The eyesore of sun-burnt grass and scraggly weeds consuming the
empty pond at Las Animas Veterans Park will soon become a haven for
residents and their dogs.
By Chris Bone Staff Writer
Gilroy – The eyesore of sun-burnt grass and scraggly weeds consuming the empty pond at Las Animas Veterans Park will soon become a haven for residents and their dogs.
By next summer the city hopes to break ground on a fenced-in, “off-leash” dog park and contiguous picnic area, each about one acre, according to City Facilities Development Manager Bill Headley.
Already the city has taken left-over dirt from the 2006 construction of the sports area at Christmas Hill Park to fill part of the empty pond, creating slightly more than one acre for new grass and “needed picnic tables,” according to a memo Headley sent City Administrator Jay Baksa in June.
“What are we to do with that unused park land?” Headley asked. “Before it was a muddy weed patch, now it’s a dry weed patch, so the remedy is to add a picnic area and a dog park area.”
Rachel Whiteside and Aaron Nasser, both 18, agreed.
On Wednesday the couple sat in the shade on a grassy knoll overlooking the desiccated crater.
“I think a dog park here would be awesome,” said Nasser, who will attend Gavilan College in the fall.
“It’s better than just leaving [the empty pond] here. People just try to avoid it now,” Whiteside said, adding that she’d bring Rosie, her black Labrador retriever, to the new dog park when she returns home from University of California, San Diego for vacations in the future.
The dog park will cost about $182,000 and the picnic area about $77,000. The money will come from the section of the city’s $21.6 million Capital Improvement Budget that’s earmarked for facility and park developments. The section has a little more than $6 million available for 2007-2008, according to a draft copy of the 2007 budget.
Currently Morgan Hill has the only off-leash dog park in the south county area, and residents take their dogs to the W. Edmundson Avenue park frequently. The 1.5 acre park opened to rave reviews in January
Rosanna Rosso, a recent University of California, Berkeley graduate, was running with her two dogs through Las Animas Park Wednesday afternoon and said that although she tries to come when not too many people are there, she’d still check out the new dog park.
“I’m sure I’d bring my dogs to the dog park,” Rosso said with a smile, referring to Sundae, her miniature doberman, and Mia, her fluffy Maltese-poodle mix that couldn’t stop panting.
Rosso studied the environment in college and said she hopes the city plants native plants that don’t require much water, especially after her muddy experience at Berkeley’s dog park. “But anything’s better than weeds,” she said, nodding toward the hot tangled mess covering the empty pond.
Designs for the improvements should wrap up by the end of winter or beginning of spring 2008, Headley said, and then the city will open the project up to bidding.
