One of the things that draws people to cities is the ability to do things — shop, eat brunch, have a drink, find a sex partner — without driving much. Or at all.
Recently, I was chatting with an urban planner. He lamented how Kansas City leaders, from the mayor on down, lack the awareness or the ability to sell these attributes. When was the last time, he wondered, any local leader said anything like, "Hey, living in the city is a great thing! We want you to live here! Look at how cool it is! You can live here without a car!"
Instead, we're stuck with pantloads like Chuck Eddy, a former councilman who operated under the notion that Kansas City needed to look and feel more like Overland Park. During his time on the City Council, Eddy led crusades against street vendors and newspaper boxes. I sometimes wondered whether he watched Law & Order reruns in order to be appalled by its images of city life. Bleech. Detective Briscoe just ordered coffee from a guy with a cart. And what is that, a falafel?
Eddy wanted to be mayor. Voters, in 2007, told him to resume his career as a chiropractor.
Alas, mediocrities don't stay down for long in Kansas City. Eddy returned to City Hall earlier this year as City Manager Wayne Cauthen's chief of staff.
I got to thinking about Eddy and my conversation with the urban planner during a recent meeting of the Board of Parks and Recreation. It was an event at which, I admit, I exclaimed duh! during a moment of lost self-control.
The source of my angst? The parks board's interminable discussion about dog parks.
Kansas City's one and only off-leash dog park opened in Penn Valley Park in 2004. One dog park is not a lot. Cities of comparable size have made much greater efforts to provide this relatively simple amenity to their residents. Portland, Oregon's park system offers five fenced areas for dogs to run and play off-leash. Indianapolis has three "canine companion zones."
Kansas City has moved tentatively, in part because one parks board commissioner, Aggie Stackhaus, hates the idea.
In 2007, the parks board abruptly approved a policy that all future dog parks belonged in parks of 100 acres or more. This policy was intended to thwart a citizen-led effort to install a dog park at Sunnyside Park in Waldo. Stackhaus and the Sunnyside group engaged in a battle of wills that has been documented in these pages and elsewhere. I'm not going to reconstruct the fight. But it produced something interesting.
On August 25 of this year, staffers at the Parks and Recreation Department presented commissioners with a set of new policies and guidelines for off-leash areas. The employees identified 13 potential sites for dog parks. The 100-acre rule was gone. Instead, parks department staffers recommended that off-leash areas themselves must cover at least 5 acres of ground.
"That decision was made based on our experience with Penn Valley Park," Heidi Downer, a parks department spokeswoman, explained to me later, when I asked about the 5-acre minimum.
The Penn Valley dog park is 3.5 acres. Parks officials believe that it's too small for the volume of dogs it handles.
"Based on the amount of use we anticipate in the proposed dog parks, a larger size is preferred to minimize the wear and tear and keep the parks looking good," Downer said.
Sounds reasonable enough — until you see what other cities are doing.
The city of Minneapolis has five dog parks in its well-regarded system. None exceed 4.5 acres.
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To Chris Bouchard:
Your ad hominem attacks on Deb Hipp, who is a very nice person and has donated hundreds of hours of her time to this project to improve the community, really only show that you have no real arguments to make. And your incorrect statements hurt your credibility even more. Yes, Deb used to write for the Pitch, but she left the job more than five years ago, before David Martin ever started working there. I think Deb has met David maybe twice, only when he was covering the dog park. They didn't know each other before that. So, if the best you have is the allegation that Deb and David are "friends" (when they've met twice) and that David somehow decides what to write based on the opinions of people who long ago worked for the same employer, that's just weak.
As for the "small neighborhood park" saw, please try visiting some cities that actually do a good job providing amenities for their residents. You'll see dog parks of all sizes within parks of all sizes. If Sunnyside is "too small" for a dog park, then I guess it's "too small" for a baseball field and sprayground that only get used three months out of the year. This city needs to stop treating people with dogs as if we're somehow different form any other parks users and must be ostracized to the far corners of Kansas City where no one else will have to see us. That's just silly.
