Thursday, April 24, 2008

A dog park and food shortages

I forgot to mention this earlier (I've been preoccupied with the boiler disaster and the failures of town staff), but Laura DeCaprio's Planning Committee discussed a dog park last night. I didn't attend the meeting, but did email Laura last night with my concerns and she replied right away, which was nice.

I saw this "Fear of food shortages" headlining (across the top, above the fold) today's CT Post (by Rob Varnon)... and it gets to the heart of my concern.

Basically, the idea was to displace part of Arisco farms (corner of Marion and Jarvis) and have a dog park. To which I voiced my very serious concerns about "sustainability issues" and why we shouldn't be displacing cropland for recreation. I mean... along with other countries, India banned the export of rice. Why? There's fear of food shortages everywhere due a variety of factors (crops for biofuels, wealthier people now eat meat which requires more grain being fed to animals, etc.). And I just don't want to exacerbate the problem. So I voiced my concerns.

Anyway, Laura was very much on top of the issue... and apparently lots of people (everyone except Parks & Rec!) are opposed to that particular location. So it sounds like nothing will happen there, which is fine with me. Thanks Laura!

And seriously... if these jokers in Hartford can't recognize the massive shortcomings in CT land use policy at this point, I'm not sure they ever will.

Tim White

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simple solution...build the dog park where the geese are at Mixville Park. Use the fence from around the bubble when it becomes an enclosed structure.

This way we can have a nice fenced in doggie park, get rid of the geese, save $3000 in pyrotechnics and save another 30 grand on building the park by reusing the fence.

I just killed 3 birds with one stone! No pun intended.

Mike Rocci

P.S. Impose a $100 poopy scooper fine for not cleaning up after mans best friend. Of corse you will need to pay for membership at Mixville to use the dog park. Look at all the money I saved the town and I don't even have an accounting or law degree...

Anonymous said...

Good idea plus they have a parking lot. Maybe it's to easy of a solution?

Anonymous said...

Until dogs pay taxes - sorry, no dog park.

Anonymous said...

The people of this have no clue, no dog park, it is not needed. Next thing they will want is a Starbucks on the dog park property.

Fix the drug and booze problems in the school, fix the pool, take an adult learning to understand what reality is.

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone drive to Marion Rd and Jarvis St to have their dogs go for a run? Wouldn't the middle of Town somewhere near the pool and Playground make more sense? The parking is there and people have a reason to go besides waliking their dogs. I don't think we need one but if we must that area would be be more cost effective.