[Theresa Dupont]: Today is April 4th, calling to the Dog Park Committee meeting, reading the Open Meeting Law. On February 12, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law a supplement of COVID-19 fiscal appropriations, an extension through July 15, 2022, of certain authorizations related to public meetings. This new law extends the remote meeting provisions of Governor's March 12, 2020, executive order, suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law. In accordance with the 2020 executive order, this meeting of the City of Medford Dog Park Committee is being conducted totally via remote participation using Zoom, including committee members and the public. Use of Zoom complies with the law's requirement to provide live, adequate, alternative means of public access to the deliberations of the public body, instead of holding meetings at a public place that is open and physically accessible to the public. Persons who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by using the link that was included in the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide for real time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website in the near future at the link provided in the meeting agenda. All right, we have three members. Again, I am here as a designee of Alicia Hunt. So we have a quorum. I had circulated an agenda as well as posted one. As I mentioned, I did put together a little presentation any time it's distracting to anybody, feel free to tell me to take it down. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Okay, so again, we're here to talk about the Dog Park Committee meeting. Our agenda for today, I wanted to give a financial update to the committee as well as the public at large. as to where we stand financially with some of the capital improvements that we are looking to discuss here today. Kind of touching point on the storage shed project, as well as some potential other upgrades that we've looked at in the past, as well as we're hoping just to kind of get some momentum going forward. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator): And other pieces of business, hoping to kind of get this committee's reaction to the March 23 parks and path meeting where a lot of discussion came up about off leash dog hours across the city. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator): As well as kind of touch. I know I'm still newer to the committee still trying to gleam all the different nuances that the public as well as this committee wants to see coming out of the dog park, but I know waste cleanup and some mitigating factors were something that we touched on before. I want to kind of circle back on that, make sure we have the appropriate processes moving forward for that. I had the idea of some potential social media campaigns to help drive awareness and promotion of the park, as well as I know we have a member of the public that submitted some comments to Patrick Hogan, a member of the committee, and then we want to discuss on that. So I'll pause, see if there's any questions. All right, let's jump into it. Financials. So again, I know Patty said that you could not see the screen, but I've got, I could certainly provide these slides to you afterwards if you want to peruse them at your time. But I kind of did a snapshot of the past two fiscal years, as well as where we're currently in this fiscal year in terms of spending. So ultimately, if we look at this year, we started the beginning of the fiscal year with just under $8,200. We got some nice grant funding deposits that came our way to the tune of about $9,100. With the procurement of the shed project at just over $10,000. currently sitting at cash in the bank of about $7,340. So $7,340 right now. We also do have from our friends at the Stanton Foundation additional grant funding of additional $9,000 that does need to get appropriated, spent by June 30th. So what all that means is right now we have about $16,340 for us to talk about how best to spend that. For members of the public, these funds came through grant funding from our good friends at the Stanton Foundation. These funds specifically need to go towards improvements at the dog park. So just to make that clarification.
[Patty Flynn]: And can I just ask one question? I probably wasn't paying attention. Is the funds, the funds have already been taken out for the shed. So the 16,000 plus is what's left over from the shed or do we have to subtract the 10,000 plus from that?
[Theresa Dupont]: The 16,000 is after the shed has been subtracted.
[Patty Flynn]: Great.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, that's awesome. Thank you.
[Patty Flynn]: Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, moderator, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, cut me off, go for it, my friend. Obviously the big thing was the shed. The shed that's currently there right now is just not the quality that's needed for the storage needs of the dog park. So Patty, you had found a great vendor. We were able to partner with them earlier this spring, I think end of February, mid to end of February. So we've secured Salt Spray Sheds. They're gonna come out and build a beautiful shed. We're very excited for it.
[Patty Flynn]: And that'll be built.
[Theresa Dupont]: I think they said middle of June, correct? The current timeline I have is mid June. I'm keeping on top of them to see if there's any updates. Correct. I haven't heard any new updates since my last poking at them, which was a couple of weeks ago, but we're still on pace for that.
[Patty Flynn]: Excellent. Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. And it was to all the specifications that the previous Well, actually, Patty, you had supplied that quote request to them kind of using the specifications we had from you, right? Yeah, right.
