 Go ahead and get started. My guesses will have some other people join us. Is my video working or am I totally frozen? We don't, you're just a black screen right now, Kasia. Yeah, you're frozen. For me. Okay, hold on a second. Let's see about this. All right. I'm just going to stop my video now, unfortunately, and see if I can figure that out in a little bit. Can you all hear me okay? Yes. Okay, great. Yeah. All right. It's 6.02. Now let's go ahead and get started with Commissioner introductions. We'll take care of some business here and then we'll get down to the dog situation, which is I know why everybody's here tonight. My name is Kasia Rangio and I am chair of the Parks Commission, Stephanie. My name is Stephanie Hunt and I'm a Parks Commissioner, Lincoln, Lincoln Frasca, Parks Commissioner. Andrew. Andrew Brewer, Parks Commissioner. Emily. Hey, I'm Emily Donaldson. I'm a Parks Commissioner. Sorry. I'm making dinner for my children. So a little panch for our team right now. So I'm just going to be listening for the first half an hour probably. Thanks. I'm sorry to put you on the spot. Okay. And we've got Alec and Kara on staff. Do you want to introduce yourselves? Sure. Here we go. I'm Kara Barbero and I am crew leader for the Parks and Trees department. And actually where is Alec? Are we missing? You should definitely be here. I talked to him recently and he's planning to be here. Okay. I don't have any text messages. We'll just assume he'll join us. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Well, he's waiting to join. Let's. Do the April 2nd agenda and March 12th minutes. Can I get a motion for my commissioner? Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve the March minutes as well as tonight's agenda. Second. I can second. Any discussion. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Alright. And now right on time, we're going to go ahead and we always at the beginning of our meetings for those of you who are joining us for, if it's been a while. Or your first time. We always open for public comment on any thing that's not on the agenda. kind of situation that we're all here to talk about and figure out tonight. Does anybody have public comment they'd like to share? All righty. Hearing none, we will move along. We generally have a staff update here at the beginning, but now that we've just approved our agenda, I'm thinking we can probably skip over that part, unless you have something that Alec. Okay, great. And let me see if I can turn my video on because I would prefer to. All right, can you guys, can you see me now? Okay, great. All right, so I think what we're going to do tonight, I'm going to open things up. We'll turn things over to what we affectionately call the dog committee, and then open for public comments, and then turn to staff to provide some feedback. And then as commissioners, we'll have a bit of a discussion. And so I just wanted to start by just kind of reminding all of us why we're here and what brings us here tonight. And I think it's important to remember that we all love our parks. We especially love Hubbard. That's why we're here. That's true for us as commissioners. That's why we're on the commission. It's true for people who walk their dogs. It's true for people who don't walk their dogs. We all have a really special place in our hearts for Hubbard Park. And we just may have different ideas of an ideal experience and different accommodations to enjoy these places or different roles that these parks play in our lives. But I think for all of us, they're really central to our community. And we maybe have a favorite tree or a favorite mossy patch that we like to return to, or leaves we like to watch change with the season, or dogs we like to greet in the morning, or people we like to greet as part of that community. And so our community, it's a place that's part of our community, but also our people are part of our community. And our community is those people that are in the parks, and also are people who are not in the parks. And we're not seeing show-ups on a really basis. We're not using these spaces. And I think all of us probably know someone, a friend, a neighbor, a kid down the street, a grandparent, somebody who actually doesn't get to enjoy Hubbard. And I don't know about you all, but that always makes me really feel sad that there's a place that I love so much. And other people, you know, there are folks who feel like they can't go there and don't have space for them. And I think that's really the question that brings us here today is trying to figure out how we can hold that incredible community, the incredible space, and everything that we love so dearly about this special place, and how we can share that with our friends, our neighbors, and look out for more people in our community to make sure that our parks are welcoming and accessible to all people. The kind of the path of what brought us here today in terms of process, going way back 100 years ago, plus years ago, Emily will like probably know the specific date because she's the historian among us. But Hubbard Park was gifted to the city of Montpelier and pieces have been added on, but over the time, there weren't necessarily like rules tied to the gift or how we're all supposed to behave and what we're supposed to do and how this place is. And, you know, you I wasn't here in the 80s, probably some of you were, but from the stories that I've heard, there was kind of a free for all in the parks. And it was like, you could ride your dirt bike around in the parks, you could be there or whatever you want to be kind of do whatever you want to do. And over the years, rules have been added, we don't see you dirt bikes there anymore. And I don't know you all, but I'm really grateful for that. And I think there's places are there are things that weren't really, you know, decisions around let's how how here's how we should manage our parks, it just kind of grew up naturally. That's how our trail system grew up. That's how all the uses grew up. And so, when we think about dogs, there were that we know that there is our different, you know, sides in our community are different uses that people want to see in our parks. And addressing that there was a canine code of conduct that came up several years ago. There was the city referendum that was on the ballot of several years ago that really came up with like a 5050 split that was like, a bunch of people want dogs on leash, a bunch of people want dogs off leash. And we all know in that kind of situation that leaves half people kind of not really happy about it. And so this brings us to where we are now we as a commission, we just we started creating management plans for our parks, our parks didn't have management plans. So we were looking at Hubbard and North Branch, not as like a dog specific thing, or let's, you know, let's figure this out. We just started talking to our community members. We had lead walks in the park. We had a survey that was taken by more than a thousand people. We had public meetings and said, Hey, what do you how do you feel about your parks? What do you want to see here? What do you like here? And what the conversations kept kind of circling back to this question of dogs and people loving absolutely loving that community of of dog owners and dog lovers and and dog greeting happening and also people saying, you know, I don't really go there because I'm afraid of dogs or I had, you know, an issue with dogs. And I think it, you know, for all of us on the commission looking at all this and having these conversations, it became clear that there are a lot of people who love the way it is now. But they're also clear that many of our friends and neighbors can't enjoy this special place. And so as a commission, just as part of the management plan, we started to pull together, not just for dogs, but for all the different things that we're we're seeing in the parks, for trails, for our shelters, all these things like how how can we manage this place better? How can we make these places more welcoming for all people? And so we over a year ago now had suggested a handful of steps that we thought would be sensible. We suggested leashing and parking areas and roads and shelters. We talked about areas of the park. We talked about specific trails. Many of you showed up to the public meetings at that time and said, wait, wait, wait, I don't like this idea. I think there are other ways to do this. Let's find something another path forward. And really as a commission, we wanted to turn and listen to our community and say, well, okay, if our idea is not the best idea, what are the other ideas out there? Like, what, how could we bring everybody together? And so coming out of that process, what we created was this dog committee to kind of look at the situation. And so the vision for this was to have four people on the committee, two people who are dog owners and enjoy walking their dogs off leash, two people who are not dog owners and maybe don't come to the park or want a different type of experience. And our first, this was over a year ago. And when we went down this road, our first challenge was putting together that committee. So and it took a while to do that. And ultimately, we did our darnedest to reach out to people kind of to hear multiple voices on the issue. And what we pulled together was four amazing people who have been working really hard on figuring this out, all four of which are dog owners. And didn't did it wasn't quite what you know, we envisioned, but it's created this space and this conversation, which was the important place. And trying to figure out like, what do we need to learn from our community? How can we discuss this together and have a civil conversation and figure out a path forward? And then, just as this group was coming together, the flood happened. And then we kind of got everybody back together in the fall. And one of the we didn't really prescribe as a commission, like here's how this needs to happen. It was kind of like, hey, go out and collect, figure out one thing that we know, and figure out the best ideas in the community and come back to us with recommendations. And so the approach was a survey, which they'll share and a recommendation. And the survey really, I think some of you saw the results online, but really what we're seeing again is that kind of the same thing as the referendum, which is this 5050 split of half our community loves having the off leash situation, half the community would prefer to have dogs leashed. And then there are some people who don't even come to the parks because they don't feel welcome and included there. And so I think the pickle that we're all in and the situation, you know, the question that we're all trying to find a really sensible answer for collectively tonight is how can we continue to make sure that Hubbard is this amazing, special place that's central to our communities and everything we love about living in this town and our lives and spaces and how can we make sure that it's also a place that's more welcoming to our friends and neighbors. And so I'll turn it over to the dog committee to kind of share some of the insights of their conversations and findings and things and recommendations here from them. Turn it all over to you for public comment. And then we'll discuss a commission. And I want to say to the people who have really a lot of time like meeting multiple times a week, odd hours to make this all happen and pull together these recommendations. We're really grateful for your work, the survey that you put out, I think it's helpful to just engage people in the community. And who knows what the ultimate like decision or path forward to might be. I'm not sure any of us right in this moment have all the answers, but we'll, you know, see what we can figure out tonight. But whatever the path forward is, your work has been a really important part of the process and really grateful for all the time that you put into it to create a better outcome and create a better path forward. So thank you. I'm going to turn things over to the dog committee. And real quick, folks, we are 20 plus here. So if you're not talking, please mute your microphone and get a little feedback in the headphones. So thank you. Thanks for that great introduction, Kasha. I had a whole section on I could talk about process, but I think you covered all of that. So I don't need to do that. Hi, everybody. My name is Dana Dwinell-Yardley. I'm one of the four folks who were on the dog committee. What's going to happen? We have about 10 or 15 minutes to present our recommendations to you. I'm going to give you the like big picture. Here's what we're recommending. Then Jesse Barnard is going to give you a deeper dive into what we learned through the survey and what we learned from other public comment. And then Robin Goldman is going to give a deeper dive into some of the why around some of our recommendations. And I also just want to acknowledge our fourth committee member, Diana Green, who is not a public presenter but is a hard worker on our committee and she's here too. So just acknowledging that all four of us have done this work even though you're only going to hear from three of us tonight. Yeah. I will echo what Kasia said in that our focus also was on making your park safer and more accessible for everybody and balancing diverse needs. We really tried to listen hard to our