When Derby Aldermen voted to put a dog park on Coon Hollow Road, I thought they were making a big mistake.
I live on Hawthorne Avenue in Derby and drive on Coon Hollow every day to and from the Valley Indy office in Ansonia.
In my travel I would glance at the spot next to the shuttered Derby animal pound on Coon Hollow the Aldermen chose for the dog park.
For most of last year, the spot was a mud pit.
It looked like something you’d jump over in “Pitfall!“ the old Atari game. It looked like a place too dreary for the Swamp Thing. I imagined Paulie Walnuts dumping a body there.
Wow, I thought to no one in particular inside my Chrysler PT Cruiser, Derby Aldermen REALLY made a big mistake with this location.
They might have well put the Derby dog park on Saturn second’s moon, I thought to myself, not really knowing if Saturn even has a second moon.
Once I spotted Mayor Anthony Staffieri there. He was alone, in the middle of the property, standing next to his pick-up truck, talking on his cell phone while facing the woods.
“Who in the ghost of George Beaman thought this was a good location?” I imagined Staffieri saying to economic development director Sheila O’Malley. “I wouldn’t force rabid man-eating fictional dog Cujo to exercise in this slop!”
Epic Turnaround
Then, the machines showed up.
Big machines.
Heavy machines.
The kind in my toddler’s truck book.
With plows. And buckets. And “operators.” The mud pit started to clear. Large dead trees and boulders and God knows what else was removed. Hey, did they unearth a stream back there?
After the machines cleared a space, in walked Derby Life Scout Anthony Bartholomew. The high school school student was looking for an Eagle Scout project so he hit up the mayor for some info.
“I asked the mayor what needed to be done and he said ‘Well, we’re working on a dog park,’” Bartholomew told the Valley Indy.
Bartholomew jumped at the opportunity.
His mission — design the dog park’s interior. The Board of Aldermen signed off on his plan June 27.
Since then, Bartholomew has been very, very busy.
And, by gosh, the end result is glorious, I tell you.
What was his impression of the property when he first saw it?
“It was a bunch of sticks and hay,” Bartholomew said.
He spent the summer of 2013 soliciting donations, researching dog parks, organizing Boy Scout work parties, buying supplies and building equipment.
“I’ve had about 30 people help me over the weeks,” Bartholomew said. “I’ve been doing it everyday, usually from 9 to 5.”
There was a ton of labor involved. When Bartholomew dug into the ground to place posts, he hit rocks. Big rocks.
“We took out 200-pound rocks and entire trees that had been buried there,” he said.
Bartholomew never thought of giving up. He’s been with Derby’s Troop 3 since the age of 6. He wants that Eagle Scout badge.
As of Aug. 20, Bartholomew was about 90 percent done.
Now Coon Hollow Road looks like the perfect location for the dog park. The mud has been replaced with green grass, a black chain-link fence and a neatly-organized dog park.
There are separate spaces in the park for small dogs and bigger pooches. There’s an agility walk, a dog “teeter,” “weave poles,” a tire jump, fire hydrants, a walk ramp and a giant concrete tunnel.
He kept costs down by building items like the wooden dog ramp by hand.
Oh, and there’s parking for at least 10 vehicles.
The transformation is stunning, thanks in large part to Bartholomew and his worker scouts from Troop 3.
And the park will get heavily used, judging by the amount of dogs and owners I’ve seen in there, even though the park isn’t open to the public yet (a sign was hung at the entrance, telling people the park was closed).
Bartholomew was building the benches by hand as of Aug. 20. He had given himself a goal of finishing by Sept. 9.
“It looks a lot better now than when I started,” Bartholomew said. “It’s crazy the progress that has happened in a month or so. It’s all good.”
Rick Bartholomew is Anthony’s dad. He’s proud, to say the least.
“It was a huge undertaking, but he’s sticking with it, which is good,” Bartholomew said.
City officials are happy, too.
“I think it’s a fantastic Eagle Scout Project. It shows real creativity and imagination,” said O’Malley, the city’s economic development director, who helped the city get a grant to pay for the fence at the park.
In a video posted to Mayor Staffieri’s campaign page, Staffieri mentions work done by the city’s Department of Public Works to make the park a reality and commends Bartholomew for his work.
