We hope that all of you will let Mayor Becker know that you are disappointed by his veto of the City Council’s well balanced approach to the Parleys Historic Nature Park management plan. If you have sent a message to the Mayor in the past, you may have received his “canned” response in which he states that his plan would provide 30 acres of off-leash space, down from the 80 acres that FIDOS has worked so hard to take care of over the past few years.
In the Mayor’s message today to the City Council he once again changes his proposal–this time to 15 acres.
As there has been no response to our requests for meetings or information over the course of this process, we once again are in the dark about his proposal. Is it 30 acres or is it 15 acres? Does the plan still propose to put our user group into fenced in “pens” or on “off leash trails” and what is the definition of an “off leash trail”?
If environmental protection is of the utmost importance, why have all requests from FIDOS to complete improvement projects at no cost to the city been rejected for years? Who are the other user groups who will step in when we are kicked out and what have they done in the past to prove their good faith?
The mayor’s office has been willing to refuse the assistance of a very interested user group and not taken any steps to fulfill the City’s own responsibility to maintain the park. He also made an executive decision to move the PRATT trail onto the main road, thereby forcing all traffic onto their only alternative trail along the stream during construction for two years. All of these causing increased impacts. This appears to us to be a strategy aimed at causing environmental degredation with the express intent of revisiting the question and placing the blame exclusively on dog owners.
Special consideration has been given to the BMX bikers and the tube shooters. The vandals and graffiti artists are barely mentioned. The damage caused by bicycles riding off trail or in muddy conditions has not even been mentioned. The damage obviously caused by kids at the rope swing has been unjustly blamed on dogs.
There is nothing about sledding on steep erosion channels causing further erosion. Where are the additional areas that will be opened? Why is space being taken away before this additional space is designated? Literally everything in this plan is aimed at YOU–the dog owner. The Mayor’s answer to the crying need for off leash space is to take away what is already there and working. Every other user group is being placed above you.
Let the Mayor know that you are unhappy with his decision. Ask him to at least include FIDOS in the discussion. His message states “Contrary to some of the information you might have received, in the course of the Plan development I’ve had dozens of meetings and interactions with FIDOS supporters and others who want Parleys Historic Nature Park completely off-leash”–ask him about these meetings. The truth is that in the course of the last three years while his office has been preparing this plan repeated requests for meetings have been completely ignored without even the courtesy of a response.
With the exception of one meeting over a year ago, there have been ABSOLUTELY NO meetings with individual FIDOS representatives. If you were in attendance at the one public hearing that the mayor attended in the park you will remember that he spent the time chatting with other administrative personnel during the public comment session, showing very little interest in what his constituents had come to say to him.
Send your message to ralph.becker@slcgov.com. Remind him that you are not interested in the destruction of the environment, that the FIDOS group has done more to improve the park than any other group. Tell him that his inaction and refusal to accept FIDOS repeated offers of improvement projects as a strategy toward removing our user group from this valued space is inappropriate and counter-productive. That his actions are not in keeping with his loudly proclaimed environmental stand, it is apparent that his office has worked hard to create problems in the park with one goal in mind–get rid of the dogs! He has shown himself willing to promote environmental damage in order to remove our user group and in the case of the PRATT trail, replace it with another user group–bicycles.
It is interesting to note that at the same time Mayor Becker is undermining our efforts, he is in the process of hiring his THIRD full time bicycle issues staffer and has given at least a half million dollars to a volunteer group to promote cycling in SLC. We realize the high value of cycling, many of us are avid cyclists, we are simply asking why so much money and effort is put towards promoting one group while an equal amount seems to be used to undermine another. We are simply asking for some consideration.
Please also send messages to the three City Councilmembers who voted against FIDOS–JT Martin, Van Turner and Carlton Christensen at council.comments@slcgov.com. And remember to thank Soren Simonsen, Luke Garrett, Jill Remington-Love, and Stan Penfold for their willingness to listen and consider the needs of our user group. It takes five votes to overturn the mayor’s veto, if there is any chance of this happening it has to be soon, by January 4, 2011. Send your messages right away, especially if are constituents of JT Martin, Van Turner or Carlton Christensen.
“Bark Now or Forever Hold Your Leash”
Your Friends at FIDOS
www.MillcreekFIDOS.org and www.FIDOSFoundation.org