community, to learn from the survey, to learn from feedback we got from people. And as you all probably know, this is not an easy topic and there is no magic bullet. There is no perfect answer to the question of sharing space with dogs and humans leashed and unleashed. So just that as your context that nothing is perfect but we wrestled with this for a while. We really dug into a lot of options and came up with what we thought was are some pretty solid recommendations. Diana, if you can mute, that would be awesome. And there's some other clicking here. There's still a few people who are not muted. Can everybody please check and see that you're muted? It's possible that whoever's meeting host can also mute folks like on your end as well. I don't know if that's part of your powers. I will try to re-sign in as the city managers on city managers room, conference room accounts, because then I think that's the first power to do that. So I will be right back. Cool. Great. Well I'm going to go ahead. Jessa dropped into the chat the link that page that she linked to has the survey results but also has our recommendations. You're welcome to open that and click and follow along. While I go through, I'll give you the general recommendations, but if you're a person who likes to read, while people talk, go for it. So we have five main recommendations and one of them is probably the juiciest and the one we'll spend a lot of time talking about, but I'll give you all five. First, we fully support leashing on roads and in parking areas. We think that's great. We know that that's already going to happen and we just want to say, yes, we love that. Recommendation two, we support a policy of leashing during specific hours. So from two to four PM, the entire park being on leash rather than applying an on leash policy to trails, we're recommending a holistic entire park is leashed for specific hours of the day. And again, Robin will get into the meat of why we opted for that. Recommendation three is to do a slight tweak of the policy around shelters, which right now says leash around shelters at all times to just say leash around shelters when occupied. And this again is most of the dog policy in Hubbard Park is enforced entirely by community social pressure. There are no police telling you that you're doing it wrong. And we feel that people are more likely to follow a policy when it makes sense and less likely to follow a policy when they're like, there's no humans here. It doesn't make sense for me to leash my dog. Therefore, all the policies are bogus. Throw them out. So a goal of you want the policies to make sense and minimize silliness so that people actually understand why they should be following them. So that's the tweak there around shelters when in use. Recommendation four is we really support extra education. We heard this over and over and over again, people need more education about the way like that this policy exists. What does it look like to have a dog that's well behaved and under control? What does it look like to have polite greetings? Yeah, it's one thing to have a policy. It's another to understand it and follow it. So we strongly recommend educational education. We came up with an initial brainstorm of what that might look like, but it would obviously need more work to craft a full like public education campaign about dog dog dog human interactions in the park. And recommendation five is that any policy that gets chosen be stable and sustainable. We don't want a policy to be picked that's just going to get changed again in six months. That's just like the first step into a deeper slide into limiting more access or policy that gets revoked and changed back again to what we have now in another few months. Like really taking we really recommend something that we can feel like we can live with for a number of years that we can really settle into that builds community trust on this topic in general. So I think I'll hand it off to Jessa with that. And yeah, when we get into a discussion time, I don't know if there'll be a moment for dialogue between commissioners and committee members. I'm still happy to hold this sort of like main spokesperson role, but I might also back questions over to Jessa or Robin as needed. So yeah, thank you for the opportunity to present. And I hope we get to have some dialogues and discussion and come to a thing that works well for everybody. And now Jessa with more about what we learned in the survey. Thanks, Dana. And I will share the same. There was a great introduction already. So I will not cause you to kind of hit on a lot of the background that is somewhat summarized in our doubt document. So I will not repeat. But I do want to start with an apology that we know the survey was not perfect. We know folks were frustrated as we were in fact with some of the functionality of the survey that we didn't learn until the survey went live. We did our best. It was a city platform that was graciously provided to us for free by the city. So we did what we could with it. So we know, for example, you couldn't click the same time week, day, weekend, we know some folks had trouble with sorting the options for policy preferences. But I will say we did not because of that. We knew, you know, thank you for those who reached out and told us those. We were aware of them. We could not change the format of the survey once it was live, because then we couldn't pull it results accurately either. So we did our best interpreting them. We knew some questions we had to take with a grain of salt or couldn't use as much as we wanted. But also the main point is that survey themes became very clear mostly through the comments, to be honest. That was really what we spent the most of our time reading and looking at, because that was really important to us is to get a sense of kind of the tenor of the community and the feedback on these questions. So I will just highlight, I won't read through all of them, but some of the takeaways we found from the survey. Obviously, Access to Hubbard Park provides important physical mental health social benefits to off-leash dog walkers and their pets. There is a very passionate off-leash dog walking community among a number of us count ourselves among that community. And then we gave some quotes and some recognition that folks, this is a place people feel safe walking their dogs, that it's one of the few options in the community that allows this, that it leads to social interactions among the dog owners and the dogs. So certainly heard that loud and clear in the survey. We recognize, as does the park management plan, that much of the rest of the city is not available to off-leash dogs. North Branch trails, the bike paths, the sidewalks, roads, recreation fields. It's the only public land in Montpelier where dogs are officially permitted to be off-leash. The only spot where folks can cross country ski, groomed trails with their dogs. And other off-leash locations may not be feasible at certain times of year for reasons like hunting or snowmobiling. On the other side, we also heard from a number and I want to sort of set aside, I think, a preconceived notion that it may be sort of a small minority of folks who don't feel comfortable visiting the park because of off-leash dogs. It is not a small minority. It is close, as Casio said, fairly split. Again, if you look back at the... So there are a lot of people who not only, so they themselves, for people reasons, so toddlers or elderly, but also people who have reactive dogs, that it's also an issue for some dog walkers, that they want to bring their dogs but don't feel comfortable visiting the park with other off-leash dogs. So we pulled a number of quotes to that point. There were... So there was a question about, do you or do you not visit Hubbard Park? And of those who did not, who gave a reason for not visiting, it was actually 68% of them cited off-leash dogs as a reason. On a different question, 46% of respondents indicated they would rather not interact with off-leash dogs in the park. And again, this divides the community. There's really strong feelings on both sides. There was a rough split between those who wanted no change to the current policy and those who did not think current regulations were sufficient. When we asked for the top policy preferences, again, we know there were some methodological issues with this question, but additional enforcement was the top choice for 46%, while leashing at all times in the entire park was the next popular choice at 31%. Leashing the entire park for certain hours was picked most often as the third choice. And this is the other piece that really jumped out at us and really informed our recommendations, which Robin will go into more detail about, was on both sides. One thing that pretty almost everyone seemed to agree on is that there are concerns about compliance with the already the existing code of conduct and any future change. So this really informed some of our decisions about simplicity, consistency, and enforceability. So there are an endless number of options for how the park space could be shared from trails to hours to zones to combinations of those. We got a lot of quotes like, don't make this chaotic. If you combine trails, hours, zones, days, it's going to be chaos, no one will follow it. And again, Robin will say more about this, but we really think it needs to be workable so that people are able, willing to comply and that we can have something sustainable over time. And that also informed our recommendation about more sort of education also because we know that people are already saying, even with the voice control, there's not great compliance with that. And we also heard comments and we recognize some of this is that there are sort of quote unquote bad apples out there. We don't, we recognize that we're never going to solve all the problems. There are going to be some people who may not, you know, who may not comply, but let's make something that is the most workable for the most people so we can get the closest to a solution that works. So that is a bit of a summary of what we heard. There's the link to the full survey also for those who want to delve deeper. And I'm happy to answer further questions, you know, folks if the commission wants to go more and more detail on any of the specific survey responses. And with that, I will turn it over to Robin. Okay. Thank you. So what basically in reviewing all of the survey things what we concluded as the priority, we noted the community is evenly split right between people who really want to protect their off leash and people who want on leash and that the people who want on leash have very strong safety concerns about not interacting with off leash dogs either because their own dog that's on leash is going to get approached or their child is going to get approached or, you know, who is what could happen. We also noted the overall concern of both sides people who like the off leash, but say there's not enforcement of existing policies. So we even have some problems with people here and there. And on the side of people who want on leash also saying enforcement and what is enforceable. The other thing that was the simplicity. And so looking at that and weighing our different options, why we went with the recommendation of hours over specific trails is that we found that it was very hard to easily break up the park and figure out where could be on leash trails that you're not going to intersect with what would theoretically be off leash trails. And that voice control of dogs, even if you have great voice control of a dog and you have great recall, that doesn't mean that your dog is going to go isn't going to go zooming onto a nearby neighboring trail or ideas about, you know, if you're on natural area trail and it's going to go across. It's going to cross interpretive trail, you know, do you leash for that four feet? What's our likelihood of compliance? And thinking about what what makes the park a truly safe place for people who don't want to engage with off leash dogs? And what is easy to enforce? And so what we came up with was that if leashing throughout the entire park were to exist and we are suggesting two to four because it can catch them after school time, it catches time when people who I realize only like who are retired are able to use the park and that they could have the entire park to wander on whatever trail they wanted to not encounter an off leash dog. And if any off leash dogs were encountered, you know, that they would be violating the policy, we also suggested this policy because we believe that the robust existing dog community that is in Hubbard Park and using it now, would be more like would adapt to this policy quite easily that and get into the rhythm of not using the park in those hours. And that it would thus satisfy the goal of having some space where everyone who wants to avoid off leash dogs can come and use the entire park and avoid off leash dogs. And where we encourage enforcement because it's a straightforward policy to follow. And it was kind of the main the main gist of what we're recommending that it honors the fact that there's this is the only off leash place that half the community wants to keep as is but also is setting aside a space and a time where the whole park can be used by people who don't want to encounter off leash dogs. And part of the analysis of the