Dog park doldrums (Act 2)

We've been waiting patiently for further announcements on the possibility of a League City dog park (blog category here for a recap of developments to date).  After a great flurry of initial excitement about four months ago, there's been even more radio silence.

O dog park, dog park, wherefore art thou, dog park?!

This is an outline showing the proposed location on West Walker Street near the city municipal complex.  

In late June of 2014, I asked winged messenger from heaven Kristi Wyatt what the status was, and she informed me in an email of two developments:

1. While the on-line survey did, indeed, show overwhelming support for a dog park, it was not a "scientific" poll and therefore LC followed up with a separate survey (why they did the on-line poll in the first place I did not ask).  To my knowledge, those results have not yet been released publicly.  
2. Reportedly, further discussions about the dog park were due to take place "during the upcoming CIP process".  So sayeth the City Manager.  

I haven't pressed the issue to date for a reason that should be obvious to anyone who follows League City politics:  The dog park prospect was re-invigorated by Councilman Andy Mann, whose term is up this year.  For the past few months I have been assuming, duh, that there would be a positive announcement whose timing would show an uncanny correspondence to a re-election bid.  It would be a classic political abracadabra, a municipal misdirection (but a welcome one), a revelation orchestrated to suggest that City Council actually accomplishes more than incessant culture warring (most recently regarding immigrant children) that results in much squandered time and energy and occasionally in lost taxpayer money, too (what they wasted on the Jornaleros lawsuit alone could have paid for TWO new dog parks).  Not to mention that this behavior attracts national scrutiny of the wrong kind, discontent among minority residents (paywalled but this other piece is not paywalled), and no net benefit for any of us.

The New York Times quote of the day from July 17, 2014.  Dallas County effectively speaking to League City and Galveston County (and possibly others) via the NYT.  It was one of those "I thought I'd seen it all" moments for me.  

This dog park announcement scenario outlined above is what I had expected, BUT, as is so often the case in League City, things took a bizarre turn last week when Mann unexpectedly dropped his re-election bid (paywalled) in what appears to be yet another flurry of purely-political bullpoop (more on that in a subsequent post).

Andy Mann's political career, at least temporarily.

And no, this is not a "threat" that purportedly needs to be censured (paywalled link).  This is just satire.  More on that later, too.

And yes, I know that I'm mixing Shakespearean metaphors, which is in extremely bad taste.  But it's just a blog post, hastily done to boot.  It's not a work of literary art.  

So where does that leave those folks with dogged determination where the dog park is concerned?  At this point, I don't know.  We will know by close of business today who is actually running for which Council positions, so that will potentially help to constrain who we should be talking to.  If nobody steps forward to discuss the issue in an election context, I will file a FOIA request to obtain the results of the subsequent survey that League City conducted, because too much time is passing without any action on this issue.  Stay tuned for more.

Hint, hint.  If Council could kindly and momentarily tear itself away from all of the special interest political crap in which it engages, we might get some actual work done around here. Maybe.  

What happened to the League City dog park plans?

After an initial wave of publicity and a resoundingly positive response via an on-line poll, there has been nothing but radio silence on the prospect of a League City dog park.

Screengrab of the poll results from the morning of April 18, 2014, which in terms of total respondent volume was probably closer to the end of the poll than the beginning (meaning, these numbers should be generally reflective of final results).    

I haven't heard a peep.  Local nonprofit park advocacy group Bark9 tells me that they haven't heard anything either.  After the April 8, 2014 Council vote that directed city staff to develop the on-line poll whence the screengrab above originated, there's been nothing.

I do remember hearing a vague complaint that the polling mechanism (Survey Monkey) was unable to read the IP addresses of some or all of the voters, so there was a concern that some of them might not be actual LC residents, but I don't know if there's any truth to that.  Based on my limited knowledge of such systems, it should have been easy to read the ground IPs (I'm assuming that the City was using a pay version of the program).  Cellular / mobile devices can be more tricky (said the blogger who is no longer sure where a lot of her hits are originating because they are materializing out of thin air, literally).

