Minnewaska and Wellwyn; Propsect Video

Last Sunday one of our correspondents was in Minnewaska State Park near New Paltz. here is his report:

This park requires all dogs to be leashed. That's what the signs say, and it's clear from the park's website. In a couple of hours, we saw 4 unleashed dogs, including this one by the lake, who repeatedly ignored its mistress's calls. Fortunately, the dog wasn't threatening.


On our way back we saw a woman on a bicycle headed towards us and 2 large, friendly and, even by canine standards, stupid dogs. A couple was walking maybe 20 feet ahead of us, and the guy called out "I think we have ourselves a dog." One of the dogs had started to follow him. The owner called, and then the dog started to follow us. I kept motioning to the dog to follow me; he did; the owner kept calling, increasingly worried, and the dog started whining, obviously confused. Finally the wife made me stop and we went our way. We caught up with the couple in front of us; he had been calling the dog too until his wife made him stop. Like us, they are dog lovers--but the two of us had the identical idea: if the stupid, inconsiderate owner couldn't leash her dog, we'd make her suffer a little.

Today the same correspondent was at Welwyn Preserve in Glen Cove. Here is the report:

Signs all over the place say pets are not allowed--period, leashed or unleased--and some threaten a fine. Here are two of the signs:




Nevertheless, in a couple of hours we passed 6 dogs, five of them unleashed. The owners made no attempt to leash them in our presence:

What is going on here is incivility, self-centeredness, a fundamental lack of consideration. It is no different from that shown by people who take shopping carts from a grocery store and leave them in the parking lot, who drop coffee cups and bottles on the sidewalk (forcing home owners and storekeepers to clean them up lest they get fined), or who accelerate on a highway to cut off motorists attempting to change lanes. Sorry, Winston; that's not going to be changed by someone in authority gently telling them to leash-up.

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10:15 this morning, Prospect Park lake, video taken from the Wellhouse.

Joe Namath's Dogs; More on Trying to Jog During Dog Hours

See this AP dispatch:

Back in the day, Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath was known for his dangerous arm. Now settled into a comfortable retirement in Florida, it's his dog that's dangerous. Namath, 66, appeared before a hearing officer on Thursday in West Palm Beach to answer to charges that two of his dogs attacked people who came to his home in Tequesta, a quiet community about 90 miles north of Miami.

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More from our friend Winston Smith:

Yea, you are right....

I met my friends today and the situation was actually more dangerous. Between 8 and 9am there were many off leash dogs on the ball fields, the paths around the ball fields and in the grassy are between the ball fields and Prospect Park Southwest.

There was no enforcement in sight. These dog people look like normal law abiding citizens, who if told by a persons of authority that they need to leash their dog, would.

I am not asking for mass arrests, but it would be nice if I got some help. These off leash dogs are a hazard to those who are not expecting them.

Dogs were also allow to urinate on the clay that is being stored for the baseball fields.

You say, "These dog people look like normal law abiding citizens,who if told by a persons of authority that they need to leash their dog, would." Not exactly. They are regularly told by DOPR pesonnel who do not have law enforcement authority to leash their dogs. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't. And just see our prior posts--or watch what happens when a police or PEP vehicle slowly circles the Nethermead, looking like it means business, around 5 P.M. Sure they leash their dogs. And they unleash them as soon as the authority figure departs.

PEP Does Something; Trip Over an Unleashed Dog

In this video we see a PEP agent doing something yesterday in Prospect Park at 11:05 P.M.. That itself is unusual. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the agent is handing the dog owner a summons or, more likely, a copy of the leash rules.


And here is a shot of yet two more dogs illegally loose on the Nethermead at 12:25 P.M., after dog hours. Of course there's no PEP agent around.


Today in the ravine, 3 off-leash around 9:10 A.M. One man, one middle-aged couple, and another man with a black dog. All owners were white.


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In case you'd like to see who the enemies--of parks and of law-abiding park patrons--are, http://www.brooklyneagle.com/archive/category.php?category_id=27&id=7916 is a picture of the new Prospect Park senior management team.

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Elderly man sues bar after tripping over unleashed pooch: Claims wrecked his knee & sex life.

Dog walks into a bar, lies on the floor and trips a customer.

It's no joke - it's a lawsuit.

Read all about it in--where else--the Daily News.

Answer to Email, Continued:

From Winston Smith:

What will happen is that the problem will get documented.

I will email

INFO@prospectpark.org and

cc
Philippe Pereira ppereira@prospectpark.org,
Josephine Pittari jpittari@prospectpark.org
Tupper Thomas tthomas@prospectpark.org

every time dogs are allowed in the wrong place.

Maybe, eventually somebody will tell the "dog people" that their dog prohibits others from using this public space.

They have huge areas of Prospect Park for "off leash". While the hours of "off leash" are limited, after the dogs leave that area is still off limits to any activity that includes touching the ground.

I assume that every vertical surface has been peed on and poop has been picked up with a plastic bag or a newspaper. Would you sit on your rug at home after a dog pooped on it and it was picked up with plastic bag?

I am willing share Prospect Park with the "dog people" but I just wish they would understand that their activity precludes many other people from using that area.

Even after they leave.

