Parks Superintendent Strikes Out with Dog Park Plan
West Side residents are booing the "compromise" plan selected by Providence Parks Superintendent Alix Ogden for the dog park and baseball field at Dexter Training Ground. On July 3, Ogden selected "Option 4," a plan that had only been made public during working hours on the afternoon of Thursday, June 28 to the dozen people who were able to attend a special meeting she conducted at the Training Ground. "Option 4" was never posted to the Parks Department web site, nor were plans distributed to abutters before she selected it.
Ogden’s plan would remove the outfield fence from the existing baseball field, which the Board of Park Commissioners converted to an off-leash dog park last October. A new dog park with decorative aluminum fencing would be constructed just outside the old outfield fence line, contradicting her earlier assertions, repeated for months, that a dog run next to a ball field would be a bad idea. Moreover, the new dog park would be sited within what would be the outfield of an adult-sized field. Conflicts between dog park users and teen and adult ballplayers will almost undoubtedly arise as balls occasionally fly or roll into the dog park.
Ogden also plans to remove the existing right- and left-field fences, leaving only the dugouts and backstop. She "wants to encourage soccer to move into [the baseball field] to allow for the restoration of the center of the park," where she and the West Broadway Neighborhood Association have mentioned building a gazebo. She envisions the former baseball field as a multi-use sports area. However, while baseball enthusiasts are open to sharing, they also recall that the dog-damaged infield was one of the excuses for the baseball field’s October closure. Baseball players would like assurances that if the field has multiple sports uses, it will receive regular maintenance from the Parks Department.
Ogden has also stated that the Recreation Department will not be allowed to issue permits for formal baseball practice or scheduled games at the newly configured ball field. In previous years, permits had been issued for league and school play, although interest in obtaining them waned due to deterioration of the field through dog use by owners who routinely violated the City’s off-leash policy when ball players weren’t around. Mayor David N. Cicilline and Ogden last winter cited the lack of permits issued as evidence of disuse and justification for the field’s closure. (Permits have never been required or issued for informal "pickup" play or practice.)
Meanwhile, neighbors close to the site of the new dog park are upset that they were not adequately informed during Ogden’s decision-making process. Les Papp II, who has owned a home on Dexter Street across from the Training Ground for 15 years, has developed an alternative plan for locating the dog park at the nearby Bell Street Park. "Dexter Training Ground has 40 houses abutting it. Bell Street Park has only 6 houses and even then a dog run could be sited so as to keep it at least 240 feet from their backyards." Ogden’s Dexter Training Ground plan would put the dog park within about 200 feet of the front windows of the homes belonging to Papp and his neighbors.
As the process continues to convulse, the ban on baseball in the former baseball field drags on. Ogden affirmed her support of the decision made by the Mayor and Park Commissioners to ban baseball from the field until a new dog park is built. Ogden will not set aside any time slots when the field can be used legally this summer by children, youth, or adults for baseball, even though shared use between ballplayers and dog owners has been the norm for several years now during her tenure.
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