Fence Progress, But
The Tri-City Fence Co. work crew has made big progress on the boundary fence between the dog park and the nature area on the north side of the park. Most of the six-foot tall steel posts are set straight and true two feet deep in concrete foundations. A number of posts on a steeply sloped section and elsewhere are still loosely set in the dirt, awaiting concrete.
At this point, the fence stops about a hundred feet short of where it needs to be on the west end. As the third segment in the video above shows, there is a considerable stretch of the nature area on the northwest side that remains unprotected. No obvious boundary stands at the current westernmost fence post. The obvious boundary is the dirt road running north-south on the west end of the nature area, just below the hills. The fence needs to reach that road. Otherwise dogs and people will wander to the wrong side of the fence and get stranded there for a considerable distance. Hopefully this is just a case of the fence crew running out of string to mark the remaining path of the fence, and not a case of inexplicable design and unfinished execution as with the recently installed new signage; see review.
Once completed, the fence will serve the very useful function of allowing people to see clearly where the northern and northeastern boundary of the dog park (off-leash area) is located. The fence will be four feet high with a six inch gap at the bottom. Very small dogs will be able to get underneath and large ones will easily be able to jump over. But the problem has never been the dogs, it has been certain owners who don’t realize or don’t respect the park’s internal boundaries, and who permit or lead their dogs to violate them. This self-appointed privileged minority has long annoyed the majority of dog owners, who appreciate the City Council’s extremely generous grant of 17 acres to run their dogs off leash — much more than any dog needs — and who respect the boundaries. The fence will stand as a silent boundary monitor, making perfectly clear what’s in and what’s out, and taking away the excuse of ignorance. We’ll still see some violators, but they will be rare. Animal Control will be able to slap them with tickets and make them stick in court because the “vague boundary” defense will be gone. The fence will bring a welcome era of greater peace and tranquility to the much-abused nature area and reduce the stress on the resident and visiting wildlife.
