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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Dogs downtown?not for our city counci.

Ok, I am giving a quick update after last night's city council meeting.  Despite the encouragement, the city council felt pretty strongly that they did not want any dog  play area in the downtown.  The hopefully good news is that there is apparently some interest in an entity to purchase or build on the empty lot where the Dotson building stood.  Not so good for the dog park idea, but good for commerce and development of downtown. I still support that.

So now what? There are other areas that are possible sites for a dog park.  The mayor did appoint 2 council members as dog park committe members and the submission for budget requests is about 1 1/2 months away.  This means that the city council supports a dog park but not in the downtown.  Back to the drawing board. 

Personally, I feel disappointed for not having a quickly developed dog park and also a chance to be  innovative  about how to redevelop space in an old downtown . This was a chance to draw people to our downtown.  Maybe an opportunity will come up again.  I hope so. 

So I will keep you posted.  There are lots of other ways to put a dog park together.  Some of the comittee people met tonight to look at other possible sites.   Private - Public what ever.  All is not lost - just going to take a little longer.  

Lastly, I really appreciate all the dog park committee people who came to the city council meeting as well as others who spoke up at the city council meeting.  There is a lot of support for  a dog park inside and outside of Tuscola.  We will keep the movement going and have a dog park in town.  I will keep you posted.
Dr, Sally Foote

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