To Chris Bouchard: Your ad hominem attacks on Deb Hipp, who is a very nice person and has donated hundreds of hours of her time to this project to improve the community, really only show that you have no real arguments to make. And your incorrect statements hurt your credibility even more. Yes, Deb used to write for the Pitch, but she left the job more than five years ago, before David Martin ever started working there. I think Deb has met David maybe twice, only when he was covering the dog park. They didn't know each other before that. So, if the best you have is the allegation that Deb and David are "friends" (when they've met twice) and that David somehow decides what to write based on the opinions of people who long ago worked for the same employer, that's just weak. As for the "small neighborhood park" saw, please try visiting some cities that actually do a good job providing amenities for their residents. You'll see dog parks of all sizes within parks of all sizes. If Sunnyside is "too small" for a dog park, then I guess it's "too small" for a baseball field and sprayground that only get used three months out of the year. This city needs to stop treating people with dogs as if we're somehow different form any other parks users and must be ostracized to the far corners of Kansas City where no one else will have to see us. That's just silly.
Nice Bait and Switch on the article oh friend of fellow Pitch writer Debb Hipp.
No applause for moving forward with the concept of more dogparks in the city. Nice opposition piece.
well the truth of the matter Sunnyside Park was the wrong choice for so very many reasons, it is too small, it is too close to a heavily travelled thoroughfare, it already contains too many activity areas to include a walking trail, basketball courts, several ballfields, a children�s playground and sprayground, several tennis courts as well as several picnic areas. Those neighbors surrounding the park and a majority of residents in the immediate area were not receptive to the idea, nor were businesses around the park onboard with it either.
Again, what happen to reporting all sides of a story why the focus on the 'poor me' types like Deb Hipp and her 'spoiled kid' mentality. What happen to the main crux of the story (i.e., the City moving towards developing new dogparks throughout its borders and why the story's emphasis on criticizing those public servants that are making it happen) or what about the other side to the 'Sunnyside Saga', namely the significant effort made by a group of dog owners opposed to a misguided plan to place a dogpark right in the middle of a small neighborhood park already overweight with activity areas? What about the story about an inherently biased Dogpark Task Force whose site recommendations were already made prior to the group's inception? What, no mention of the public call made by a certain someone inciting citizens to harass these public servants (who I might remind people are not paid positions) at their workplaces, at their homes? This story is about what exactly? How about Money!!!
So much for the objective point of view. Time to move forward.
Nice Bait and Switch on the article oh friend of fellow Pitch writer Debb Hipp. No applause for moving forward with the concept of more dogparks in the city. Nice opposition piece. well the truth of the matter Sunnyside Park was the wrong choice for so very many reasons, it is too small, it is too close to a heavily travelled thoroughfare, it already contains too many activity areas to include a walking trail, basketball courts, several ballfields, a children’s playground and sprayground, several tennis courts as well as several picnic areas. Those neighbors surrounding the park and a majority of residents in the immediate area were not receptive to the idea, nor were businesses around the park onboard with it either. Again, what happen to reporting all sides of a story why the focus on the 'poor me' types like Deb Hipp and her 'spoiled kid' mentality. What happen to the main crux of the story (i.e., the City moving towards developing new dogparks throughout its borders and why the story's emphasis on criticizing those public servants that are making it happen) or what about the other side to the 'Sunnyside Saga', namely the significant effort made by a group of dog owners opposed to a misguided plan to place a dogpark right in the middle of a small neighborhood park already overweight with activity areas? What about the story about an inherently biased Dogpark Task Force whose site recommendations were already made prior to the group's inception? What, no mention of the public call made by a certain someone inciting citizens to harass these public servants (who I might remind people are not paid positions) at their workplaces, at their homes? This story is about what exactly? How about Money!!! So much for the objective point of view. Time to move forward.
Great column - you're 100 percent right. In Kansas City, we get the worst of both worlds. We deal with city crap (abandoned houses, prostitutes doing business up the street etc.) but we get none of the benefits (walkability, dog parks, all the stuff you mentioned.) Kansas City leaders are indeed backwards and clueless. The one parks board member I had hope for was Tyrone Aiken because I hear rumors that he has lived in real cities with actual urban planning and that he's a cyclist. I guess it didn't take long for him to either completely be assimilated into Kansas City's "podunk" ways or for Aggie Stackhaus to bully him into submission.