So what up, League City?  Galveston County Daily News?  Council?  Where will this initiative go from here?

More accurately in this case, where are you taking us?  

League City's dog park survey

This has been widely announced via a League City official civic alert, through an email blast, and via social media, but I'll post it here as well, for the sake of continuity.  This is the city's online public interest survey for the dog park (the link patches through to a SurveyMonkey site):

www.leaguecity.com/dogpark 

This is an excerpt of the map accompanying the survey.  It shows a proposed outline which is a bit different from the original (circa 2007) proposed map which I re-published in this post.  

I waited until two days into the survey to render my response, because I wanted to see something of the partially-accumulated statistics (it will pop up a "survey results" window after you press "done").  It's fairly remarkable how positive the response has been, at least as of this morning.  Typically when you survey any given social, political, or developmental issue, there's such a variety of opinion and circumstance in our community that a great diversity of responses results.  Not so with this issue.

Should this initiative move forward, I requested of League City that the design phase include public meetings so that those of us whose residences are situated closest to 750 Centerpointe Drive can raise our questions, air any concerns, and provide feedback on the design.

By my count, there are about 21 Centerpointers, half a dozen Oaks of Clear Creekers, and another half dozen Wilshire Placers who would be most directly affected by this development because we are all line-of-sight and within immediate earshot of the tract.  However, the number of potentially impacted Centerpointers in particular could be larger in certain scenarios that I won't get into in this early post, but will address later if things move forward.

By the same token, there are many other Centerpointers who may not have much of an opinion on this thing.  Centerpointe subdivision is about 3,000 feet in diameter (as the crow flies). Those of you on the west (oldest) side probably won't notice material changes in your environment if the dog park does get developed.  

I have already communicated some of my questions and concerns to City Council and will continue to do so.  Our POA may also develop input, but the POA represents all 438 homeowners, not just the 21 of us who are in closest proximity.  I encourage folks to either contact the POA and/or contact me via centerpointe.blog -at- gmail if you would like to coordinate on communicating your concerns and questions to Council.

A dog park can be a wonderful asset, but like dog ownership itself, it must be properly developed and managed if it is to be considerate of the needs of everyone involved.

Pic of our characteristically blissed-out dog being wantonly spoiled by my husband.
:-)

Dog park data

Oh my word, there's a lot of it - data, that is.  The 501(c)3 group Bark9 graciously provided me with an avalanche of it.  Even to get up to speed on what transpired in the 2007 - 2009 time frame when the first attempt at creating a League City dog park failed is a monumental task (if we don't understand where we've been, it's difficult to make sense of where we're going).

Drawing depicting the original proposed design, courtesy of Bark9, which probably got it from League City.  Aerial photo circa 2007.

The same view in early 2014.  You'll notice that the land in question was substantially cleared such that only mature trees remain.  That's because the City had reportedly already spent about $15,000 on site preparation shortly before the project was cancelled.

Image courtesy of Googlemaps.  

And why was the project cancelled?

From what I can tell, the forensics are complicated and bear all the hallmarks of the typical League City politics.  We may never know the full story.  Pretty much none of the original players are still around today - council has been churned extensively and we've had, what, about twenty-nine different city managers and assistant managers since 2007?!

OK, maybe twenty-nine is a slight exaggeration, but League City is absolutely legendary for its high rate of administrative turn-over.

Screengrab courtesy of KTRK-TV.  

There are a number of different ways in which I could proceed with this analysis, particularly as it relates to Centerpointe subdivision, but it's probably better to wait until we see which direction the public discourse takes before debating any given angle.

In the meantime, if you are either for or against a dog park in general, for or against the 750 Centerpointe Drive location, your contact resources are given at the end of this post.

