More Dark Days

The rains have returned to Portland. In a city of people who love parks, you'd never know it this time of year. Playscapes (all 110 of which are inspected daily by Parks) are wet and unused. Soccer and baseball fields are soggy at best, mudpits at worse. No matter where you are, your neighborhood park will continue to be, er, underutilized for the next 6 months (or more!), save for the occasional non-rainy day. But there is a sizable group of users who will be doggedly continue to be at parks, rain or shine. In many parks, dogs and their owners are often the only park visitors on dark, rainy days. (And if it wasn't enough fun to get out in the rain and mud twice a day, many Portlanders will have the added joy of driving back and forth to parks with their wet and muddy pets because the empty park down the street is not available.)

So, given these conditions and the fact that off-leash hours don't actually start until 30 minutes after dark, surely Parks will correct their mistakes and at least move the evening hours to a time that's actually before dark? No. Several dog owners endured a boring OLAC meeting on Tuesday for a chance to politely plead to fix this policy oversight. Said one: "who do I need to talk to to get this changed, because it needs to be changed right away, like tomorrow." Parks told them in no uncertain terms that neither this, nor anything else would be changed until the "test" period is over, which won't be until next year at the earliest. Wait a minute. We've been told repeatedly that this was a 1-year trial. We're already 14 months into this one-year trial and now we're informed that no matter how boneheaded it is, it'll continue for another 4 months?

For dog owners, Parks has no sympathy.