August 28, 2006

Tracey Bellone, Deputy Commissioner
Suffolk County Parks
P.O. Box 144, Montauk Hwy.
W. Sayville, N.Y. 11796-0144

Dear Deputy Commissioner Bellone:

Thank you for responding to the letter sent by LI-DOG member, Michael Marcotte. We are disappointed that we cannot continue posting signs for a campaign that promotes sharing the park at Coindre Hall with other users; but we are cooperating with your request and are no longer posting the signs. We do hope, however, that other park users don't think we no longer care about their ability to use the park because of this development.

We would like to take this opportunity to tell you why we came up with the campaign, how successful it has been, and propose that we meet to discuss how we can move forward from here.

As we all know, Coindre Hall has been a difficult situation for all concerned. During the meetings of the Coindre Hall Citizens Advisory Committee, one of the main concerns expressed by neighbors has been that dog owners take up the whole park on the weekends. At the same time, these same neighbors thought the proposed location of a dog run along Browns Road was a poor one. In addition, we have been told that the Historic Trust will not allow any fence to be erected that can be seen from the mansion.

This situation led us to research other unfenced off-leash recreation areas around the country. What we found surprised us. We found a large number of officially sanctioned, unfenced off-leash areas and we are sure there are many more to be discovered. Some of them have been in existence for many years and have worked well for all concerned.

    We decided we would propose the idea to the dog owners at Coindre Hall. While we did meet some resistance from those unhappy with the attitude towards dog owners in Suffolk County, they agreed to go along. We knew, however, that we would have to post signs for dog owners who are not regular users of the park. We did have some doubts about all the dogs actually staying in the designated area, but were willing to try it as a way of responsibly using and sharing the park. We chose the large field to the left of the gymnasium (as you face the water) to launch our campaign as this area has been proposed for off leash activities by non-dog owning members of the Citizens Advisory Committee and it is almost never used by other park visitors.

    From the first day we tried it, the campaign worked better than we could have ever imagined. The dogs that were under good voice control stayed in the designated area. The dogs that were not under solid voice control tended to stay with the other dogs. The non-regulars who arrived saw the signs and the dogs all on one side - simply accepted it - and walked over to join the rest of the dog owners.

    We started the campaign in late February and were able to continue it until the end of July when we were directed by a Parks Dept. employee to stop posting signs. This was a full five months during two of the park's busiest seasons-spring and summer--that we were able to demonstrate that an unfenced off-leash area can work extremely well, and that other people could use the park without having to deal with dogs if they didn't want to. As mentioned in the first letter, we have seen a youth soccer group practice soccer, and wedding photos taken on the dog-free zone with no interference whatsoever by dogs.

    What is particularly promising about the success of our Share the Park campaign is that it addressed concerns raised by several constituencies at Coindre Hall:

• It gave park users who did not want to interact with dogs more than half the park during two key seasons of the year. Dog owners were willing to do this even though the park was seldom used by other people.
• It provided dog owners with a designated area to exercise and socialize their dogs, without interfering with other park users.
• It avoided changing the physical appearance of the property in that it did not require the construction of any new fencing.
• It avoided interfering with the views from the mansion-and photo opportunities--in that the designated area was located off to one side of the park.
• It did not cost the Parks Dept. any money because no fencing was required to make it work.

In the end, our Share the Park campaign provided an innovative, no-cost solution to a problem the Parks Department and local officials have been wrestling with for several years: how Coindre Hall can be shared equitably by its various constituencies.

We believe the success of the campaign warrants further discussion. Clearly, signage was an important factor in the campaign working as well as it did. Since representatives of LI-DOG could not be at the park all the time, the signs were key to getting other dog owners to cooperate with our campaign. Now that the Parks Dept. has asked that we not put up our temporary signs, we would like to discuss how signage can be used to make Coindre Hall work better for dog owners and non-dog owners alike. As part of those discussions, we would like to further explore what would be involved in a park stewardship program, as suggested in your letter.

More importantly, the success of our Share the Park campaign lays the groundwork for what we believe could be a viable, long-term solution at Coindre Hall-that is, a designated area for dog owners and their dogs that is defined by signs, hours, seasons and other non-physically intrusive methods. Given the department's interest in finding a long term solution to the long standing issues at Coindre Hall, we are confident the Parks Department would welcome the opportunity to sit down and discuss how we can move forward based on the success of our campaign.

Dog owners have been taking their dogs to Coindre Hall for over 30 years-longer even than Suffolk County's involvement with the property. Given the number of dogs that have visited the park on a daily basis over these years and the lack of serious incidents in these tens of 1,000s of visits, it can be safely said that having dogs off leash at Coindre Hall is a low risk activity for the county. Still, dog owners are willing to work to make the park an even better experience for the county, for other park users and for dog owners themselves by designating certain areas of the park for off leash activities.

Thank you so much for your attention. We will call shortly to discuss setting up a meeting to talk about how we can move forward at Coindre Hall.

Sincerely,

Michael Marcotte

Ginny Munger Kahn

Barbara Buscareno (LI-DOG representative, Coindre Hall Citizens Advisory Committee)

Michael Kahn (LI-DOG representative, Coindre Hall Citizens Advisory Committee)

As always, keep in touch by e-mailing us at lidog_news@yahoo.com.