[Patty Flynn]: So, yay, there's a new shed coming.
[Theresa Dupont]: We're very excited. Yeah. Very excited. So this is where I definitely want to have a conversation on the next topic. Again, being newer to the committee, I'm just I wanted to have a good hearty conversation about security camera installation. My understanding was that this kind of derives from some vandalism that has happened at the park. But is that still a desire of the committee to continue pursuing surveillance security camera?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I think that it is, yeah. I mean, at least from my perspective, it is. Okay.
[Patty Flynn]: It depends on how much it would cost too. I mean, are we gonna have enough? Did anybody, was Mike able to find out what the cost would be?
[Theresa Dupont]: So I, Mike has been on several of the projects, so I took that on as well. I've obtained three different quotes. And the range is quite large. Actually, I just received one about 45 minutes ago, because the two quotes I received were somewhere to the tune of $17,000 to $18,000. The one I just received, and I still want to bet out this company just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, was just under $12,000. So in my eyes, I'm wondering what the disparity is here. Why am I getting $18,000 and then I get a $12,000? I just want to make sure it's apples to apples. Right. Looks like Alicia's joined us.
[Patty Flynn]: And how will it be set up? How would it be monitored?
[Theresa Dupont]: It's my understanding, and anybody who has better information, please cut me off here, is that the signal would be transmitted back to the, is that the McGlynn School? To a wireless hub that any one of us in City Hall can tap into just to do some spot checks. But that would be the access was it would be wirelessly transmitted to basically a brain or a hub that sits at the school that any one of us that could, yeah. If that's something that we still wanna pursue here, I'll definitely be reaching out to the committee to find out a little bit more about how you wanna be able to do that via an app or just a website. Do we all want access? Maybe just Patrick and Mike, I'm not sure. but that's kind of where we're at right now with the security cameras. In my eyes, I'd be very excited if this latest vendor is exactly what it is that we need. It looks like it on paper. I just want to have a conversation with them. Like I said, I've only had 40 minutes to digest the quote, but in my eyes, if this $12,000 bid works out, that means we have a little bit extra money laying around for other things, which makes me very excited. I see Patrick smiling and nodding. And just so you know, Patty, you are breaking up a little bit. I hear you. It sounds like you're excited.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. So I will definitely circle back with the committee about where we stand with security cameras. But it sounds like that that's an important thing that we should continue pursuing. Yes. Excellent.
[Patty Flynn]: I agree.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, great. Thanks for that. Like I said, I'm trying to pick up as much as I possibly can, squeezing as much in this brain as I can. So I appreciate your feedback there. So that being said, again, just so everybody knows, Alicia has joined the call. So that way she can correct me if I say anything wrong here. If we have additional funds that, again, must be used by June 30th, if we have money left over after investing in the security camera system, I think perhaps looking at some agility equipment might be really nice for the park. It's a lovely park, but there's not much available for play. Would the team agree?
[Patty Flynn]: Yes, I do.
[Theresa Dupont]: So I started looking into some agility equipment. I can, again, circulate that within the team to have a couple, even if it's just a couple of different pieces, I think that that might be nice for the park.
[Patty Flynn]: I think so. I think that's correct. Yeah, I agree.
[Theresa Dupont]: This might tie back into the dog waste removal conversation, but my understanding is, and correct me if I'm wrong, The dog park currently has one of those bag dispensers for waste, as well as a small receptacle for waste.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, there's two in the large and one in the small.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I think the ones that were inside the park were removed.
[Patty Flynn]: Oh, OK. Great. Oh, that's good.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's really good. That's the good thing. OK, good. Because I was trying to think if there's equipment out there that, you know, in tandem with dog waste removal anyway, to help promote a cleaner environment, if there's some sort of receptacle. Alicia seemed to think, and I agree with her, that keeping the receptacle outside of the park would be more beneficial because then obviously people carry it outside to dispose of it. I agree. Any other ideas about fun things if we do have funds left over? I think agility equipment is a great thing to add there, and I'm not sure what else there might be, but I did want to open it up to the team. Are there any other ideas if we have extra funds? I think the agility equipment's great. And maybe having something meant for smaller dogs as well as large dogs to take those into consideration. Because I know they come in different sizes, like different ramps and whatnot. Sorry, Patrick, go ahead.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I was just going to ask if it's possible for us to use any of the leftover funds like next year or when the year's over if they expire.
