The crisis at Coindre Hall in which the Suffolk County Parks Dept. shut down all off-leash activity at the end of April and the Police began to issue $50 tickets to dog owners whose dogs are not leashed led the Huntington Dog Owners Group to invite Suffolk County Parks Commissioner Ron Foley to address the group on Thursday, May 5th.

    Coindre Hall has been the site of off-leash activity for dogs for almost 30 years and today park usage is dominated by dog owners and their pets. The crisis was precipitated by a handful of dogs who ran onto neighboring property and into a neighbor's house.

    At the May 5th meeting, which was attended by approximately 60 dog owners, Parks Commissioner Foley apologized for the situation but noted that there was "nothing in the law that let's dogs run loose in any Suffolk County park."

    In fact, when legislation was passed in May 2003, creating a dog run at Coindre Hall, the legislation was specifically designed to allow dogs to run off-leash within fenced-in dog runs.

    Foley noted that he had been warned that Coindre Hall was a "crazy place" with "no control" and that it was "a mess," but he noted that his own visits to the park had found it not to be a mess, even though dogs ran free throughout the property. The bottom line, he said, was he was open to "any rational recommendation to organize" the situation at Coindre Hall.

    In response to Foley's comments, dog owners made several key points. Among them:

• Coindre Hall has probably one of the highest use rates of any park in the Suffolk County system;
• Coindre Hall's success and beauty as a dog park lies in its openness;
• it would be a waste of money to build a dog run that dog owners did not use because it was too small or unattractive;
• dog owners have no other place to let their dogs run off-leash and dogs NEED exercise as well as socialization;
• many other communities welcome dog parks;
• People actually move to Huntington because of the dog park at Coindre Hall;
• Coindre Hall is a "lifeline" for dogs who are home all day while their owners work;
• Dog owners are tax payers, too;
• Changing the rules at Coindre Hall without warning is not fair;
• Suffolk County desperately needs more dog parks.

    In addition, H-DOG activists noted that dog owners should not be punished for the failures of the government, whether the county or the town, to build a fenced-in run two years after legislation was passed or the county's failure to make sure a pilot program creating an unfenced off-leash area at the bottom of the hill was actually legal. The county now contends that given the law against unleashed dogs anywhere in county parks, it was not!

    Moreover, we noted that the current situation was a crisis for dog owners and that an immediate solution was necessary.

    In response, Commissioner Foley proposed that a small group of H-DOG supporters gather at Coindre Hall on Saturday, May 7th, to "come up with a solution." The tour of Coindre Hall resulted in a proposal to move and improve the run authorized by the 2003 legislation. However, the proposal died within a few days when Commissioner Foley informed H-DOG he could get "no support" for moving the run. (See story, Proposal for Improved Run Fails.)