July 31, 2023

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Jackie Beecham, Director

Youth, Parks & Community Enrichment Dept.
City of Sacramento

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SUBJECT: Comments on the Sierra 2 Open House Held July 19, 2023

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Dear Ms. Beecham,

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The members of Common Ground would like to thank the city for soliciting community input on a location for a new dog park in the Curtis Park and Land Park neighborhoods through the Open House held on July 19. We appreciated the opportunity to express our preferences through a voting system. However, several aspects of that system were problematic, prompting doubts about the fairness of the ultimate decision.

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First and foremost, we are concerned that, because the only off-leash dog option given for the Sierra 2 Green eliminated half of the existing soccer field, many residents who want to preserve that field (particularly members of the Land Park Soccer Club) would have voted “red,” even if they would have preferred (or agreed to) a shared use program, or a smaller dog park separated from the soccer field. In other words, the only “concept plan” for Sierra 2 offered a misleading choice–either a dog park or a soccer field, but not both.

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Second, and relatedly, we are concerned that there was only one “concept plan” for the Sierra 2 Green, whereas there were multiple options regarding Curtis Park and Land Park for residents to choose from. We realize that the Sierra 2 Green is considerably smaller than those other parks, but at least one alternative option could have been offered, particularly if there was a smaller, combined area for both large and small dogs.

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Third, we are concerned that children–even those too young to read and write–were allowed to cast ballots during the Open House voting. We recognize that it is important to consider the views of our youngest citizens in formulating policies that affect them, but those views should be somewhat informed. Giving children a vote equal to those of adults on a controversial issue of citywide importance seems quite odd; at the very least, their votes should have been segregated and counted separately. In practice, allowing young children to vote provided an additional vote to the parent(s) who brought them to the Open House, thus diluting the votes of older voters.

 

Fourth, the advertisement for the Open House described it as an opportunity to “provide input on concept plans assessing the potential of a dog park in the Sierra 2/Curtis Park community.” But unless you looked first at the city’s website previewing the various options, you would have been surprised to learn that half of the options were for a dog park in the Land Park neighborhood. That caused confusion among some who attended the event, and they had questions about some of the sites. Unfortunately, city staff seemed unable to answer many of those questions. Thus, the votes of at least some residents were not well informed.

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It would be helpful if the city would clarify how this unscientific poll or vote will be used in determining future use of the Sierra 2 Green, as well as the siting of any future dog park in the Curtis Park/Land Park neighborhoods. We also would like to know whether any actual public hearings are planned before making this determination. We have been told that this is just the first step in a process, but we haven’t been told whether the city plans to select a site before considering alternative designs for that site, or whether the city would consider alternate designs for the Sierra 2 Green (including two that have been proposed by our group) before selecting a site for a new dog park.

 

We recognize that this has become a very divisive issue, and that any decision the city makes is going to leave some, if not many, people disappointed or even angry. But a voting system like the one used for the Open House does little to build confidence in the final outcome. We hope that the city will employ other means to more accurately gauge public opinion in the Sierra 2/Curtis Park community on whether to allow off-leash dogs to continue to use part of the Green.

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Common Ground Representatives