[Theresa Dupont]: My understanding is that they would expire on June 30th. And Alicia is not unmuting herself, so I'm I'm going to take that as I'm correct.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, um, so that it's, it's a little squishy, because they want to quote from us, and then they're going to send us the check before we spend the money, which is not like most grants I deal with where you have to prove that you spent the money before they send you the money. Um, so it is my understanding that they want us to actually spend it by then. Um, but really they want a solid quote from us, what we're going to spend it on this month so they can send the check so they can close their books.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Okay. So this is like a July thing.
[Alicia Hunt]: I believe so. Cause he, he's talking about June 30th and that's what that usually means to me.
[Patty Flynn]: It's an extension, I think too, isn't it?
[Alicia Hunt]: Possibly. Yeah, we had sent them in December saying, you know, we're still figuring this out or this. I think I had sent them a note, the letter that intended to imply, oh, I know we told them what we wanted it for. And they said, great, this counts. And I said, but I can't get you the quotes right away. And they're like, that's fine. It's an extension. So as Teresa, when she asked the questions makes me think, I know that one of the things you guys had talked about, and I don't feel confident that I know this, there was to put sort of like boards along the edge of the park to keep the P stone in better. Did that occur on the outside?
[Patty Flynn]: It did where it was missing, yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[Patty Flynn]: And the other thing we have- Oh, on the outside. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it did. Right, Patrick? Right where it was missing? If they didn't do the whole thing.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just in that small area over by the tree.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. For some reason, I thought it was to sort of raise the level of the barrier around the river side of the park to prevent the piece stone from sort of overflowing out that end of the park. Um, The other thing we had talked about was to put edging between the path and the P stone, which when we built the park, we thought we couldn't do for ADA reasons and tripping, but Arlington is found to be pretty successful. And so that was something that Joe Connolly from Arlington had suggested. that we might want to consider or that he'd be happy to talk to us about or something, if anybody wanted to pursue that angle, idea.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if we could get it so we could keep the P-stone off of the pathway, that would be the goal, right? But when I went to Islington and checked it out, their pathway was a lot of P-stone on it.
[Alicia Hunt]: So it didn't seem to be working.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I mean, maybe it was a lot better than ours, but it definitely wasn't, you know.
[Alicia Hunt]: The other thing that they've talked about giving out and giving to us, and I said, yes, we would want it, would be funding to pay somebody to be down at the park, like, I wanna see 10 hours a week, eight to 10 hours a week to do things like sweep the path every day or every few days. I haven't, Teresa, can I just tell you now to follow up with Joe about that?
[Theresa Dupont]: Certainly can, yep.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thanks. It's a new grant program they were talking about doing, and they asked me if we wanted it. I said yes.
[Patty Flynn]: Definitely, that'd be great.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: That would be amazing, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Awesome. Yeah, I will follow up with Joe about that tomorrow.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thanks. I'll try and find an email while I'm sitting here to forward you so you have a little more context.
[Theresa Dupont]: Perfect, I appreciate that. Awesome. Okay, so security cameras will still continue to pursue those as well as potentially look into agility equipment. Now, again, if that third vendor who sent me the lower quote is way off base, I think agility equipment might have to wait till another day. But I did want to have that conversation with everybody to get their buy-in on that. All right. Yeah, I think it's a great idea.
[Patty Flynn]: I agree. Why not, right? We'll have to get a quote before, like soon. We'll need to get a quote soon. Would you be able to send me some of the information that you obtained already?
[Theresa Dupont]: Yes, I can certainly do that, yeah. Thank you. I am still weighing on a quote from one more vendor. I followed up with them this morning saying, I need that by end of day. End of day is coming past, so. Great, thank you. Yep, absolutely. Okay, great. Thanks for everybody's feedback on that. Other orders of business, you know, it's kind of loosey-goosey stuff, but I definitely wanted to give the opportunity for the committee to have some feedback as a response to the March 23rd Parks and Paths meeting. Patty, I know you were on that. Patrick, I wasn't sure if you were able to make that meeting.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't, but I heard a little bit of it.
