Have a dog? Want a dog park in Derby? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
City officials want to create one, too. Right now O’Sullivan’s Island — a meadow where the Naugatuck and Housatonic rivers meet in Derby — is the leading possible location.
“There is plenty of parking and it is centrally located,” Hughes said of O’Sullivan’s Island.
Derby will probably team with the City of Ansonia to fund the park. An inter-municipal agreement is being written for the two cities to review.
In the meantime, Hughes said city officials need guidance planning the park.
To that end, Derby is asking for volunteers to form a “Friends of the Derby Dog Park.”
If you’re interested, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
The idea is get the public involved in the dog park — especially local dog owners who will be using the park.
“We’ve noticed that Shelton has a very active group and we would like to see that happen here,” Hughes said. “The volunteers, ideally, would be the primary users. They own dogs. They know what dogs need.”
Hughes is the chairman of the Board of Aldermen’s Community Relations Subcommittee. The group discussed the dog park during a meeting Tuesday night in City Hall. The other aldermen in attendance Tuesday were Art Gerckens and Carmen DiCenso.
O’Sullivan’s Island is next to the Derby Greenway, a very popular recreation trail from the Derby-Shelton bridge to Division Street.
The Derby Greenway is often used by dog walkers. Some of the owners do not clean up after their dogs.
The Derby Board of Aldermen is considering banning dogs from the greenway. A public hearing on the dog ban is scheduled for March 22.
There is a public outcry each time the city considers banning dogs from the greenway.
Derby officials hope the dog park plan will help take some of the sting out of a greenway dog ban — assuming it happens.
The feces situation inside the Derby dog park will not be monitored by the city’s Department of Public Works. The park will be self-policed by the people who use it, Hughes said.
DiCenso said he wants to city to move forward quickly with the dog park plans.
“The land is there. The money is there. Ansonia wants to help. I want to move forward, especially if we’re going to talk about a ban,” he said.
DiCenso encouraged residents who want to see a dog park in Derby to attend the Aldermen meeting later this month.
“I think this is a good thing and I’d like to get residents involved,” he said.
Now maybe this is just me, but this doesn’t seem like the place where you put a dog park. We’ve already taken steps to name and develop this parcel of land into something else (see below). If Ansonia wants in then fine, we have the cash have them put up the land. Have we even talked to the state DEP about possibly using a small parcel of Osborndale for this, since “The park will be self-policed by the people who use it”, how naive are we going to be here? These people can’t pick up on the greenway why would you expect them to clean up here? Its going to be the same people cleaning up all the time, then they’re going to get sick of it and its going to be a dump! It is downright INSULTING to me that we can’t take a vote on the beautification of a greenway without having it tied to some project that is going to be ill-concieved and rushed to stroke the political ego’s of the ones who can vote down the dog ban. Below you’ll find the intentions of the city for O’Sullivan’s Island, we obviously think more of dogs than a highly respected member of the community who gave his life for this City, only to have his namesake park defecated on, literally, by dogs. Way to go City of Derby, can we look anymore foolish?
“His service to our community can me memorialized through the naming of our new recreation complex at O’Sullivan’s Island as “The Edward J. Cotter, Jr. Recreation Complex on O’Sullivan’s Island.”
I envision a boat dock, a fishing pier, families having picnics, children running with joy throwing a ball, flying a kite. What better honor can we give a man who have given so much to us?
The man who created the Fire Service Building on O’Sullivan’s Island.
Future generations will come to understand how he has touched us all. They will know that we appreciated all that he did for the City through his dedication to the safety of people, his love of Derby and his love of family.
I hope you feel the same way and will join with me by memorializing Ed in a permanent and suitable way.”
Why didn’t Alderman Ken Hughes ask for volunteers to clean up dog feces on the Greenway in the past six years, instead of paying city public works employees $30. per hour to pick up after the dogs — costing Derby taxpayers “tens of thousands of WASTE dollars annually?” There was never any effort made to organize “Friends of the Greenway.”
