Petition to Menlo Park City Council Supoporting off-leash activity at Nealon and Lyle Parks

November 6, 2004

Dear Menlo Park City Council Members,

We are Menlo Park residents and users of the Nealon Park and Lyle Park playground, park, and dog area. We are writing to you to express our support to a modified proposal recently approved by the Parks and Recreation Commission for limited hours of dog activity use at Nealon Park.

Our parks are small, neighborhood parks that are used by many children, families, residents, and dog owners from the area. We appreciate and support the community-friendly, intermingling of families and dog owners at the park, and would like to see a compromise proposal adopted that meets the needs of all the users of this park.

Our proposed modifications to the Parks & Recreation Commission proposal include the following:

* Revise the AM hours of use from 7:30-10 AM to 6-9 AM. This will allow more working people to use the facilities prior to going off to work.

* Add evening hours from 5 to dusk (summer) and 4 to dusk (winter). Once again, this will allow more options for users to exercise their dogs.

* Add Lyle Park to the places allowing Off-leash dog activity. More parks available for off-leash activity will provide the following benefit to the Community: 1) Less cross-town driving (during rush hour and non-rush hours) to access one dog park. 2) Mitigation of concerns about noise and park wear-and-tear.

In an effort to optimize space utilization with other park users and to distribute the user load, we propose that Nealon Park and Lyle Park be considered together in terms of scheduling. For example, there could be AM hours at one park and PM hours at the other, or there could be alternating days of use.

Finally, the city should designate other off-leash dog areas across Menlo Park, and not only in our small neighborhood parks.

We respectfully urge the Council to reject the Commissionвs proposal and instead approve a plan that that incorporates both Nealon and Lyle Parks and includes parks on both sides of the major traffic corridor (El Camino/Caltrain).

Residents of Menlo Park came together in the Parks & Recreation Commissionвs thorough planning process to support a compromise that would allow off-leash dogs, young children, and other residents to enjoy and share the parks together. Please respect the neighborhoodвs input and the overwhelming backing (88\% strongly supportive as indicated in the City Staff report #04-255, page 6 of 12) of off-leash activity at Nealon and Lyle Parks.