two hours was also looking at we had had some suggestions from commissioners and looking at some of the back and forth about previous plans or what other ideas were for recommendations. And it looked like the recommendation was for certain trails to be off leash and doing the math on percentages. It looked like the recommendation was that about 1.5 miles of trails out of about eight miles of trails in the total park be recommended to go on leash. And that's about 12 and a half percent of the park and the two hours a day. If we're in a 12 hours of daylight time is is 15 percent of the usable park time space is dedicated to on leash use. So we this is our proposal. I just want to give a moment if there are other thoughts from like that was awesome Robin and and listening to both Jesse and Robin if anyone else from the dog committee has any things we missed that we should say before we turn it back over to everybody else. Dana I do want to make sure to get. Oh sorry Diana go ahead. Oh did you have a anything you wanted to add Diana. I'm good. Thank you. OK. OK. I just wanted to mention one question because I know it will probably come up is the accessibility trail and our concern with the accessibility trail was whether that would raise state or and federal disability law issues if we consider walking in off the off leash dog policy of privilege of visiting the park. And then we put a more limited policy on that trail alone that could be sort of on its face calling out or discriminating against folks with mobility disabilities that who only have access to the park through that trail. So we would suggest if the commission wanted to go in that direction probably getting some advice from city council or sorry city attorney about that. That was just our concern. But with an hour based policy it's applied consistently to all of the trails and not singling out one trail that only folks with mobility issues could use and just wanted to throw that out there. We have more detail in our written comments. All right. Thank you so much. That's really helpful insights into your thinking and process and reasoning. At this point I'd love to open it up to all of you for public comments. And I am thinking well if all of you can keep your comments to two minutes or less that I'll make space for more people to participate and also just be aware of various ideas that have already been shared. We're all on Zoom. So if you want to like second something you could put up a thumbs or a comment or something like that and save space for other people to share different ideas and feedback. And also just to remind we're looking for solutions. We're trying to be creative. We're all in this pickle together trying to figure out how we accommodate our whole community. So if you have other ideas or things that are on your mind that can help us all get out of this pickle feel free to make suggestions as well. Anything else I'm missing? I think that's good. So let's go ahead and open it for public comment. I see a hand raised from Justin already just spot on with the clicking fingers. Let's go for it Justin. Thank you. Thank you everyone. I want to start by thanking the dog committee and the parks commission. I really can sense the care and the respect that you put into this issue. And it's so thoughtful throughout this process. So thank you committee members. Thank you parks commission. And I want to voice my support for the recommendations that were just outlined by the committee. I think they're entirely reasonable. I think they're entirely appropriate. I loved how Dana summarized them as very appropriate to follow in terms of the reason the reasonableness of them. I thought that was so well articulated. And I especially want to support obviously the the two hour time window and recommendation number five to which talked about having stable policies not having this be the leading edge of a slippery slope of more changes. And and so I really would I support all of that. And I'll also reveal my affinity. I am an off leash dog supporter and person. My wife and I have a well trained dog who passed his canine good citizen test. So we use the park. It's vital for him. It's vital for us. It's why we live in Montpelier. It's part of this great community that we have. And having said all that we understand the need for compromise and balance. And I think this approach absolutely strikes it. And so I voice 100 percent support for it and want to thank you and hope that we roll out this plan and we all do it together because I am certainly willing to do my part. So thank you all. Right. Thanks Justin. Any hands out there. Also Justin trip me up for a second. Different Justin. Thank you. And you know I want to second what Justin number one said. I appreciate all the care that's been shown to this issue. I am a strong proponent of off leash dog use in the park. And I want to be clear that this policy I think can't be you know a beachhead or more restrictive dog policies. I will confess you know I know there are much more important issues in the world right now. The world is literally burning reproductive rights of the world back. This is not that this is dogs in the park. But I've been very disappointed in the way that this issue has been handled over time. I think it shows some of the same dynamics as our national political scene in that you have a determined minority. And I you know it is close to even but it is a minority that has pressed this issue again and again over the last decade. There was a vote. It went against those who would like to see more restrictions. And yet here we are not at the ballot box but in a process that was led to the parks plan as one element amidst a lot of great ideas and has persisted. And you know we have two major parks in this city. One is already on leash. For those of us who for whom having off leash areas is important there is one place. And it's not you know we can't go up to Irish Hill or other places in the area because they don't offer the same safety. They don't offer the same social interactions. You know I have a good friend who his dog was shot and killed by hunters because when you go outside of a town like Montpelier and you have your dog out in the woods it's not a safe place for them to be off leash. So it's a very important resource. And I have real reservations about whether a half measure is going to satisfy those who are very worked up about this. And you know I'm not discounting their feelings. But I'm worried that this is going to just continue to be a source of dissension and unhappiness. And I think that by raising it and picking open this wound again you're just perpetuating an issue that would be best just left at the status quo. But if the Parks Commission feels like it has to adopt something to address the concerns of the minority please limit it to what the dog committee has developed in a very thoughtful and thorough process. Oops, thanks Justin. Anybody else? Walter did I see you just come off mute? Yeah, I'm part of that minority and I'm going to give you a little incident here. This winter I'm out skiing in North Branch by a coming seat. And an unleashed dog attacked me and it wouldn't listen to the owner. I don't know if you know behavior, real issues or whatnot. If I didn't have my ski poles out the dog was going to come at me. I've been attacked any number of times over the years on a bicycle with two and I ride in the park and unleashed dogs that come at me and I've taken defensive measures. So I'm going to support the measures that you've come up with now and give them a try. As someone who has been attacked it's not a dog lover. I'm willing to give it a try which you've come up with. Thanks Walter. Rachel and Rachel do you mind sharing your last name when you come on? Oh yep sorry about that. I'm Rachel Stevens and I'll just share I'm married to Justin who commented one of Justin number one commented. I just wanted to thank Walter for his comment. I was I submitted a comment in support of off leash use and I'm was really excited to hear that you thought this could be a workable solution because I also thought it was a great idea to do times for all trails for the whole park. I think that may be the best way to get community support. I really liked the comment or the recommendation letter from the dog committee talking about a solution that is easy to say it's easy to understand and we can kind of self-police it. I think the dog users that are in there every day I mean we're in the park every day with our dog. I think it would be pretty straightforward for us to put up some signs with it with the time period for us to make sure that people you know that aren't regular in the park to make sure they know it and it's easy to explain it makes sense given the feedback for the folks that want it on leash. So I think it's worth a try it seemed I was actually really impressed with the recommendation and as someone who was coming to the meeting to oppose any on leash time I actually felt like this was a really good compromise so just wanted to say thank you Walter and support wholeheartedly the recommendations as proposed. Walter is the anti-dog. I am anti-dog at the park but I'll thank you Rachel anybody else. Hello Renee my name is oh no sorry go ahead I thought you were Renee go ahead. No thank you my name is Colleen Karen and like a lot of people I believe on this call I'm up there every day and I support this this recommendation it seems very fair and to have taken into consideration some of the routines I mean some going back like 25 years of the people up there and also to acknowledge that there are people who don't want to be approached by dogs so I that's all I need to say I agree with the others who have said they support this it's simple it's straightforward and it makes sense so thank you. Thanks Colleen. Ray Renee were you trying to say something earlier this is my pause for introverts. If I hearing no other comment right now let's I would love to turn it over to our staff and hear from Alec and Kara either one or both of you to hear kind of what your thoughts are about this and especially based on like what you see in the parks and what it might mean for implementation and um well whether it's this or anything else like what implementation might look like and from your expertise and your eyes on the ground kind of perspective. No Billy no. Janice if you can hear me would you mind muting your your voice is coming through on the course. Thank you. I think that was the bad dog voice. Yes thank you for taking so much care with this issue both the parks commission and the dog committee and especially thank you to Kara my colleague who supported the dog committee and so much else in our parks. For those who don't know me my name is Alec Ellsworth and I'm a parks director for the City of Montpelier. I have been working here for a little bit more than 10 years and I've been the parks director since the beginning of 2020 and I think I want to I want to do three things and then Kara I think wants to um say a little bit themselves and then I at the end after Kara talks I want to give a professional recommendation a sort of a staff recommendation um based on uh our experience. So um the first thing and I think Kasha covered a lot of this in her preamble is just about history and I think you covered a lot of the important stuff um most people probably realize that park use has increased dramatically in the last 50 years and you know COVID especially was a watershed moment in terms of people using the outdoor resources that we have and from my perspective that is absolutely wonderful uh it is the reason I have a job and something that I care deeply about and so I'm thrilled to see more people using our parks um and the other side of that is I think it is you know leading to an increase in uh you know conflicts between user groups and I'm professionally connected to other people around Vermont other people around the country and I will tell everybody here we are not alone in this issue it is something that all municipalities face it's very challenging and and when you talk to parks professionals around the state it's one of the more challenging issues that they face um so I think we're doing a great job at at addressing the issue um and tackling it in a civil way and hopefully come up with a solution that works for everybody um the first canine code of conduct was put in place in 1999 um and I went through some of the old annual reports to try to get a little bit of this history and what the commission's what the commission said in their annual report was you know basically due to drastically increased park use um there have been more conflicts and the city felt there was a need to come up with the canine code of conduct so they put together a committee and they and they did that um that that code of conduct was then updated in 2012 and that was also the time during which the dogway stations were added because the dogways was becoming a a really significant issue that people felt needed to be addressed and so here we are you know 25 years after that first initial recommendation and and park use has only gone up and um it's a I think it's a great time to be looking at the issue again as kasha mentioned you know park this this policy is sort of inherited from the old days in hubbard park where the park was actually they would close the gates between columbus day and memorial