turning off the water soon.  And, we have another in reserve, so we’ll label that up with arrows and squares and a diagram on the back, and post the instructions when time comes to reinstall it.

:twisted: Grant Park 001Bad news – it seems that advertisements on the kiosk are no more – Janis Taylor of the CPD writes:

Park District staff visited the park recently and saw that there was a sign posted on the kiosk selling advertisement space (see attached). Please remove this immediately.  It is against Park District policy and, as was stated at the city-wide meeting, dfa committees are not permitted to allow companies to advertise in exchange for money or other benefits.

Thank you,

Janis

That sign has been up for, what, a couple of years?? Who knew?

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Grant Bark Park.

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By sldogpac – Thursday, October 8, 2009

No More Excuses at Coliseum Park…

dogwastedispenserColiseum Park DFA is a mess, and there is poo everywhere.  Today we put up a Dog Waste Bag Dispenser at Coliseum Park – it’s orange, and you can’t miss it.   No more excuses, please. :-)

The DogPAC has committed to keeping the DFA dog waste bag dispenser full of poo bags.  If you forget yours, please feel free to take one.

And, feel free to point it out to others who might ‘need a bag‘!

If it’s empty, please call us, email, or tweet @sldogpac - one of us will come out to fill it. (No, I’m not going to monitor it every day.)

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Coliseum DFA.

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By dfreymann – Saturday, October 3, 2009

Signs, we have signs!

Sign at the south end path adjacent to the sidewalk.

Sign at the south end path adjacent to the sidewalk.

The Chicago Park District has graciously installed a sign at each of the path entrances that lead from the sidewalk to the Grant Bark park. Sure, they made an effort not to be too, too, fancy – but every little bit helps.

Sign at the East side path off Columbus St.

Sign at the East side path off Columbus St.

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Grant Bark Park.

1 comment

By sldogpac – Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Timers, again?

Nelson

Well the ‘Vigoro‘ mechanical water timer was no good and fell apart after a couple of days, so we’re trying the ‘Nelson’.  The Nelson doesn’t have the same kind of glued joint as the Vigoro, instead, it has a metal shim to hold the attachment fitting.  So at least it’s not going to break apart the same way but maybe it’ll find some other way to fall apart.  We’ll see.  If you find it broken, please take a brief look at it and then let us know what happened.




© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Grant Bark Park.

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By sldogpac – Friday, September 11, 2009

Coliseum dog park update

This is a brief update about issues at Coliseum Park after discussion with Janis Taylor of the Chicago Park District 9.8.09.

1.  The east side gate.gate_gap

The issues raised here were:

  1. the need to fix the gap that currently allows small dogs to escape the dog run (note the brick in the picture!)
  2. the possibility of installing a double gated entry here to make the park secure.

Janis reports that CPD personnel have taken a look at the gate.

They are most likely going to close off the gate, because it opens onto the children’s playground (which is contrary to current ‘DFA’ policy).

This will leave the park with one double-gated entry at the north end.


2. The depressions around the drains.depressions_around_drain

The issue raised here was that these retain dirty water and allow bacteria and parasites to collect and possibly spread disease.  This issue was initially reported to CPD over two years ago.

Janis reports that CPD personnel think that they “are not that low”.

When pressed, she agreed that CPD policy was not to allow pools of contaminated water at DFAs (as occurs around the drains and at other points in the dog run).  Janis said that she would  look into this again.

3.  The water fountain. water_fountain_decay

The issue raised here is that the water fountain is rusted and decaying, and that there is no doggie water fountain.

Janis suggests that maybe if they can find one lying around, maybe a concrete fountain, they might install it. We have heard that at other Chicago DFA’s ‘replacement’ of a water fountain consisted of installing another used fountain in place of the existing one. This will probably not make anyone happy.

The alternative is for the DogPAC and the user community to purchase a fountain.  CPD will  not cost share on this.  CPD plumbers will have to install it.  A weather resistant outdoor fountain costs on the order of $3000.

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Coliseum DFA.

4 comments

By dfreymann – Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Water timers installed at Grant Bark Park

timer_1

The timer is installed at ground level at the central source.

Thanks to the CPD plumbing department, the central water at Grant Bark Park is now running off a mechanical timer. The timer was installed to address the longstanding ‘issue’ of the water hydrant being left on 24/7 to run the improvised fountain at the center of the park. It works beautifully.

f57bcb69-cda7-46ed-9303-05d123acecb4_300

Vigoro mechanical timer

The water flow is controlled by a simple egg-timer mechanism, and it can be set to shut off water flow after 15 minutes to 2 hours. The connections look to be leak-free, so there should never be a need to shut water off at the source. (There are two wrenches for the source stored in the lockbox).

Please try to use this timer, and to educate others how to use it: you want your dogs to play in a water fountain, you turn the dial, and you can leave the park without worry or guilt!

