Salt Lake County nips at dog-park plans

The Salt Lake County Council agrees with dog-park proponents in West Jordan that the city isn't doing all it can to make a future park thrive.

The council, which has oversight of the park's plans because it is being funded by a $400,000 county grant, voted unanimously to call on the West Jordan City Council to improve eight areas of the park plan before the County Council approves it.

Chief among those improvements would be better compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which would make amenities and facilities at the four-acre park more accessible to handicapped users.

The council, in a letter to the city, also calls for increased parking, a pet spray-off station, more benches and a small pavilion, among other improvements.

"I'm absolutely delighted with what appears in this letter," said Tony McGuire, a West Jordan resident who has led the charge for the park to be built on West Jordan's west side, at about 6000 W. New Bingham Highway.

McGuire and others have been frustrated with West Jordan's plan for the park, which they say lists items as possible later-phase additions that should be part of the park from the start. Many of those alternatives are included in the county's recommendations.

"We gave them money for a dog park, they didn't want to spend all the money on the dog park, so they cut back on the dog park," County Councilman Jim Bradley said of the city's plans.

The West Jordan Council in August voted to approve a park, estimated to cost $217,000.

City Council members said those plans remain flexible, and the city needed to approve a plan in order to seek bids for the park's construction. Once price estimates began to come in, council members said, any number of the proposed alternatives could become actual features of the park.

But McGuire and other park proponents wanted greater assurance that the features would be part of the park. Without adequate parking, for example, dog-park users would park at the nearby Ron Woods baseball park, causing the kinds of run-ins with non-dog owners the dog park is meant to avoid.

"There's going to be dogs that are going to be doing their business on the grass over by the baseball field, and they're going to be mixing with the people at the baseball park," McGuire said. "It's conflict waiting to happen."

The dog park has been pushed by a group of residents eager to have a place to bring their dogs besides the overused Millrace Park in Taylorsville. That park has become so popular that Taylorsville has begun to charge a fee for nonresident use.

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