day couldn't get into the park it was basically a free for all um they were also during the season you could drive right to the tower you could drive around a lot of roads that people are accustomed to just walking on right now you could ride dirt bikes around the park if you wanted you could you could pretty much do whatever you wanted and what that meant was that you know the park was basically only welcoming to the most able-bodied people who were willing to you know put up with that kind of um environment and so I'm I'm really happy to see that we've come a long way from those days where people are more respectful and we have clear guidelines um so um let's see so yeah basically the the inherited policy up to this point is that you know dogs may be off leash in hubbard park as long as they follow the canine code of conduct and that's um you know reflected in the in the park rules and also in the city ordinances so um I wanted to talk sort of about policy process a little bit um as the commission decides tonight um you know what right now we're sort of examining what the impact of the current policy is and I think it's important for the commission to think about what the impact of you know an updated policy would be on on the various user groups um and not only think about what that would be but think about how we can evaluate that and when we want to evaluate it do we want to evaluate it in six months in a year in two years I think um it would be wise to set up some sort of like checkpoints or tripwires some people call them to like you know let's let's not just like set a policy and forget about it let's let's measure let's reassess um these impacts and the dog committee said basically the same thing so that that's you know based on my observation of the commission and the city council I think it's really important to set up those checkpoints after um a policy so that you're evaluating the impacts and you don't just forget um which you know is a perfectly understandable thing that happens in municipality you all are volunteers people change over um so I'd like to see that happen um the staff you know we're here as a resource to provide history and um in insight and then you know most importantly we're here to implement whatever the commission decides so you know the parks commission's mandate is to set up you know the rules for all of our parks and our rules to make sure that those rules um are clearly communicated and um you know people can understand them um I want to talk about enforcement which is my third thing I'll get to next but um the last the last sort of just like policy and process piece I want to say is um that the rules that the parks commission decides we'll have to go through a secondary process afterward to be enshrined within the city ordinances which is the only way that they have any actual teeth because the parks commission can't make laws for the city only city council can do that and so I am quite sure that council will support and historically has whatever the parks commission decides but that's a process that will be like you know putting forward an amendment to the ordinances having two public hearings and then you know adopting said ordinances um so that's just a fyi to the parks commission and everyone um so I want to talk a little bit about enforcement because that has come up as well um you know based on my experience now this is my third round of sort of going through discussions and updates of the dog canine code of conduct and my experience is that you know there's a lot of momentum after this um process happens the dog communities really engage people are handing out flyers and sending out public education materials and then that sort of starts to wane as time goes on and then um you know the issue comes to a head and then there's sort of like a flare up again whether that's in the commission or front porch forum or whatever and so I I'm really interested as a staff member and seeing uh enforcement um strategies that are lasting and I really appreciate that the dog committee put that in the recommendation too I I like a lot of what is in there um and I I think you know I wanted to present sort of like a spectrum of enforcement options because one side of the spectrum is do nothing continue to rely on sort of social pressure um and and the signs the you know signs that we have out there and then I would say like all the way on the other side of the spectrum is there you know there's an animal enforcement officer in the city code of ordinances and that position is not filled you know because there hasn't really been a need for it um but that is like having an animal enforcement officer who can like issue civil violations you know tickets and um that type of thing you know maybe somewhere in the middle which I I'm I'm sure quite sure is how we're going to land some of the things the dog committee recommended I really I love the idea of um making sure that everyone who gets a dog license um also gets the canine code of conduct rules for all our parks not just for Hubbard um and I've designed something saying they read them um I think I would love to see a process outlined and I think this is a whole separate meeting but um I would love to see a process outlined for how to link up with the community justice center um so that when there are um you know when there so there is a process for by which if people aren't able to follow the new rules we're able to refer them to mediation or some way to you know have something to point to that has some teeth not that I want to be like out there with a gun and badge but I think it's important that we have something we can point to to say if people aren't following the rules this is steps one two and three you know step one is a polite ask step two is a citation step three is you get referred to CJC I'm making that up in this moment so that's not my recommendation but something like that um and then I so I do want to give a professional recommendation and and I've I thought long and hard about this um whether or not to do this because it's sort of uh going out on a limb nobody asked me to do it and um but I think it's important for for me to weigh in and and the reasons are you know I want to give an example of a policy to the commission that is would be very clear to implement um from the staff's perspective and also based on my perspective of being here for 10 plus years something that would satisfy I think all user groups and kind of like put the issue to rest in a way so that we don't have to continually revisit this every five or ten years um but yeah first I want to let Kara Kara say something before I give my staff recommendation now we're all in suspense none of us are gonna say but Kara take it away okay it's short and we'll we'll get to Alec back um yeah so if you weren't here at the beginning my name is Kara Barbera I work for the Parks and Trees Department for the last six years I've enjoyed Hubbard Park for almost 20 years um my job title is crew leader but I often tell people it's Park Steward because caring for the parks and you know creating spaces that uh or stewarding spaces that everyone can enjoy is like what's really close to my heart and you know when I think about on or off leash um you know I I like to really think about not that but the accessibility part and making the park accessible to all people um because I think you know we can get really focused in on dogs and leashes but really if we you know look at the bigger picture it's about letting everybody enjoy the park um that wants to and when I learned that people don't come to Hubbard Park because of dogs I was like I broke my heart you know I thought oh my gosh I had no idea um but then I started working at the park and um and I'm there a lot and and I kind of got it like I've had you know been eating my lunch and had food taken away from me by dogs um have dogs jumped in my car when I opened the door um and watched you know watched a little toddler friend get knocked off his feet and and I've been bitten as well while I'm at work and um in November I had surgery and when I when I was ready to like walk again I thought oh I'll go up to the park for a walk and immediately my body just like clenched up because I was like oh no I won't and I went to North Branch Nature Center because I knew there I would be safe and it was really a sad feeling that like the place I work in the place I want to make accessible for everyone didn't feel accessible to me and and then it really like sunk in like what a big issue it is and I am sad that it took my own personal experience to really make it sink in but but it I did um so um I understand like I get it why some people don't come and I also get why people want to have their their dogs off leash um and I but when I saw the recommendations I felt like I felt I mean I was very neutral I think everyone on the dog maybe could say that I that was my role to be a neutral staff liaison and I and I am um but when I I thought about you know if I didn't work in the parks and I saw this new recommendation that two hours a day during my work hours or when I could go to the park and not encounter off leash dogs I thought that just didn't really feel equitable um and I'm personally more in favor of of locations trails or areas um that would be on leaf or off leash all the time because I think that gives people um you know that people can know that certain places are are okay for off leash and certain places they can the people who who don't want to encounter off leash dogs they can go there anytime and um I know that that won't won't be an issue and and rather and I understand like the whole the you know the trail intersections are a big issue and that's why like you know I I like I know it did come up during the during the meetings um with the committee like it popped up sometimes to have certain areas but it didn't it didn't ever like come to fruition and that's that's okay um but like they you know the recommendations were made and um but I I just like from what I know of the park spending a lot of time there that seems to me like it would would um create a more uh clear and accessible options for a lot of people who are looking for different experiences at word park and that's all thank you thanks gara and yeah I'm really glad that that the staff has a chance to to share our thoughts too because um you know we do spend a lot of time here and have a lot of experience in a in a in a sort of unique way um so I'll preface my recommendation by saying two things um first and most importantly our staff and myself um you know you know all of our staff are ready to implement whatever the commission decides so we are we are 100 behind whatever whatever's decided and and we're we'll work in our best effort to do so the recommendation I'm about to give um is just meant to be provided as an example um I am not a voting member of the commission I basically have no say in this um but I I feel it's important to provide this um to provide an example of something that seems usable and and could potentially put the issue to rest um so the proposal is basically just um and and I think the dog committee found out as I did when you decide that you have to make a recommendation to the public for how to settle this issue it's very difficult because you might think that you have the answer but there is a 100% chance that your recommendation is going to be upsetting to probably everybody if you're doing a good job um but you know at least a good segment of the population so people love this park and that is a wonderful thing and something that motivates you know keeps me fueled every day in my job um and Hubbard Park is a very special place um you know it's it's a unique park it's wrapped by neighborhoods it has a national uh tower on the historic register of national places very mature forests which are unusual for you know most parts of Vermont and it's um it's just a special place I think I think we all recognize that and for me I was motivated by two things when I decided you know to make this recommendation the first thing is whenever presented with the choice like choose the simpler option because from our staff's perspective I think from the public's perspective that's going to be the best thing um the second thing to me that was important is that people who want to walk off leash I think want to be able to go at any time of day and expect to find a space where they can walk safely they're dogs off leash and I think people who don't want to encounter off leash dogs want the same thing I think they both ultimately want those two things and so that was that was the deciding factor for me is how do you provide a recommendation where everybody can come to Hubbard Park and find a place where their expectations can be met so the recommendation would be to split the park into two um right here where I'm sitting at the park office is sort of the narrowest part of the park the park before we expanded it it used to be sort of hourglass shaped so the southern half of the park um includes all of the roads it includes the two shelters it includes the tower it includes the accessible trail the northern half of the park includes seven plier places all the expansion area the connections of the north branch park um and that that whole region the hemlock old growth forest um so the the southern section I'm proposing to be all on leash 100 of the