Dear Liesl:
I am a local journalist running for a council seat in this town, and pre-election I have inaugurated a little broadsheet called the Cascade Free Press. In reporting for it, I attended a Park Board Meeting here, and heard that in a meeting with people from your office the idea of a dog park was endorsed and then moved to a different location--Oak Hill, a neighborhood of $200,000+ houses. The previous location was at least central, in the middle of town but a flood-plain policy precluded locating it there. Rather than going back to the drawing board, looking for another central location, as it seems democracy would demand, the powers-that-be gleefully moved it to Oak Hill, put up a big sign and we now are saddled with it on the far east side of town.
Advocating a dog park in a town of 2,200 people where no house is more than 3 or 4 blocks from an open field or park where you can run an animal is questionable policy to begin with, but to have the state come to our community and undermine democracy in such a fashion is pretty horrific. You carry weight and we lose when it is ill-applied. I also contacted your media people, when trying to discover the reasons, but heard nothing from them either, so I do appreciate your response to my query.
Many, many thanks,
S. Keyron McDermott
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