Anyway, that's why many of us are fleeing or planning to flee Kansas City like the commenter named Jessica who moved to Chicago. I have friends who have moved, in the past few years, to Seattle, Portland and SanDiego. I have other friends who are planning a move to places with dog parks etc. I don't see the benefit of continuing to live here and pay taxes when people like Aggie Stackhaus and John Fierro are running the show. If any of them have ever left Kansas City or lived anywhere else, it definitely doesn't show. They're probably holding a secret meeting at that Hardee's in Lenexa right now - scheming new ways to keep Kansas City uncool, drive away young/urban types and makes sure that, above all else, Kansas City's parks stay empty.
I used to live 2 blocks away from Sunnyside and thought the dog park was a good idea. NO ONE uses this park. The only people who occasionally use the area where the dog park would have been located are random homeless people hanging out at picnic tables in the shade. You may see 2 kids at the playground on a beautiful day, and people use the baseball fields in the summer. The dog park would have no impact on these areas.
We moved to Chicago to live in a city with some urban planning, and we regularly take our dog to numerous city dog parks. In Chicago all are less than 5 acres (most less than 2 acres-in a city you don't have that kind of room). With proper planning (Penn Valley was a bad design) it's not an issue.
Great column - you're 100 percent right. In Kansas City, we get the worst of both worlds. We deal with city crap (abandoned houses, prostitutes doing business up the street etc.) but we get none of the benefits (walkability, dog parks, all the stuff you mentioned.) Kansas City leaders are indeed backwards and clueless. The one parks board member I had hope for was Tyrone Aiken because I hear rumors that he has lived in real cities with actual urban planning and that he's a cyclist. I guess it didn't take long for him to either completely be assimilated into Kansas City's "podunk" ways or for Aggie Stackhaus to bully him into submission. Anyway, that's why many of us are fleeing or planning to flee Kansas City like the commenter named Jessica who moved to Chicago. I have friends who have moved, in the past few years, to Seattle, Portland and SanDiego. I have other friends who are planning a move to places with dog parks etc. I don't see the benefit of continuing to live here and pay taxes when people like Aggie Stackhaus and John Fierro are running the show. If any of them have ever left Kansas City or lived anywhere else, it definitely doesn't show. They're probably holding a secret meeting at that Hardee's in Lenexa right now - scheming new ways to keep Kansas City uncool, drive away young/urban types and makes sure that, above all else, Kansas City's parks stay empty.
I used to live 2 blocks away from Sunnyside and thought the dog park was a good idea. NO ONE uses this park. The only people who occasionally use the area where the dog park would have been located are random homeless people hanging out at picnic tables in the shade. You may see 2 kids at the playground on a beautiful day, and people use the baseball fields in the summer. The dog park would have no impact on these areas. We moved to Chicago to live in a city with some urban planning, and we regularly take our dog to numerous city dog parks. In Chicago all are less than 5 acres (most less than 2 acres-in a city you don't have that kind of room). With proper planning (Penn Valley was a bad design) it's not an issue.
There's irony in the current crowd of city hall leadership trying to scale down public amenities in K.C.Mo. Building cheap isn't building better.
The irony is that Kansas City is where J.C. Nichols built parks, fountains, and the wisdom of building value in neighborhoods. The current leadership doesn't get it.
Maybe the people of Kansas City can purchase some land, say from a couple of dilapidated dangerous houses or commercial structures, and donate the land to the city for use as a dog park. Some folks get a tax break for the donation, if its done right, and everyone gets another park. Of course there is also eminent domain.
Now why didn't the mayor think about using private sources to fund the renovation of his office before he blew all that money? Are there no pro bono silk stocking lawyers left?
There's irony in the current crowd of city hall leadership trying to scale down public amenities in K.C.Mo. Building cheap isn't building better. The irony is that Kansas City is where J.C. Nichols built parks, fountains, and the wisdom of building value in neighborhoods. The current leadership doesn't get it. Maybe the people of Kansas City can purchase some land, say from a couple of dilapidated dangerous houses or commercial structures, and donate the land to the city for use as a dog park. Some folks get a tax break for the donation, if its done right, and everyone gets another park. Of course there is also eminent domain. Now why didn't the mayor think about using private sources to fund the renovation of his office before he blew all that money? Are there no pro bono silk stocking lawyers left?
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