time and the northern section to be all off leash 100 of the time um and the advantages to this in my mind are it's very simple to implement so going back to the simplicity um principle there's only three trails that cross this area you could very simply have a sign where each of those trails cross to say when you cross this sign your dog has to be on leash or off leash um the second thing is that it would completely mitigate any sort of dog vehicle um interactions which was a big issue when the the commission was deciding upon the management plan so if dogs have to be on leash in all the road areas this basically not an issue anymore um thirdly and I think most importantly for me this is a recommendation that would potentially put this issue to rest permanently for the reason I stated at the beginning which is that at after like if such a if this if this were implemented everybody in Montpelier or who is visiting Montpelier could come to Hubbard Park and expect to find a place that met their expectations either for walking a dog off leash or being on leash and so the southern half of the park I think is where most children and families want to go it's where the shelters are the tower it's where our more accessible trails are so older people um would be more likely to walk or more able to walk and um I think the biggest disadvantage to my recommendation is that I know that a lot of people who like to walk their dog off leash are in that group of older people who are looking for a more stable firm footing um predictable place to walk and it would there's there's no doubt that this recommendation would change you know would have to change people's routines and I think as somebody mentioned you know some some of these routines are 25 years old and and that's significant um but if I look at the 40-year career of my predecessor this issue came up over and over and over and over it was never settled and if I think about having a 40-year career here which I'm not saying I'm going to but if I'm still here in 30 years having spent 10 years here and we're revisiting this issue every five years every 10 years I'll be so so disappointed in myself and the community and I really want to see a solution that is not necessarily going to make everybody happy I'm not I recognize some people are going to be upset but I want to see a solution that puts it to bed for good permanently um and I think I will leave it there I'm sorry so long winded about all this stuff but and uh I'm sorry I didn't get advanced notice but I think it was one of those situations where you know when when you really faced with the reality and I felt like I you know this meeting was coming up and I had to make a statement um so that's that's my recommendation and I'll actually I'll close just by reiterating that it's just an example of something that I think would be effective very easy to implement and we are 100 behind whatever gets decided tonight or any night um as far as implementation and ready to ready to do the work that is needed to make it happen right um thanks um Alec and Cara to both of you um for your courage because I think those are both courageous statements I really appreciate that um and um let's turn things over to the commissioners there are five of us in the commission um and I'm losing your faces a little bit because we're all like intermingled with everybody else so if I um uh let's open it up and I just um a reminder um this has just been a really great I think conversation and tenor and listening and everything um and just not just to my fellow commissioners but to everybody that you know to make our conversation is drawing on like just like Alec and Cara like our experiences our life experiences and our conversations in the community our emails our one-on-one interactions surveys all these things and everything we're hearing from you all tonight um and um hopefully you know looking at the big picture and and broader perspective and just um yeah let's turn it over to commissioners who wants to chime in and and share kind of thoughts on and ideas and um response to some of the things that we've been hearing tonight. I can start um my name is Stephanie Hunt um I wanted to start by just thinking the committee for your time and efforts and all of this I know you guys have been putting in lots of hours towards this and I think you did come up with a very thoughtful recommendation um but there are a few reasons why I am unable to support that recommendation and I just wanted to reiterate that although there are a lot of other places in town where people can go walk you know with their dog on a leash or without their dog Hubbard Park is often thought of as the gem of Montpelier it offers a different environment different biomes different experience different terrain and I think that should be accessible to all people at all time um I do believe that the two to four p.m. hours are just a too narrow band of hours as apparent to a young child which is one of the groups that we heard from in the survey over and over again saying that they are not feeling comfortable taking their young children to the park most young children nap from two to four so none of those people would be able to use the park with this recommendation still um I also wanted to bring up kind of the issue of like the culture of non-compliance that we do not want to happen with any recommendation that's put forward and I fear that by making all areas of the park on leash during um a window of time even the areas of the park which are not heavily used where you can go and not come across another person you could be creating a culture of non-compliance because why would people leash their dog if they're not going to come across another soul if they're in you know one of the back corners of the park um so I want a policy that's you know will be followed um and I also kind of wanted to dispel the feeling that this is a minority of people who have this issue um our survey results indicated that 45.6 percent of people would rather not interact interact with off-leash dogs whereas 40 40.7 percent of people would like to interact with off-leash dogs so it's actually the minority that would like to interact with off-leash dogs and also to the question of do you feel that regulations are sufficient what is it 45 percent said yes and 46 percent said no so it's actually the minority that feels that the current canine code of conduct is working um so I am more in favor of what Alec has proposed I do think there could be an in between where there is a large zone of the park that is on leash for the majority of the day rather than all the time but that would probably more be more difficult to implement and I know you want something simple um so I'm gonna stop my comment there for now thank you thanks Stephanie who else hi everyone Lincoln here again I want to say thank you I mean over 500 respondents to a survey takes a lot of work and posting the and sending us the draft and that write up summary and having things accessible on the website for everybody to see I feel like that is commendable and I really appreciate just how the rollout of the survey happened and I really agree with all the outreach and education recommendations that you all made I think wherever we go from here um you know it's a fact that it's going to take everybody to help everybody else adjust to a new normal and I love the ideas about using that dog licensing licensing process as an opportunity so just nice creative thinking there um you know I think I definitely hear the concern about um leashing certain trails and not other trails at the same time in the same area and having intersects intersections be an issue I saw that reflected in the survey comments and I think you all really brought that to my attention that you know might just be easier to have a blanket leash on or a blanket leash off statement in time or in day or in zone versus having trying to have the same area be on and off leash together simultaneously um I think it's nice to feel that everybody is really getting behind the need for us to be enforcing leashing on the roads and in the parking areas in and around the shelters at events is something I wanted to bring up if we're trying to bring people to Hubbard Park for a community gathering or Park of Palooza there should be no concern that you're going to be interacting with an off leash dog once you're at that event um so you can bring whomever in your family that's really important to me um and you know I I do I do not feel like the two to four recommendation reflects the survey results that I that I saw um Stephanie already mentioned some of those reasons so I don't want to be redundant but one of the questions that was really helpful for me was the ranking of the recommendations and it sounded like you know over 300 360 people to my calculation wanted dogs to be leashed all the time everywhere um and to me you know if I'm hearing that I'm hearing that number and I'm also hearing the large percentage of people who aren't coming to the park or citing dogs off leash for not coming to the park I want to see more of a 50 50 split I think Alec proposed that and it's something I could support um I could also think about you know that's this this core zone of Hubbard or Hubbard South um as being you know really important to have this off leash this on leash opportunity uh you know 50 to majority of the time that's probably where I'm starting from and I feel like that is uh informed by by the survey and that it is it is a split issue and I don't think two to four is is really a fair shake for those all those people that came out or spawned of the survey and um the people who aren't coming to the park and I mean I'll I'll just briefly say you know I when I was six I was attacked by a dog and it was the first time I had to go to the hospital and it just takes one time okay like I you know I I feared my own dog for years and when a dog comes to me and I'm not leashed you know 25 30 years later I still have that same just innate bio reaction and it's real it is it is a trauma response and it's real and we need to be thinking about the mental health yes of people who need to be out there with their dogs off leash and make sure that opportunity is always and forever offered in hovered park and also the people that um are are really scared of dogs off leash and have written off hovered park because that's the end of it and what I hear from them is it's a dog park forget about it I've tried forget about it and that is what you know I'm looking to change that rhetoric and coming out of tonight with a policy so those people can feel like yes we are also being included along with folks who have been and will continue to use the park with their dog off leash thank you Lincoln um I do want to mention um there's been a little comments in the chat and just want to clarify on the so everybody understands how their ranking worked um as I understand it the um it was everything on leash at the top and no leashes anywhere at the bottom and we all saw the same order it wasn't like randomly selected so if somebody had the survey and was overwhelmed by the options and didn't move anything then the on leash everywhere appeared at the top for those people who basically didn't participate um and so just want to so based um I think those were all amazing points I just want to clarify on that piece of the survey that it's really hard to trust that data to know how many people like really actually wanted at the top versus moving things around um so just wanted to like surface that survey bias did I get that right dog committee I don't want to like clarify in the wrong way okay great and kasha could you also speak towards um there's a comment in the chat about trail density and like the south versus north portion of the park I mean or I can just say basically the new park acquisition area we don't have any mapped trails on that portion of the park but there are trails there we're working on updating the maps as we confirm the trails in that portion so there's actually way more trails in the north portion of the park than are visible on the current park map so it would be a fairly equal split if we were to divide the park north first south in terms of trail mileage it's a hundred acres in the south and about 150 in the north okay thank you let's see um andrew or emily do you want to chime in here sure I can go um I fully support um everything that the other commissioners have said like I'm really um I like most of what the canine committee suggests and I'm very excited about some of the changes they're recommending but I also feel like just two hours for the whole park isn't necessarily the best solution um for all the reasons that that have been raised and also kind of coming at it from the other side like if someone really needs the time with their dog off-leash and they have a really busy schedule and they only have from two to four um certain days like not being able to to go to the park and those days would be um a real bummer so um I really like this zone option and um I think my my thought was maybe something like mornings um off-leash and afternoons on leash for the that core zone if we wanted to make it like not too much more complicated but also then allow um for some off-leash time in that zone um or um yeah I liked alex suggestion as well but um yeah thanks emily thanks andrew I see you raised your