WHOS March 6 Public Meeting Recap

The Westy Dog Park Guardians were out in full force at the Westminster Hills Open Space Public Meeting Wednesday night. In our opinion, the meeting was a success! Channel 9 was there reporting and it was standing room only with 325 attendees!

Director of Parks, Recreation and Libraries Tomas Herrera-Mishler spoke citing the city's concerns. Many of his talking points were debunked but some were justifiable problems. There was some angry booing and a few outbursts in disagreement from the crowd. 

During the Q&A segment, approximately 25 impassioned citizens spoke. Some were angry and some were emotional. The majority of the speakers are in favor of saving the park as it is, being 420 acres of off-leash open space. Many speakers had solid suggestions and examples of how to remedy the problems at the park. 

We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to work with the city and convince them that we are in this for the long haul and willing to do what it takes to save our park for the gem it is! The meeting can be viewed on YouTube. 

Statistics to Note

During the public meeting, Director Herrera-Mishler presented that "47% of the comments we got said 'Leave it as it is.'" The crowd voiced skepticism at this low percentage, so we decided to count the public responses.

Results of Community Feedback through 2/15/2024 (as found on the city website)
Total responses: 883

• Option 1 - No change to the size of the off-leash area - 89.8% (793)
• Option 2 - Off-leash area larger than 33 acres but smaller than 400 acres - 2.7% (24)
• Option 3 - Conditions assessment recommendation of reducing off leash area to 33 acres - 2.8% (25)
• Option 4 - Eliminate off-leash at WHOS and create more off-leash dog parks throughout the city - 2.5% (22)
• Comments recorded but n/a to any category - 2.2% (19)

Next Steps

March 11 City Council Meeting: We are going to present the above discrepancy along with concerns about the new city survey and our peer review with recommendations at Monday's meeting. Please note, we are not trying to antagonize; this is all about transparency. 

In the effort of cooperation, we're only presenting three speakers as to respect the council's time. They've heard us and now we're going to work together through the Community Advisory Team.