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Bernal’s Bush Avenue Northwest home is seperated only by a fence from Sunrise Park, where the city’s first and only off-leash dog park opened in October 2010. It’s open from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m.; until 8 p.m. in the spring and summer.
“There’s no privacy,” he said. “The dogs are constantly barking, seven days a week. All the owners that are attached to the dog run are pretty well upset and so am I.”
It’s his concerns and those of other neighbors that caused the city’s parks department to hold a neighborhood meeting Wednesday. About 30 people attended, said Dave Okerlund, parks planning and design manager. The city’s parks department is considering changing the operation, the facilities or even closing the park, he said.
“There’s an awful lot of support for that dog park here in the community,” he said. But the neighbors have valid concerns “that we tried to address when we first built the park,” he said. But maybe parks officials didn’t do the best job, he acknowledged.
“We looked at ... numerous locations for dog parks and this one surfaced as the most suitable one available at the time,” he said.
Okerlund is planning to have a meeting in another month to lay out some solutions and get reaction. People on both sides of the dog park issue better understood each other after the meeting Wednesday, he said.
Other issues include smell from urine and dog waste, and inadequate parking, forcing visitors to park on neighborhood streets, he said.
About a dozen dogs scurried around the park on a cold, misty Thursday afternoon as their owners looked on. Some said they wouldn’t mind if the dog park was moved, just as long as they have a dog park to go to.
Trang Nguyen, a student at South Puget Sound Community College, said she goes to the park daily, if not twice a day.
“I absolutely love it,” she said. But she added, “It’s close to neighbors and I understand their concerns.”
Dog owners will travel far and wide to visit dog parks, even to Portland and Seattle. Olympia long lacked a dog run. Thurston County lacked dog parks until 2010, when it gained one at Sunrise Park and another next to the Waste and Recovery Center in Lacey, off Marvin Road.
Okerlund said opening another dog park in Olympia could take some stress off Sunrise Park. But he said no other park has been identified for one.
Bernal, who is retired and has raised dogs, said he no longer has his grandchildren over because some of the people at the park are vulgar.
“They’re just that close where you can hear all their conversations and everything else,” he said. “This is the big issue, and it’s open to the general public.”
Matt Batcheldor: 360-704-6869
mbatcheldor@theolympian.com
Twitter: @MattBatcheldor