hand yeah everybody andrew broer um from the beginning of this discussion when we put out our management plan and we decided we would have a dog committee um we we were going to have a park commissioner kind of as a liaison facilitating um the dog committee and and I had the pleasure of doing that for for several months um kind of up until the point where the um uh survey was put into the field look at results and then and then stephanie um helped out after that um um and it's it's fair to say that I was pretty it was very adamant that there are going to be areas of the park where people can go and have an on-leash dog experience um and I don't want to speak for all of my fellow park commissioners but I think that was a common thread amongst the park commissioners and um so that we actually recommended that in the in the management plan and um got some feedback from the community wait a minute um we need we need to we need to discuss this more and that was the genesis of the dog committee um and um dana and robin and jessa jessa and diana graciously devoted a lot of time going back to the summer and fall uh working on this um a lot of meetings a lot of piling through comments putting together the survey the the preamble before the survey explaining what the survey was about um and and so you know we had we had gone to run the gamut of you know all the things we're talking about tonight are we going to have specific areas are there going to be hours is it going to be specific trails um tons of excellent conversation getting into you know why some of those ideas would work some of them would not work um I I also want to say uh I and I don't think anybody else had any idea that alex was going to make that recommendation tonight by the way in fact I spoke with alex about an hour before the meeting he had mentioned it that so we had zero idea um that alex was gonna was gonna make a recommendation like that I just want I don't want people to think that there had been any kind of discussion beforehand there was not um none whatsoever um and and so uh I I like the idea of you know being big big chunks of the park um and in the recommendation it's the entire park for a couple hours um but I also want to augment that I think will come somewhere in between I do I it feels important to me that there are um when people come to the park I like the way alex put it that you know the the devil's in the detail here what we're trying to do is to come up with a policy that accommodates to some degree as best we can everyone's expectations that when they come to the park regardless of of you know whether you're a dog person not a dog person uh somewhere in between that when any time you go to the park you're going to find some place uh which will meet your need um whatever that is um so I I like the idea of coming somewhere in between my initial reaction to alex's uh uh idea um my my first reaction was well that comes out the field the dog field which is you know at the top of the hill where people park um and you know we'd have to put so if we if we do the northern part we'd have to give some thought into where do people park to get to the northern part to the to the northern part and the new parcels where they can walk their dogs uh off off leash um um so that you know so that I I I kind of think we're on the right track but I I think I'd want to hear more I'd want to hear some more you know look at a map harder and some more suggestions on how to divide it up like that um so I think we're on the I think we're kind of on the right track but I I think I need to hear more um a couple other comments um I I work in the I work in the state house and there's some other people on the screen who also work down in the state house and hang around the legislature all day long and we hear the idea about um I don't want this to become a slippery slope I hear we hear it all the time we hear it all the time when legislation comes up but I I think it's fair to say there's not one single piece of legislation um or decision or rule made anywhere that doesn't possibly lead to a slippery slope um and and you'll hear the legislature themselves say all the time that we can't you know there's nothing that we do that will bind the hands of the future legislature and I think it's the same thing here uh with the park commission um it is not our intention I and I I do think I speak with the part for the park commission on this there's no discussion of um you know let's just pass something now and then we'll we'll keep chipping away at it over the years there's nothing there's been no conversation like that whatsoever um I think Alec makes a good point of setting a policy um and then but having a policy of assessing to see how things are working and see how things are going um I don't know if we'd actually discuss this but seems to me the dog community ought to be permanent um just I think that means you're on all the time Robin you guys are on this dog committee for the rest of time um but um you know I don't think we discuss it but I think it's probably a good idea to have to have a subcommittee kind of a permanent standing subcommittee that can assess and and look at what's happening um so those are my thoughts for the moment okay right um thank you I think that's um all of us except me um I um wanted to compile kind of the it seems like the ideas that are surfacing here is the recommended two to four p.m. and the entire park there's that Alec suggested the south leashed north unleashed and then Emily I think you I heard you suggest zones can you repeat can you make your recommendation again Emily to make sure I can't capture it sure um yeah I recommended having the same zones that Alec suggested but making them um the core zone be off leash in the morning and unleashed on the afternoon or vice versa so that the whole park would be accessible to everyone I also want to touch I think we should mention the reason that we are trying to make a decision now like in terms of the um planning for implementation and the summer season coming and all that go for it oh you want me to do yeah um so yeah the we had to this decision has been a long time in the making um as everyone said over a year and um part of the ability to implement means that we have to be able to plan and get the resources we need and all that um the staff needs to be able to work it into the schedule and everything so um there's actually been quite a bit of pressure on the commission to try to get it done and we put pressure on the canine committee to like get their recommendations out and um so there is some pressure to make the decision I know this feels like there's new ideas coming out right now um and ideally that would not be the case but this is we're trying to problem solve and we're trying to be efficient about it so that we can finally get this implemented this summer um after many many months of planning so and um and um while it may seem like you could implement something like this at any time head it into the summer season season we obviously see a lot more people in the park and just kind of sharing what happened last year at this time last year we had decided we you know with city ordinance dogs need to be on leash in the roads we we need to have dogs in leash in the parking lot and we didn't really implement it because we were waiting for this final piece of like what else and in that time of not implementing there was a family visiting the park and their three-year-old daughter was bit by a dog in the parking lot and they reached out to us and said why don't you require dogs to be leashed in parking lots and you know as a commission it's like we almost did you know and and and it feels for us like it's hard to go into another summer season with like almost doing something um with that kind of um you know with that on our hand so um that kind of creates kind of some reasoning about you know trying to implement this before we head into the summer season um I think we've heard the two to four p.m. an entire park south leashed north unleashed from alec south off leash in the morning soft south on leash in the afternoon or vice versa and then off leash in the north at all times I think was what emily was just sharing um I think for me I think similar to the other commissioners um I I see where the two to four p.m. hours come from but it's also really hard to think that that is is really adequately going to kind of solve the problem and and accommodate these people who are not visiting our parks and right now or don't feel like they can be there very frequently um with just that two-hour time slot um so I that's that to me I see a lot of the reasoning behind it but I don't think that's um really feels like where it's you know meeting the needs of everybody in the community um so these other two options feel I'm feeling more kind of momentum behind them and and based on everything that we've heard feel like they one of those um could potentially work um it's 7 30 now um I want to pause for a second to see if commissioners have anything else to share or else my thought was to turn back to to a public comment and we already heard from all of you on like the two to four p.m. thing we we already heard that piece um so I think specifically it would be we'd love to hear from you all on these ideas of south leashed north unleashed south leashed half unleashed half north unleashed um and maybe somebody can drop those into the or I'll drop those into the comments I have them typed here they're not eloquent but I'll drop them in so people can think about um what they mean and anything else from commissioners before I turn it over it'd be great to just throw in there if people are brainstorming or have creative ideas about assessment and evaluation I'd love to hear those ideas with other recommendations great um uh well William yes I wanted to ask alec worry as a practical matter where would you actually put in put the signs for uh the north part of the park requiring uh I mean allowing off leash yeah so those two parts of the park are basically separated um connected with three different trails the first one is the short and steep trail um the second one is the seven fireplaces road and then the third one is the timelock hill trail um and right where you know those trails are closest is the narrowest skinniest part of the park um and so you would basically put a jawline on a map and put a sign at each of those three trails saying if you're crossing this point you know your dog if you're going this way your dog is on a leash if you're going that way your dog is off leash and following the canine code of conduct and I hope that's yeah you know I hope this concept isn't a surprise or new to people I mean I I know we talked about this idea the management plan and we divvied up the park by zone so I know not everybody is deeply entrenched in the parks commission as the commissioners and and me but um hopefully at least to the commissioners that concept isn't isn't new and it's certainly Emily's work certainly helps the development of my ideas this week yeah and I'm still slightly confused but uh I get a general idea what you mean yeah is there is there a way I can clear up the confusion what you mean uh before the seven fireplaces uh just the road basically right here by the park office like right where I see okay yeah right right there right by the park office right where that seven fireplaces road begins would basically be you know that that's the entry to the northern part of the park okay great and there's two other side trails that are right next to it yeah great yeah okay great thank you Rachel hello oh sorry hi can you hear me yeah I just wanted to make a oh this is Rachel oh Rachel great go ahead Rachel Stevens yeah I commented earlier I just want to make a plug for public process and strongly encourage the park commission to delay a vote um the only recommendation that was provided in terms of advanced notice was the dog committee which did a great job of providing a summary of all the survey results and all the feedback recommendations that were clearly reasoned and had a lot of information in them and there's two new kind of proposals on the table and I just don't think that the public can adequately weigh in on the new recommendations for or against without more information about what's feasible how it informs the you know how it's informed from the survey results an additional process we also heard from dog commissioners that from dog committee members that there were issues with the survey data itself and so I just want to make a plug for process recommend that the the dog committee or the park commission delay a vote at least for one additional meeting um because I think if you make a decision for example to split the park in half by time or by geographic area without putting that recommendation on public notice you're going to get severe public opposition whereas what the dog committee did which is different was that they were transparent about the recommendations in advance they provided a lot of information for the public to absorb and as you heard from earlier both proponents of off leash and on leash found it was reasonable because they got information about what was the recommendation and the reasoning and we can all absorb that and consider that and agree that that makes sense so if you actually want to please both off leash and on leash members of