In the long run, forcing Public Works Commissioner Ron Culmo to send his workers to clean up dog feces on the Greenway, twice weekly, and having to pull his people off of city jobs, to make emergency dog poop cleanups, has to be — the biggest waste of taxpayer money in the State of Connecticut, in difficult economic times.
The costly Greenway WASTE problem has not been resolved by the Derby Board of Aldermen, and they are worried about the anticipated Derby Dog Park dog poop removal problem, just because the City of Derby received a $10,000 grant for a dog park. Only in Derby!
Derby is the smallest, land-locked city in the state at 5.6 square miles. and already “parks-poor” with over one square mile of city parks to maintain, at an increasing cost to taxpayers due to continued increased thefts and vandelism.
Just because received a $10,000 grant for a dog park, do we really need another park to maintain in Derby — adding another fixed expense for taxpayers to pay, especially with the expensive and messy problem our aldermen created by allowing dogs fom all over the valley area — to use the Greenway as a dog park.
Public Works commissioner Ron Culmo could have better used his small work force to provoide better security at PFC Frank P. Witek Memorial Park, where $10,000 in commemorative plaques dedicatred to Derby’s war hero were stolen — than wasting tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money, to pick up after dogs for 6 years already.
Derby needs to create tax-income business property for its survival in growing annual city budgets, that a stagnant tax base can’t meet. Why are our leaders closing their eyes to our need for more tax-income producing property in Derby – by seeking to create another fixed taxpayer expense in a dog park?
Perhaps some of our elected leaders lack business experience — by showing that they know how to waste taxpayer money, instead of working to produce money for our stagnant tax base.
With Mayor Staffieri being a former successful Derby businessman, I hope the Yankee trader business sense, will be reflected in the the judgement by other elected officials — for the sake of Derby’s survival,
What happened to Aldermic President Ron Sill’s disclosed bid to ban dogs from the Derby Greenway? I was told at City Hall today that this ban won’t happen until the Greenway Dog Park, is replaced by an official Derby Dog Park. Is the Derby waste of taxpayer money by forcing Public Works Commissioner Ron Culmo to use his small department to pick up after dogs — ever come to an end? Only Derby politicians have forced their public works commissioner to use his work crew to pick up dog feces for the past six years, in the
State of Connecticut. It’s time for Derby Aldermen to end their blatant waste of taxpayer money. I have confidence in Alderman Sill, a retired Derby business executive, and manager of St. Michael Cemetary, to stop paying public works employees $30. per hour, to pick up after dogs. The New Haven Register and Connecticut Post have written many editorials in past years, asking Derby officials to BAN THE DOGS ON THE GREENWAY, but only Ron Sill, to date, has disclosed his intention to do so. Ron Culmo has enough parks to maintain in “parks-poor Derby” now. Please don’t load up Mr. Culmo, with another park to maintain, and Derby really doesn’t have the room for a dog park, to begin with, and with the costly expenses we have incurred with our unofficial “Greenway Dog Park,” Derby should be wiser.
I love the caption for the photo.
“Live with Kelly” TV hostess Kelly Ripa, appeared with her husband, Mark Consuelos as co-host this week and he said he found nothing more disgusting than looking down on a sidewalk and seeing a load of unsightly dog feces.
However, “dog feces must have looked like gold to Ken Hughes and Derby Aldermen for the past six years,” as they refused to ban the dogs from the Greenway, and cost Derby taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, every year, in dog-feces cleanup costs.
It is ironic that massive federal grant money was used to remove contamination from O’Sullivan’s Island.
Now Hughes, and Aldermen Carmen DiCenso and Art Gerckens want to use federal grant money TO CONTAMINATE O’Sullivan’s Island again, by using that area for a Derby Dog Park. Unbelievable!
Only in Derby.
I met with Derby Development Officer Sheila O’Malley yesterday, and I blamed her for this
problem, by procuring a $10,000. grant for a Derby Dog Park.
Hopefully, Derby citizens and taxpayers, will object to this fiasco, and demand a dog ban on the Greenway, at the public hearing on March 22. “Derby taxpayers have been ripped off — long enough!”