Notes from meeting with State Rep. Kate Hogan
This meeting was held on February 6, 2009, at 3pm at the Boston Bean House, Maynard, MA.
Attendees:
State Representative Kate Hudson
Lisa Lines, Joannie Gray, and Eric Zeller (MayDOG)
The purpose of this meeting was to introduce MayDOG’s proposal for a park at the former landfill site and ask for a letter of support for the project from Rep. Hogan, to be included in the final package sent to the Board of Selectmen.
Rep. Hogan was presented with a folder containing a brief PowerPoint summary of the proposal, a copy of the full proposal, and our brochure. We went through the slides first, and then answered her questions.
Rep. Hogan is not a dog owner, but has had a dog in the past. She was not familiar with the concept of a dog park and had never been to one before. We mentioned the work that BostonDOG has been doing to bring legal off-leash recreation to the Boston Common and described some of the other dog parks in the state and around the country. We also discussed the precendent that has been set by various parks in the state that were reclaimed from former landfill sites. We discussed our impression that parks sponsored by a municipality without a strong community group involved do not seem to be as successful as parks that have a friends group or other community group.
She was interested to hear what the response had been from various town officials so far. We briefed her on our previous meetings with Sally Bubier of the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Health, and the town administrator/assistant town administrator. From our perspective, it appears that town officials are cautious, but not opposed to the idea. We mentioned that we are eager to bring the proposal to the full Board of Selectmen and have a public hearing.
We discussed the idea that the fenced area could be considered an extension of the leash, and so the off-leash area would not be in violation of the leash law. This would save us having to go to town meeting to amend the by-laws. We also discussed whether town meeting would need to approve the use of the land, or whether the Board of Selectmen/Board of Health could approve of the project without town meeting involvement. These questions are still unanswered at this time.
Rep. Hogan said she was impressed by the proposal and that it sounded like a great project to her. She will review the proposal in detail and talk to town officials about their perspective, and then get back to us with any further questions or comments.