the public you need to provide a process where we can understand the reasoning and if it was just the commission today to vote on one of the alternatives without more process I think you're going to have strong opposition whereas there may be a room to reach consensus if you were able to do additional process so I'm going to strongly recommend that there's not an action vote tonight and that you write up the recommendations that came forward at the very last minute Alec himself acknowledged that he just sprung that you know and even a commissioner that spoke to him an hour before hadn't heard that he was going to propose splitting the park geographically give folks an opportunity to think about it understand the reasoning and we can come like everybody here wants what's best for the community no one's going to try to grandstand but I think Rachel we I think we've got it we heard that that's great thank you so much for bringing that up I just it's starting to get late so I just want to make sure I understand there wasn't time for the public to consider this in advance and this is what happens when you spring things on people so I'm sorry that's how that's how it happens no no that's great it's a great it's a great point great comment I just want to move on to an additional idea and and see here from others in the group I think it's absolutely great um let's see Justin I think your hand was up next is there another idea you said you were going to propose no no no I just wanted to hear from it's getting to be quarter of eight and and I just want to make sure we hear from others who have their hands up um yeah I put two minutes and that was longer than two minutes so I just know I'm also worried about the time too and I think that's part of the the issue now is that there are these new proposals that weren't uh we weren't prepared for so I'm sort of on my heels as well about how to respond to this um but I do want to respond to the the substance of it now because it sounds like uh that's going to go forward and first I do want to address the statistics that were cited earlier because maybe I'm not clear um the number of people that said that they found the regulations not sufficient I know that was 46 percent and so that was cited as a majority and I agree and I want to be clear I'm in the 46 percent of saying I don't think there's sufficient ease or either as an off-leash dog proponent because we have a very well behaved trained dog that has voice control and we're worried about other dogs that are not so we're in that 46 percent so it's not so black and white that there is just pro dog anti dogs we have to be clear about that um I also heard I think maybe Lincoln cited 350 people but when I'm looking at the survey results uh the number was 246 people or 46 percent who said that they did not want to interact with off-leash dogs um but more to the point is we're talking about the the dogs that really have the worst outcomes for people and that's horrible and so we need a simple solution another very simple solution is the dog has to be uh be like a certified canine good citizen that means that the dog will not be reactive everyone can wear that blue ribbon and it's a privilege to be in the park with an off-leash dog so we can have a very simple system uh we can create that system and we can you know we talked about licensing so anyone who wants to bring in their off-leash dog in the park has to have a certified trained dog uh that will take care of the entire issue at least we could start there um and as far as the the geographic zones I'm I'm extremely worried about that uh looking at the map and I know the park very well so I know these areas one of the main reasons we enjoy the park and live in Montpelier is so that we don't have to start a car so we're talking about how am I supposed to walk up core street walk up winter street and then walk our dog leashed all the way to the back of the park I mean we're really talking about we call it south and north that's not those really aren't equal terms um it's really the main park and then all of the sort of back section that's highly inaccessible to get there you we'd have to cross 15 20 minutes worth of trails just to get there on a leash so I don't think this is workable I don't want to ramble on anymore and I think that's why we need time to digest this and come up with another way to really delve into this to solve the problem so thank you thanks Justin um Jessa I see your hand up thanks I do want to weigh in and I'll be doing this as an individual not on behalf of the dog committee um because as a committee we didn't have a chance to discuss this recommendation I will just say that um we know the tower trail is what everybody really wants access to and uses and that that just to kind of follow up on what Justin said that really is um the core of the park where it's accessible to most of the entrances a lot of the neighborhoods where people can walk in directly um it's also significantly greater than the initial park commission draft proposal back last December and the draft management plan which was just the tower trail and the accessible trail um and that itself got a lot of opposition which is kind of what led to or concern which led to this committee so um I think it would leave if there was not an hour component as well that gave everybody some access to that core of the park I think there would be a lot of extremely disappointed current um frequent users of the park and as Justin said people who walk in daily from their house from their backyard and um want to take a quick 10 15 minute walk with their dog um in that section of the park and could not cross half the park to get there so um you know if this is the direction the commission is really um set on going and going tonight I would certainly be more in favor of um splitting the time in that core area than entirely having it um on or off leash thank you great thanks jessa any other thoughts all right um let's turn um back to commissioners we have these few ideas on the table um um and we heard um Rachel clearly you know and I I'm sure lots of people were home giving thumbs up and applause as well to like hey let's not make a decision tonight um and just want to check in to see how people are feeling what um and let's figure out next steps and a path forward um are we ready to make a decision tonight as one of these really super rising to the top for you um do we want to take more time um and um you know give obviously everybody a chance to email us or whatnot and weigh in again um what do what does everybody see as a good path forward here yeah I don't think we should hold a vote tonight um personally um I do think there has been more public process behind this than people might realize um we did do a whole public outreach campaign when we were putting together the pub the management plan over a year ago we held community walks where we talked about this issue um we put out a draft management plan with a proposal we heard community feedback the community feedback was largely not this isn't right it was you don't have enough information to make this recommendation you need more data you need a little bit more time and that's why this dog committee was put in place they put out a survey that was more directly related to the dog issue we have more information now that does tell us this is actually a bigger issue than we thought it was um so knowing that um I would suggest we either hold a special meeting in a week um or a few days but I don't think we should make a decision tonight I survey says 138 people won't go to the park because of dogs so that doesn't sound like it's a bigger issue than we thought it was um Emily were you gonna say something yeah I was just gonna say I I agree with stuff that it might be worth just waiting even a few days um for everyone to chew on these ideas um I also think that it's hard to break down like oh just a couple hundred people here a couple hundred people there like yes that's true but like in terms of looking at the responses to the survey that we got it's almost an even split so it's also like yes we got a lot of blowback when we first suggested like some certain trails on leash in Hubbard because everybody loves the fact that it's off leash but um it's also you know we're trying to make a compromise that will satisfy both sides that are clearly at different extremes and um so kind of like I like what said it's like the decision that we reached is probably not gonna be not gonna make anybody happy but it hopefully will be the best decision for the community and a family if I could please just add that I don't think it is at both sides I don't think there's an extreme because I'm actually in the camp that doesn't like how the current system is working there are a lot of responsible dog owners that like like me and my wife that don't like how the system is working because there are too many reactive dogs too many dogs that aren't following the proper canine so there's actually three of us there's a Venn diagram of the three sides I don't want this to turn into what feels like an extreme of pro dog anti dog because it's not it's really responsible use of the park uh so it's a little more nuanced I don't want to make make sure that that's clear and heard yeah I can see postponing I don't love that idea I could see postponing for a couple of days a week at absolute max I'm not comfortable with not doing something for this field season I wouldn't support no action um you know I I'm hearing a lot about access and we are talking about limiting use but we're not talking we're talking about increasing access we're not talking about limiting access for anybody that's not what I'm trying to do here I'm trying to increase exit access and it does mean balancing multiple uses um you know I think the other thing is that we're not going to be able to reach a consensus and it would be great if we could and I think you know more time and more input and being patient is is virtuous and um you know I think we've been doing that and I think we can give it you know if if tonight is it's just feeling too hot and we need to we need to sleep on it I you know I can respect that but I feel as a commissioner more informed than I ever have about this issue and I think although and I appreciate the statistics that I miscited we're corrected I think the trends from this survey and past surveys are just becoming clearer and clearer and and we have to do something and it's it is divided and it's whatever we do is there are going to people who are going to be upset and hopefully there are going to be people who are in the park who weren't before and you know we can if it if it means another meeting then you know we should do that so we have the time but we do we do need to do something this field season for everything that we've talked about I'm not comfortable waiting another another year or much more than tonight. Thanks Lincoln um I'm going to close this out here in a second I think um but Dana I see your hand and want to give you a chance to to speak up first. Thank you um I have a thought that is is not like from the dog committee as a whole it is just for me I hope that that's an okay thing to drop in I'm one of the slightly more introverted people who like missed your last window um I really appreciating all of the nuance and complexity in the conversation tonight and the thing I keep coming back to that I really appreciate Cara speaking to earlier is this frame of accessibility um and I think for true accessibility we need to be thinking about everyone's needs and we need to be focusing on the people for whom harm is being done to them and not just like people for whom the park is a nice time um I'm thinking about the frame of accessibility in the larger world and about prejudice and how you know we need to be paying attention to the voices of folks who are in the minority and not people who aren't necessarily the position of privileged power here um and as a dog owner like I'm a dog owner I walk my dog off Lation Humber Park all the time it would be a bummer if I didn't get to walk my dog as much but I think other people are like gaining a whole park and gaining and not being bitten um and I feel like I'm not being as eloquent with this as I was in my mind but I just really encourage everyone in this conversation to think about this frame of balance and accessibility for everyone and I really heard a strong voice for for half and half and whether that's time or trails so I'm holding that I guess in my um taking away from this is like what is true accessibility look like what are all the voices of Montpelier not just the ones in this meeting who are the people who who were afraid to serve on this dog committee for heaven's sake like um and I think I think I really want to be taking not just like oh this is a nice choice for me as a dog owner but like who are the people who we are not serving who we could be serving and I just want to really I urge everybody to focus on awesome Dana you just closed us out that's what we needed um beautifully said um I um yes I know it does not feel like we're ready to like call a vote and make some kind of decision here um I I do think Lincoln you know we are we are more and more informed and you know this has been a long time this isn't just like a meeting where we came up with this or whatever um and so um it feels like we're you know