[Theresa Dupont]: The big thing that came out of it besides a lot of really great conversation about Park Center City was the potential pilot program for off-leash dog hours. I know it's been a couple of weeks since that meeting, but Patty, did you walk away from that conversation with any sort of thoughts about off-leash hours or anything like that?
[Patty Flynn]: I did. I mean, I think it's a good idea. There are several, many towns that utilize that program, and they seem to, it's been going on for a few years, so it seems to be working okay, from what I've heard. There's always the person that doesn't pick up their waste, and you're always gonna have those people, unfortunately, that just don't cooperate. But for the most part, I think it's a great idea, and I think most people, I mean, some have their reservations, but some don't want it, of course. I mean, you're gonna have that in any community. But I mean, I'm all for it, but I guess what I left the meeting wanting to know is what's next? What do we do to get this going?
[Theresa Dupont]: And I know our team is kind of working with the administration on putting together some more meat and bones into that program. I really love that Alicia brought a cat to the Dog Park Committee meeting. Patty, you can't see it, but Alicia's holding up her. Is that a Russian blue? Is that a Russian blue?
[Alicia Hunt]: And he brought himself. I'm like, if you're going to climb all the way up into my lap, the least I could do is make him famous.
[Theresa Dupont]: And I did some research into community, neighboring communities too, about what they're doing for off leash hours. And it seems to be very much you know, regimented, you know, between six a.m. and 10 a.m. and only these parks, maximum of two or three dogs per handler, stuff like that. So I think that that meeting was to kind of get a temperature check of what the community would feel about having off leash hours. And we're still fact finding on behalf of the mayor. But, you know, as the foremost commission in Medford pertaining to dogs, yeah, I definitely wanted to kind of get Everybody's talking about that. What about you, Patrick? You for it?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I am, yeah. I just want to be sure that we're having it in a way that's safe for dogs, that it's not too close to roads, where dogs that shouldn't be off leash are running into traffic or something like that. And also safe for other park users if they don't want to be around dogs, they don't have to be.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right. That's why I kind of like how a couple of cities, I think it was, Cambridge, Somerville, and Malden. No, not Malden. They have the 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. Arlington too, but they have that regimented time frame so that at least if you're a person that has an aversion to dogs, it's a posted time so you can be made aware of, oh, there might be dogs running all over the place at 9.30 a.m. Okay. Yeah, it seemed like a lot of folks in the city were very much for it. You know, there was obviously sidebar discussions about, well, it'd be great if we had additional dog parks in the city. I know I kind of, it wasn't, it wasn't discussed as heartily as the off leash hours, but I know a couple of members did mention, oh, well, if we put a dog park over here, over there, so in due time.
[Unidentified]: Right, right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Right. Okay, great. Well, thanks for that feedback. I appreciate that.
[Unidentified]: Sure, thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: I did have dog waste management at the park as the next topic, which we kind of touched on that. That's great that there are larger receptacles outside of the confines of the park. I'm not a person who frequents that park often. I brought my dog there one or two times. I've always noticed it's been pretty clean in the couple of times I've been there, but has anybody noticed? any change in the cleanliness, I guess we could say. I know it's been the winter and snow and ice kind of hide everything, but.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I think it's generally been the same where there's just a few people that don't pick up, but generally people that are there will pitch in and pick up, you know, even if it's not theirs, so it's usually not too bad.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like.
[Patty Flynn]: Tracy does a lot of it.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's nice that there are volunteers to help clean up after everybody else.
[Patty Flynn]: I had a question, I mean.
[Theresa Dupont]: Your phone's breaking up there again, Patty.
[Patty Flynn]: It may be, it may get better when, can you hear me now? Yes. I think it may improve when we post a big sign that says they're under surveillance. Absolutely.
