Dog park committee makes it through Park Board!! Good morning Maron; Last night at our Park Board meeting we agreed to recommend to the council that we move forward with a committee to look into establishing a dog park. I have been looking into budgeting and feel you will want to focus on funding both the building and maintenance of the park. With the new school coming, the City will have some big infrastructure costs over the next couple of years. Also, I'm sure you are aware that with the new DMC coming to Rochester Stewartville is expected to experience some rapid growth over the next 3 to 5 years adding even more infrastructure costs. The DMC will present both a challenge and opportunity for Stewartville. Thanks! Jeff Beyer

This was posted on Facebook yesterday: Dog folks in Rochester/ Stewartville area-- I just received this note: My mother just called and shared that a family friend was walking their dog by Bear Cave Park in Stewartville last night, and when he sat down to take a call from his brother, the dog was just in the area running around and came back limping and bleeding from the mouth. He took the dog to the emergency vet, and learned that someone had shot the dog in the mouth. The dog had to be euthanized, and the owner is heartbroken. The dog was a lab or lab mix that he had adopted from PCHS and had for 6 years, and was not an aggressive dog and would not have done anything that would have provoked someone to feel threatened by it. The owner doesn’t know who would have done this, but clearly it was someone who is cruel and sick. If you have friends or coworkers with dogs in Stewartville, let them know this so that they can be very careful with their dogs; hopefully whoever did this will be caught, but right now the dog’s owner does not know who would have done this or what their motivation would have been.

The Park Board will have an agenda item Monday to create a subcommittee to develop the dog park plan. If this passes the Park Board (it is expected to), it will be sent to City Council for a vote. This vote is the first step: creation of a committee to develop a plan. If you know someone on the Park Board or City Council encourage them to support the cause. Also, council person Wendy Timm has stepped forward and offered to be the City Council Rep for any committee. Wendy is fully supportive of the dog park and wants to make it happen.

Here is the response to the e-mail sent to Mayor King that I received from Park Board Chair, Jeff Beyer: Maren; The next Park Board meeting is scheduled for July 14th. That meeting is scheduled pretty full. I was planning to put the dog park on the meeting agenda for August and invite all who are interested. Keep in mind we work off a master plan that we have to submit to the council for approval. Also we have a budget we have to work with. As of this time we are down to less that $100.00 in our budget. We had a cost overrun on the new restrooms being built at Bear Cave and Meadow Park and we are still in the process of completing the sand volleyball courts at Bear Cave. We will not know until the end of the year what our budget will be for next year. We have received requests for not only a dog park but also an indoor hockey arena, a band shell and additional ball fields for the Brin Park area as well as additional park and play equipment for the Peterson and Schuman subdivisions. Our August meeting is scheduled for the 11th at 6:00 PM at City Hall. Please let me know if you want to make a presentation so I can put you on the schedule. As I read back through this it sounds negative. Please do not take it that way. As a dog owner myself, I understand your concern. I just want you to understand everything we have to deal with. Thanks! Jeff

Here is an e-mail I sent to Mayor King this morning (with a copy to all council members and Jeff Beyer the Park Board Chair): Mayor King: God Morning! I know I said I wasn’t going to do much research until we were moving forward, but I felt there was a positive response at last night’s meeting. So, I went ahead and did a little digging into city liability for dog parks in Minnesota to address your concern (and one of the major concerns that comes with the idea of a dog park). Here is a link to a report from Arden Hills that has a discussion about the City’s liability for a dog park and best practices to avoid city liability as they were instructed by the League of Minnesota Cities: http://cityofardenhills.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/616?fileID=1112 If this holds true, the city would not have to do anything special to have its insurance coverage in place for a dog park. Obviously, the safest bet would be to confirm with the insurance company, but in my experience previous research is usually a pretty good indicator of what we will learn. I also spoke with Frank Harreld after the meeting, and he would be interested in helping with a task force to fully explore the dog park. Again, I encourage the Council and Park Board to appoint the task force to begin work on this project - if we can have chickens, we can surely have a place for our dogs to run! Best; Maren Schroeder

Maren Schroeder & Kathy Schroeder spoke at the City Council Meeting on 7/8/2014 requesting that funds from the Beach Wood North Subdivision be earmarked for an off leash dog park at Meadow Park North and that the council appoint or direct the Park Board to appoint a task force to prepare the plans for Stewartville's dog park. This was well received by Mayor King and Councilperson Timm. The Park Board meets on 7/14/2014, so it is important to get the word out (again) for more signatures - please share with your Stewartville friends!