headed in the right direction um with making some kind of decision here and um in terms of logistics um could somebody who knows open meeting laws way better than I do tell me when we could next meet at our earliest convenience 48 hours 48 for a special meeting yeah um which would so could we meet Thursday at 6 p.m. I think we'd have to have the meeting materials out yeah 48 hours right so I don't think I recommend a week can we meet a week from tonight um we certainly could I'll just follow this closure I will not be here which is not the end of the world but I will just say something I really appreciate about this commission is that when we've had hard decisions we make sure like we're all there um I'm okay with not being there I can pass ideas long to others but I just um I won't be there I almost recommended Monday but I don't think anybody's going to be in front of Monday everybody have plans special meeting only requires 24 hours just for 24 hours notice for a special meeting so if we got meeting materials up tomorrow we would be in compliance for a Thursday meeting correct or if we got them up right now we could be in compliance for 8 p.m. tomorrow but I don't think we should do that I like uh seems like you're aiming for compliance and not actual input and consensus from the community this is really concerning from a public process let's not do the minimum if you're making decisions that are going to impact a lot of people that feel passionately take the time do the process the right way give it space that's that's I mean I know I'm just one voice but I feel really strongly that you should trust the process give it space don't try to push something through that then it's just going to get like what's the next step you get opposition because you didn't you weren't transparent and then you're at a city council meeting trying to defend a decision that people are upset about give it a little extra time and I think you can reach agreement I'm telling you that as someone that feels strongly about it I think you can win over both sides the dog committee did a great job they found a solution they can we can work through and make adjustments based on the feedback from the commission let's do that let's let's actually make this a productive process okay thanks Rachel um um so um we can our options now um similar to what I did with the dog you know the options in the park our options are to meet in the next couple of days and people could reach out to us we could make a decision in the next couple of days um we could and we would all be there um and Alec would be able to and staff begin implementation of whatever is decided and have space to do that prior to the field season we could meet one or two or three weeks after that um that gives the you know public longer period of time to weigh in provide feedback we may not all be here that's not the end of the world um and it shortens the implementation time um maybe logistics wise I'm curious Alec um I know um I think you were hoping to get this started with implementation you know by now in April um what does that look like for you if implementation is not happening for say like another one two three weeks or Cara I see your hand yes you probably can answer that question right and Alec definitely can weigh in um I think well one thing I think it's important to note that this isn't all just happening tonight that I think it has been mentioned before but this has been a process going on for years um with a lot of time for public comment so and I do personally believe as a staff member that you know there was a reason that we had the deadlines that we had and we did have to push it out further because of the flood and various other reasons but our field season is like we're just right right on the edge there and we really need to get this done before it starts and to get a lot of um public outreach done ahead of time it's not like we're just going to put up the signs one day and start it all there's going to be you know at least weeks of public outreach where we're informing people about the new policy so there'll be time um for people to get used to it before it actually starts and all the signage and I feel like pushing it out isn't going to change anything um ultimately I I think it may give people time to you know maybe rally more support for their causes but it's not going to change anything about the core of what we're discussing and what's been discussed over the last several years thanks Kara um all right Emily your yeah sorry um I I'm wondering whether there might be like if we talk to the canine committee and say these are the two or three options we are looking at um and ask them to reconsider by whatever date we're going to meet on and then really try to make a decision on that date if that might make people feel better about the public process aspect um this um okay um so we can move we could move to I'm hearing move to dog committee conversation come back we're going to need obviously more time for that that will push back the logistics um and what's what do other people want to do commissioners do you all want to meet I'd rather that we met sooner with everybody versus later without kasha or later with putting um implementation for the season at risk is there some space where it's not a lot more time but if we met like midday or something on friday where it would allow um we've got orca here there's probably going to be something on the front page of the bridge I'm sure um and um get get more word out there and give people a little more time to provide feedback on these specific options I can't do friday okay yeah I think we're look I mean I I think we're looking at we're looking at next week okay it feels like um that would be without kasha are you gone all week kasha sure I am but that's okay it's not you know it's we don't need we have a quorum without me it's not the end of the world it's just um we tend to do hard things together but you don't have to it's okay when you come back um I'll tell you off the record sounds good feels awkward so yeah so maybe we're moving to a scheduling meeting dance now um okay we will we don't need to be laborless let's um we will figure out a time in the next one week let's look at next week um to have the parks commission meeting it will not be with me um in the meantime there can be conversation in the dog committee um there cannot be conversation among park sectioners because we have a quorum of three people and if we get more than two people together um we're we're above our quorum so um that's one of the reasons why some of these things like feel like surprises to everybody it's like we can't actually talk without having a public meeting like this so um let's meet in a week um we'll figure out a time for that um and in the meantime we can you know our emails available we're available one on one um anybody can reach out to us at all times and continue the conversation um and what I think is really wonderful is that this you know it feels like a really like open dialogue kind of conversation I think many people um shared um some vulnerable moments tonight some courageous moments um some passion and just really appreciate that from everybody in the community um and if we are in a pickle it's a hard it's a hard thing to figure out and figure out a path forward um and I also just I think um everybody opened their comments tonight was saying thank you to the dog committee um and I want to just close and by saying that again um I think I was um talking with Robin earlier today and I said this to you but you know no matter what happens in the path forward um the work that you all have put in will make a better outcome so it you know like if it's not exactly the recommendation that you all put forward if it's not like word for word or whatever um the survey the conversations the hard work that you all have done will will make something better for our entire community um so just want to recognize that and appreciate that um and no matter where this goes from here um I was about to close out but Dana I see your hand up and I want to give you a one a chance to yeah this is just a process question what would you like the role of the dog committee to be in the next week like um there's another meeting happening is it just commissioners from here on out do you want us to meet like please tell us what you would like us to do and we may or may not be able to do it like to be clear like we scheduled a bunch of meetings we planned on this day I don't know what people's availability is in the next week but I would like to know what your expectation of us is and the rest of this process yeah I think um that's a fantastic question I will let other commissioners answer this too if you have ideas I would say um it's helpful to like all of this was new right like thinking about like wait this could be a different way or you know like what else could this look like so I think maybe taking this conversation back either to your so I'll leave it up to you like either to yourselves or if you want to meet as this group again and say like how did this all how does this all land like how does this sound um and you know I'm planning to go out on the trails and talk to people in the park and who I don't know and just say hey what do you think of this here's what we're thinking and just kind of casually you know vet options and bring people into the process um and just your people's feedback I think is helpful um that you may want to bring back to us all of our meetings are open to the public so you all should plan to come to our next meeting and um and and all of that um other like what what do others think in terms of specific like actions or process for the dog committee does that seem I feel like as we we kind of created the dog committee as representatives of the community so it might be nice if they could even buy email just like kind of think about whether they have preferences in terms of the options we came up with tonight and email us or come to the meeting if they can but weigh in on it at least yeah it would also be great to know you know who if anyone would be interested in you know again do the idea of maintaining some level of relationship with whatever is the next step to the dog committee or implementation helping park staff this is just really phase one of whatever happens and you know it might be contingent on what happens and you know that's that's totally fine but if you you know you know you are interested or something I think that'd be helpful for us when we think about mobilization to figure out a way way to implement great Dana does that somewhat answer your question helpful it sounds like you're kind of leaving it up to us like it would be an acceptable thing for us to just show up as individuals to next week's meeting and not have any further comments but uh if we had time and energy to meet as a group and have a group consensus reaction to the proposals that would be even more better this one's great um I yeah I have a suggestion um you know I think when you guys were coming up with your proposal you believed that you know a trail-based proposal wouldn't work so if it looks like we're going down the path of like a zone-based proposal I would love if you guys could think about what are our barriers for implementing that and how can we make that a successful um you know proposal how we can actually make that work that's great thanks Stephanie it's also helpful to hear you say that the commissioners can't meet all together unless it's a public meeting um I was hoping that after this process we could have a moment to have a debrief with the committee and the commission about the process and what went well and what didn't just as a process piece for learning um and it sounds like that would have to be a public meeting if it was which I'm open to doing but I just want to put that out there that like we have struggled with the process in some ways and would love to be in dialogue with you and offer feedback on that and um if there's a way to do that please let us know we have we have process thoughts as well as dog thoughts no that's fantastic and you can share any of that with any of us individually or with two of us if you want more than us more than two of us then it's a you know open public meeting posted warned all of those things um which is great usually we don't get so many people coming to our meetings it's often just us five so this is very exciting night for us great I think we have a little bit of a plan here um I would love for all of you to bring these thoughts back into your communities your workplaces your friends your neighbors and just explore with them like hey what would this look like what do you think of this um and I think maybe to Dana's comments earlier thinking about like not just what like what this means to me like how will this would affect my daily routine or whatnot but um how does this impact our community and who does this open access to and who are we supporting collectively and how do we do that in the best way because that's really what we're trying to do here and um while also retaining a lot of the things that we just absolutely love about our parks um which is where we started so um thank you everybody for coming thank you for giving a couple hours of your week to us um stay involved really appreciate it and um we'll connect again in about a week thanks everybody