The flow timer is plastic, and we don’t know how long it will last in the weather, or whether it will break due to heavy or clumsy use. That’s fine – they are cheap ($14.77 at Home Depot), and if over time the mechanical timer works well as a way to regulate the water from the central source, the Dog PAC will budget to replace them periodically as necessary. If you see that it’s broken – contact us!

We’ve also installed a timer at the water fountain spigot. The hose is connected to a sprinkler now, but we imagine that long term the hose may just be left unattached for filling up water bowls (and, if we get our act together, for filling up wading pools).

timer_2

Timer installed at the faucet off the drinking fountain

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Grant Bark Park.

4 comments

By sldogpac – Thursday, August 20, 2009

Drains above ground?

Wow, take a look at the drain installation at the Grant Bark Park:

barkparkdrain

The drain entrance is above the surrounding asphalt!

Look at the front of that drain – there is an obvious lip that extends above the surface of the surrounding asphalt, allowing water to pool and accumulate debris, bacteria, and parasites.

And it’s even worse at the Coliseum Park DFA:

depressions_around_drain

The drain is surrounded by a depression that holds water!

Is this shoddy work, or what (sure, it could be ‘natural settling of the asphalt’)?

There’s already been a report of someone suspecting that their dog acquired Giardia from nosing around the drain at the Grant Bark Park.  Now, I’ve always heard that rabbit droppings (yum!) were the more serious threat for Giardia, but whatever.

These are defects that shouldn’t be allowed to persist.  Here’s the thing – the issue with the Coliseum Park DFA drains was reported to the Chicago Park District over two years ago (by email, dated 5.1.07).  Nothing has been done since.

So, what do we do?  As far as I can tell, repairing these defects is clearly an obligation of the Chicago Park District under the terms of the agreement that they make with the community groups managing the ‘DFA’s.  See here, ‘Maintenance of Capital Projects’ including ’sewer repair’ and ‘asphalt replacement’.  Perhaps the solution is simply to keep bringing this to their attention, every week, every month, until it gets done?

That takes some effort. And it would help if we could log our requests with the CPD, so that everyone could keep track of the status of the issues that have been raised.

Consider this the first entry in that ‘log’ – the Coliseum Park DFA drain defect was raised again with Janis Taylor of the CPD on Friday 8.14.09 (photographs emailed 8.17.09).  She was notified of the Bark Park drain defect by email, 8.18.09.

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Coliseum DFA, Grant Bark Park.

2 comments

By dfreymann – Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Guidelines

The Chicago Park District guidelines for DFA committees, including the South Loop Dog PAC, are explicitly laid out in the CPD DFA guidelines document.  A copy of the  document, dated 4.22.2008, has been uploaded to the website and it is available for download.  The new guidelines page outlines the responsibilities of the Dog PAC with respect to maintenance of the Grant Bark Park and the Coliseum Park DFA.   It’s up to us, folks!

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in News.

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By sldogpac – Friday, August 14, 2009

Membership PayPal Buttons are working!

We’ve finally gotten the PayPal Membership payment buttons configured properly, so if you’ve been holding off renewing your membership, or want to renew now, please do! And if you’re feeling generous, or, alternatively, if you’re not up for paying a full membership right now, use the ‘Donations‘ page to make a PayPal donation in any amount!

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in News.

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By sldogpac – Monday, August 10, 2009

Bad links are fixed…

OK, I’ve tried to fix all the bad links that carried over when the site was moved from the development tree to the live site.

Please let us know if you find a problem with the website or with particular links.  The PayPal links do not work yet!

And, when we ask for ‘feedback’ we really mean it!   Don’t like the colors?  Want more information about something?  Don’t like the site organization?  Then, please email or comment.  We need your input to make this website useful to our community.

Please spread the word, register, and participate!  Thanks.


© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in News.

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By sldogpac – Friday, July 31, 2009

How’s the Bark Park?

This is a test posting under the category ‘Bark Park’.

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Grant Bark Park.

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By sldogpac – Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A proposed site hosted at Mocha, but managed using WordPress

This is a draft of a WordPress managed South Loop Dog PAC site.  It doesn’t look good yet, but it has all the text content of the original site.  Notice that although WordPress is a ‘blogging’ enviroment, we can introduce Pages (see navigation at top) to structure the site as a website.  We can also have a blog and RSS feed to update members and the community about events and issues. 

The advantage of a site like this is that it can be managed from the web interface, rather than using desktop software.  That means that multiple volunteer contributors can help maintain the site, rather than one dedicated web designer. In the future, we should be able to add a number of features to the site, and also be able to easily reconfigure the overall look.  WordPress uses Themes to configure the overall look, and we can either download them or modify them for our own use.

By configuring the site on this server (MochaHost), we will be able to implement the long term vision of having a user database hosted here (implemented with MySql), and setting up the  southloopdogpac.org email addresses. The cPanel control of the MochaHost site is actually pretty nice.

© 2009, South Loop Dog Park Action Cooperative. All rights reserved.

Posted in Board, News.

1 comment

By sldogpac – Tuesday, May 12, 2009