jarmcguire wrote:

QUOTE:
To begin with I'm not a dog owner. But I was wondering how public dog parks deal with oweners who don't clean up after their dog. Does anyone have any insight on this?

It's self monitoring. Public dog parks have posted rules like ours. The first line of enforcement is the people using the park. If someone forgets to pick up, another park user will remind them. If the rules continue to be broken a complaint is filed with the managing entity (city, county, etc) that owns the park. The offender is warned about following the rules. Repeat offenses can have the user/dog bared from the park.

Here's the rub with our park. Kennecott did a horrible job installing the park and the HOA accepted it in that condition (much like several of the playgrounds). Both Kennecott and the HOA were given extensive information on appropriate park design and what was wrong with their direction. The HOA knew before acceptance, the park had issues.

So, now our HOA owns a park that needs funds put into it to bring it up to a usable level. We aren't talking about making it look like a golf course, just usable. The Kennecott manager in charge wants no responsibility for the horrible park he built and has washed his hands of the project. He rolls his eyes and sighs, in his most professional Kennecott way when the park is mentioned.

The improvements are left to the HOA to pay for and that's not going to happen. The stop-gap measures proposed to keep the park up are pitiful at best and not safe(brought to you by the company that chocks wheels on office mail carts). Resident donations and sweat equity have been offered and refused.

The dog park charges $15 fee per year per dog. An extremely fair price considering it is a private DB facility with electronic key lock entry and every dog must submit up to date health records. When residents look at the park, they don't want to take their dogs in even if it were FREE. Which means we rarely have two residents show up at the park at the same time, and nobody can monitor or remind users of the park rules.

Long ramble to get to a point.

Dog parks have become an integral part of communities across the nation, something many people look for just like playgrounds, schools, and shopping facilities when buying a house. Kennecott knows this and was more than happy to tout the dog park as a premier amenity in thier advertising. Only problem is, they missed the premier mark by a couple thousand miles.