You should use those resources.  What happens with this dog park will not be solely a result of political machinations - the decisions will be influenced by the net will of the people.  That was clear to me from the 2007 - 2009 forensics.  If you want a dog park, whether it's in this designated Centerpointe location and/or in another location, it's not going to happen automatically if nobody puts in any effort.  League City has a pot of money which by law is earmarked for park development.  How and where that money is spent will continue to be primarily a basic function of two things:

1. Who is trying to milk what angle for political gain. 
2. Who screams the loudest.  

Oh, and just as a coincidental FYI, if you're reading this post on your computer, you can see the 750 Centerpointe Drive location in this blog's frontispiece (cover photo).  It's at that line of trees in the background roughly in the center of the photo.  If you're reading this on a mobile device, the frontispiece may not be visible to you.

Current resources:

• Bark9 website and email at info@bark9.com.  The president of this nonprofit was heavily involved with the previous League City effort and is a walking encyclopedia of dog park information both general and specific.  
• The League City Community Dog Park Wordpress site, as of this writing not active since 2010, but a source of historical information and maybe they will now start posting again.  
• The City Council website for League City, with links to sub-pages with emails for the Mayor and elected members.  
• This blog's dog park label category, where I'll be tagging all future entries on this topic.
• Galveston County Daily News League City category, which will no doubt report on future developments (paywalled site; subscription fees $168 per year as of this writing).  
• Houston Dog Park Association

One thing is abundantly clear to me:  League City is way, way behind the times in not having a dog park.  That nearest push-pin icon you see on this map is the dog park at Bay Area Park, which is exactly ten miles from LC's City Hall.  And not just any ten miles - an unrealistically slow ten mile drive through the congested heart of Clear Lake (thirty minute drive each way).  I never go there - it's just too inefficient a use of my time when I could be using that same hour to do like everyone else in my area does - walk my dog in the Interurban easement that runs on the northeast side of the proposed 750 Centerpointe Drive dog park location.  

Screengrab of the existing dog park map, courtesy of Houston Dog Park Association.  

League City dog park project revived

Galveston County Daily News reports (paywalled) that the League City dog park is back under consideration after several years of dormancy.  This is important for us in Centerpointe because the location, as I currently understand it, is the same as was originally proposed - the tract of land that is sandwiched between us and the new police station.

This drawing is very preliminary and subject to change.  No specific design has been proposed yet by League City, as I understand it.  

This idea gained a lot of traction several years ago, before my family moved to Centerpointe.

A number of groups were dedicated to making it happen, including this blog site, whose current homepage I screengrabbed above.  They were associated with the local group Bark9.  

However, the movement was reportedly overturned by citizen objection.  By word of mouth, I was told that most of that objection came from within Centerpointe.  I have no details other than that.

Bearing in mind that this blog is not affiliated with Centerpointe POA, I personally am not opposed to a dog park at the stated location in principle.  I have not yet researched the issue, but I see no a priori reason to assume that it would be an automatically bad development (and I am one of the residents who is on the far northeast side of the subdivision, within spitting distance of the tract in question).  As I noted on Galveston Daily News, the area in question is already used daily by people with dogs (including my family), especially the Interurban Easement.  The utility companies don't need to mow that thing.  The path down the center of it is perpetually beaten flat by the constant foot traffic of local people walking their dogs.

We all need to see more detail on this thing before we can make up our minds whether we're ultimately "for" or "against".  On this go-round, League City plans to poll people as to whether they want it to happen.  I will reserve additional comment for the moment, but will post more on this as it develops and as I'm able to do further research.

Centerpointe children overwhelmed my temporarily-free-running dog with affection in this popular post from late 2012 where I spoofed the helicopter-style over-concern with dog safety and child safety.

According to GCDN, Councilman Becker adamantly opposes a dog park in League City for safety reasons, but to me, B doesn't follow A on that logic.  If you look at the number of dog-related injuries to humans vs. the circumstances of those injuries, I rather doubt that dog parks are strongly correlated with increased risk.  It's analogous to any other form of abuse - the primary source of concern is not "stranger danger" but rather conditions within a person's immediate environment.  The very recent pit bull attack on a League City toddler took place within that family's private residence, consistent with that idea.