[Theresa Dupont]: Great. Okay, awesome. Again, just wanted to touch base on that. So as part of our, when we're looking at the surveillance, putting up a sign as well will help deter any bad habits. I'll add that. Awesome. I had, again, kind of thought of an idea of maybe promoting the park in a way having a social media campaign, it could be something as simple as, I think that there's currently an unofficial Dog Park Facebook page. There is. Yeah. But keeping up on promoting some new posts there, that's something I'm happy to take on to my bandwidth intermittently. Oh, good. Yeah, I'm kind of, I do a lot of promotions on social media on behalf of our office, so I can just kind of add that.
[Patty Flynn]: Oh, great. That'd be great. I can make you an admin.
[Theresa Dupont]: Great.
[Patty Flynn]: Awesome.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I had a while ago I started to set up an official Facebook page for the park, but I never published it didn't get any information so I can give you access to that too. I mean, is the unofficial one would be pause for Medford right.
[Patty Flynn]: That's the call, yeah.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I don't know exactly where the line is, if we can be involved with running that page or not. Do you know, Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: So my main concern is separating like fundraising from the city staff. So if PAWS for Medford is officially the fundraising group, then it would be better. But it seems to me, They were trying to get the word out. So if we had a page for the dog park, and like Teresa was posting something, and then on the back end she was reposting it to pause for Medford like informational messages about the dog park. That would be fine. The difficulty is that we shouldn't be doing the fundraising stuff. So the example I've been giving, Teresa's been working with the community gardens a lot, is like the Community Garden Commission is official and we do that. I'm actually an admin on their page. Then there's the Friends of the Medford Community Gardens and that's their fundraising group. And that I'm like, I don't have anything to do. And I think they have a separate Facebook page for that. It becomes messy because a lot of these groups, there's heavy overlap between the friends groups and the official groups. So yeah, Medford Community Gardens only has one page. But I guess they don't. I'm not really picturing any fundraising on there. The commission really uses that page.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, we haven't done any fundraising in a long time because of COVID.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, they have. So they posted, for example, two years ago that they had Medford Community Garden t-shirts available for a donation to the Friends of the Community Gardens. But most of the past posts are about this is what we're building and do you want a site and this is how you do it. So I guess my only concern is that if the name of the group is paused for Medford, that makes it hard because that is officially the fundraising group.
[Patty Flynn]: I can change it to friends of Paws for Medford. Do you want me to do that?
[Alicia Hunt]: So it's the friends groups that are the fundraising groups.
[Patty Flynn]: Right. So do you want me to change the current Facebook page to friends?
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, and then that's your page. And then we make another, because it's a group. I think it's fine, because people know Paws for Medford is a friends group. It might be that what we actually want to do is take a look at the page that Patrick started and then publish it. And the difference is a group plus versus a page. And so a group, like anybody, people can chat within it and a page will push information out.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretty sure that Pause for Medford has both a group and a page.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, it's called Pause for Medford on Facebook.
[Alicia Hunt]: I see the group. Oh, and there's the page.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, Daniel, Daniel is the, he oversees it. He posts things randomly on there.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, so there is, right, there is both. It just, they weren't both popping up. The pause for Medford page didn't pop up until I searched specifically for a page.
[Patty Flynn]: I never, I mean, I very seldom go on the other page. There is another one. It's a dot org, I think. But Jim Silva set that up and I never use it.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, the Medford Dog Park page. The company actually, weird, it's actually affiliated with the park. Is this not Medford Mass? The about is Medford Mass. Sorry, there's just this picture of all these people, the dog, is that our dog park? Hold on.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, I think it is. It's the day that it opened, I think. It's inside the park, right? I think it was Corgi Day.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Or is this the, I'm looking at it and it's a Terriers of Boston had a Terriers of Boston event.
[Patty Flynn]: At our park.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: That's cool. Sunday, October 23rd.
[Alicia Hunt]: I see that. Don't they have to try to ask our permission to do that?
[Patty Flynn]: I don't know. And to be honest, I'm afraid to even go and look at something that I'll lose you. So I won't even go and look.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, are you on your phone, Patty?
[Patty Flynn]: I know when I get home. Yes, I'm on my phone. I'm actually sitting in front of a store near my son's house.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, so somebody should take over this page.
[Patty Flynn]: When's the last post on that page?
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, that the page itself made.
[Theresa Dupont]: That's six days ago, that's the Boston Terrors. They posted something March 28th.
[Alicia Hunt]: So they tagged, they said they were at the dog park and it posted.
[Patty Flynn]: But they didn't post it, the meeting wasn't at the park?
[Alicia Hunt]: It is.
[Patty Flynn]: Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: So there's also this realtor who keeps posting stuff.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: When I go to that event, it says it is going to take place at Medford Dog Park in October.
[Patty Flynn]: Wow, all right, I'll look into that, because I didn't see that.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Wait, October of this current year? Yeah, this coming October.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, maybe somebody should reach out to them, because I'm happy to have events, but they should be, you know.
[Patty Flynn]: I'll look at it when I get home, and I'll shoot Daniel a message.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Well, we don't even know who set this page up, do we?
[Patty Flynn]: Sorry?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: We don't know who set this page up.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, that's what I was wondering. Jim? OK. No, no, no.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: This is a different part. No, Jim set up the Paws for Medford, right?
[Patty Flynn]: He set up the Facebook page, too.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: So he set up the Paws for Medford Facebook group, and he set up the Paws for Medford Facebook page. But this is a third different one that just says Medford Dog Park. No way. Yeah, I don't think he did that one, did he?
[Patty Flynn]: No, no, no. I don't call it that, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Facebook will auto-generate pages for places, so I think that's what I meant when I first said, I found an unofficial dog park page, because I think this is just an auto-generated one, and then people started tagging it because it was created.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, we should figure out how to take ownership of it, because I feel like that can be done.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay.
[Patty Flynn]: When I get home, I'll look at it.
[Theresa Dupont]: And if you need a hand, Patty, let me know, because I'm happy to help.
[Patty Flynn]: Oh, great. Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: But the idea is that we've got this great page that, Alicia, like you pointed out, some people are kind of just tagging, and it needs to be cleaned up a little bit. So I think this is just an opportunity to, again, promote the park. In my head, I was kind of thinking, like a dog of the week or dog of the month. A week might be ambitious because that denotes, you know, maybe we can solicit folks to send us their pictures of their dogs in the park. But I just kind of thought that would be a nice way to connect with the community, promote the park. And we all love dogs. So, you know, is there a way for us to professionally keep looking at pictures of dogs? Because that makes me happy. Oh, absolutely. So yeah, something simple like that, you know, if we are ever planning events at the park, you know, would this be a good place to promote them there? You know, like our own events, not this, the Boston Terriers one. We'll figure out that. But again, just a thought, you know, everybody's on social media, you know, I follow Medford Animal Control. Those posts always make me very warm inside, Patrick, whenever you re-invite dogs, I love it. So I just thought it might be an opportunity to do that with the dog park as well. Absolutely. Great. Cool. All right, I'll put a little bit more thought into what that might look like. Like I said, I was just picturing dog of the week, do a little interview with the owner and the dog, just something short and sweet. Excellent. Okay. So we're at 545-ish. The only other item I had was public participation. So I think at that point, I will stop sharing my screen so we can look at all of our lovely faces. And I'll hand it over to you, Patrick.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there was one PAC user who who wanted to speak about some stuff, but she's not here. But the things that she wanted to bring up were, first, that the shed is falling down. And yeah, we've talked about that. Secondly, she wanted to bring up the possibility of not allowing unneutered dogs into the park or unspayed dogs into the park. So only dogs of the year's breed.
[Patty Flynn]: They're not supposed to be in there. Isn't that part of the rules?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: No, the rules only say that female dogs in heat are not allowed. And the third thing she wanted to bring up was a limit on the number of dogs in the park at a time, like total dogs, not just the number of dogs that an individual could bring in. But she said, like, sometimes it's just too many dogs in the park.
[Patty Flynn]: I've never, I mean, I'm not there often to be able to witness that.
[Theresa Dupont]: You're not there often enough to witness overcrowding in the park. Have you, Patrick, can you hear me?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: No, you're breaking up, I can't make out what you're saying.
[Patty Flynn]: Yes, I don't think you can hear me.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[Patty Flynn]: We can hear you now. Oh, great. Patrick, have you ever witnessed any overcrowding in the park?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: No, I haven't witnessed it personally, no.
[Patty Flynn]: Okay, I'll try to keep an eye on it. It'll be, again, the security cameras will come in handy. with that so we can monitor it, because I haven't heard that that's a problem.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[Patty Flynn]: Is that Tracy you're talking about?
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[Patty Flynn]: I don't know if you want me to say that. Yeah, she told me to. She doesn't care. She doesn't care about any of those. She does a lot for the park, I understand.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: She does, yeah.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: And then her question about, can we change the language and the rules and regulations to also include unspayed, unneutered? Yeah.
[Patty Flynn]: I'll defer to Patrick about that.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I think we should probably talk more about it, like maybe get some more input, find out how many people are using the park that the dogs are not altered. And I don't know. That's a real sticky. real sticky issue there.
[Patty Flynn]: Right. I mean, I'm assuming she's saying they're aggressive.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. She didn't mention that the unaltered dogs were aggressive, but I would assume that that's part of it, yeah.
[Patty Flynn]: Yeah, prey-driven aggressive, yeah. I mean, because some dogs aren't that are un-nuded. They're not aggressive. I don't know. Like you said, we'll have to, if we can get more, I guess, our website and Facebook page, if we can get more involvement, we can send out surveys. Right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, I was just going to say, we have a survey software that we use as a city. That'd be something I'd be happy to put together and we can promote it. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. just to kind of get like, hey, folks who use the park, you know, here's five questions that pertain to your usage of the park and your dog's interactions. Maybe we can put in a couple of questions for those who don't use the park, who have dogs, like, why aren't you using the park? What would you like to see? I don't know, just to kind of get some community feedback.
[Patty Flynn]: That'd be great. Okay.
[Theresa Dupont]: I'll kind of draft up some questions and then circulate it with the group here and you guys can Give me some feedback on that.
[Patty Flynn]: That'd be great. If we can add, include, if they'd like to join the group for volunteering, possible fundraising, cleanups, things like that. That would be great because I didn't have much luck last time I did it, but it was a few years ago before COVID.
[Theresa Dupont]: Sure. Yeah, people, we're all different two years later. Right. Okay. And I'm sorry, what was her first question? Oh, it was just the dog shed, the shed itself.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Just those three, yeah.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay. Okay, so we've addressed the shed for her particular comment there. The surveillance will help kind of manage any sort of overcrowding that we might see there. And then we'll put a survey together just to kind of hopefully folks will be honest in the survey and say, yes, I bring my unneutered dog to the park. I mean, there's, we're just fact finding, so.
[Patty Flynn]: Right. And then on this survey, we could ask, have there, you have any concerns about altercations or any concerns in general? Yeah, that'd be great.
[Theresa Dupont]: Okay, I got homework.
[Patty Flynn]: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[Theresa Dupont]: It's something I'm definitely passionate about. So I'm happy to take this on.
[Patty Flynn]: Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: All right. If there wasn't anything else, I'm not seeing anything in the chat. Alicia, you have anything?
[Alicia Hunt]: I am, I sent you some stuff on the Facebook. I think that it's an auto-generated page for the location. And I found the thing that says we can't take it over. So we may want to just launch our own Facebook page.
[Patty Flynn]: We have one. Oh, you mean another.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's a dog park one.
[MCM00001456_SPEAKER_01]: Teresa, I sent you a friend request. So when I get that, I will then make you an admin on the unpublished page.
[Theresa Dupont]: Love it. Awesome. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I didn't realize I was even still unmuted, but luckily it's quiet in here. I found a quiet room in the house.
[Theresa Dupont]: Awesome.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, just in time for the meeting to basically wrap up, but you've got another meeting, so- Which is good, thank you, because yeah, I have the energy committee meeting that I'm running tonight.
[Patty Flynn]: Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you for participating.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, wait, he says hi.
[Patty Flynn]: Hi, baby.
[Alicia Hunt]: You're being awfully cuddly tonight. All right, good. All right.
[Theresa Dupont]: Well, thank you, everybody. Meeting adjourned.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Theresa Dupont]: Thank you so much. Take care. Thank you.