Even after they "clean up"

Welcome aboard. I don't want to discourage you, but we, and a predecessor blog, have been documenting this stuff, with photographs, for years. We've written repeatedly to Tupper about illegal dogs on the Nethermead, and her response is "I've been there and it's just a few." Go back over our previous posts. Tupper runs Prospect Park and has spent the last decade or more doing everything she can to subvert the leash law let their dogs loose whenever they want. Our information is that Pitari lets her dog loose too (legally, we presume), and all Pereira does is act sympathetic and take orders from Tupper.

To which Winston responds:

I am not gonna get discouraged. Here is my exchange with Josephine. She thinks FIDO is gonna help............

Thank you. But I know some of the members of FIDO. While they will support obeying the rules, they will never appreciate or admit that there is a problem.

Appropriated enforce is what I am hoping for.

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Pittari, Josephine Josephine.Pittari@parks.nyc.gov
wrote:
We have spoken to FIDO (the grassroots group for dog owners in this area) and they have sent notices to all their membership regarding these problems--FIDO totally supports obeying the established rules.

We've also contacted Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) and the NYPD park patrol for attention to this matter and appropriate enforcement measures.

Additionally, our SE/Permit department will address during routine patrols.

Josephine Pittari
Senior VP for Operations / Chief of Operations - Prospect Park
Office # 718-965-6140
FAX # 718-965-6135

Baloney. FIDO is one of the problems--it is an organization set up by the scofflaw-in-chief Tupper Thomas in part to attempt to control off-leash dog owners who are even worse. The fox is being asked to guard the chicken coop.

And based on prior experience, Winston probably will get a follow-up email or call from someone at PEP--not NYPD--saying that in the previous month they had issued 5 or 6 summonses. You got that right--5 or 6 summonses a month. See our previous posts on just this point.

Answer to an E-mail

Our correspondent Winston Smith got this answer to his complaint about dogs on the ballfields, which we posted the other day:

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Off-leash hours are from 5 – 9am and 9pm – 1am in the Long Meadow, Nethermead and Peninsula Meadow, so 8am is ok, but they should not be in the road itself (Center Drive) off-leash. In addition, dogs are not allowed on the ballfields themselves and must be on a leash 6’ or shorter during non off-leash hours.

I will forward your email to our Chief and Deputy Chief of Operations for Prospect Park and ask that this matter be looked into.

Thank you for your interest in Prospect Park.

Nothing will happen.

Tupper's Back Yard; Dog Beach Again; Loose At the Lake; Benepe the Environmentalist

Here's more proof that Prospect Park administrator Tupper Thomas is complicit in the illegal offleash dog activity in Prospect Park. This video was made at 5:30pm on Saturday, November 7th. The five unleashed dogs are directly in front of the Litchfield Villa. The building is the location of Tupper Thomas' office, as well as the Parks Enforcement Patrols and other administrative departments. The dogs are off-leash 3 1/2 hours before the offleash hours in an area where dogs must be leashed at all times. That's as illegal as you can get. But if dog owners ever had any concern about receiving a leash law summons, it certainly has vanished.

Several yards to the right of these dog owners is a sign with the offleash rules and a map. Several yards to the left is a playground, and young children frequently play on the grass in this area occupied by dogs. Would you let your toddlers crawl on the grass here.

If you would like to send a complaint email to Ms. Thomas, her email address is: tthomas@prospectpark.org



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Dog Beach, yesterday, 4pm, 4 unleashed dogs. In addition, the woman who couldn't perform simple addition had all her dogs offleash in the same area next to the lake. I told her that I put her video from the other day on the Internet and she quickly leashed her dogs.



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Dog Beach today, 12:30 P.M., 1 golden retriever off-leash. 2 PEP cars right there. car #414, license plate #L87495, and car #315, license plate #M22365. No summons issued.


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4 P.M. today, middle-aged white couple on south lake shore, sitting on beach chairs, with a beagle mutt and golden retriever unleashed and going into the water.

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We have said before that Adrian Benepe is commissioner of the Department of Recreation, not the Department of Parks and Recreation. Lest there be any doubt of this, see this little item on the DOPR website: the Benepe is about to pave over the Parade Grounds in artificial turf. When it's not being used by athletes--for whom artificial turf will do no favors--it is a landing place for birds, particularly for wintering brant geese (not the pesty Canada geese). Presumably Benepe is going to arrange for synthetic geese instead.

And see this item in today's New York Post:

A Post investigation found there's little recycling going on in city green spaces, but the more shocking news is how waste collected in parks gets dumped.

Not only are routine recyclables like bottles, cans and paper being sent to landfills, but so is other waste that is supposed to be trashed separately, such as animal carcasses, medical waste and bins of used kitchen oil, according to some longtime parks employees responsible for garbage pickups.

Dogs on the Ballfields

From Winston Smith:

I sent this email to info@prospectpark.org

I hope I get a response

This morning at 8 am I met some friends at Grand Army Plaza to do some jogging in Prospect Park. Not wanting to get separated we decided to run on the paths around the fields. We stayed on the road past the Long Meadow. There were hundreds of off leash dogs there. It would have been impossible to jog around that path and it would have been inappropriate on our part. This was a place for off leash dogs, nothing else.

So we jogged over the the ball fields were dogs are not allowed. This was a problem, there were about 50 dogs on the ballfields and the paths that surround them. About half of them were off leash, many were on leashes that were well over 10 feet long.

There are ample signs about leashes and dogs on the ballfields, but so many dog owners thing the rules do not apply to them. Many dogs were running across the path with no owner is sight. Dogs were also allowed to defecate on the grass. Later children will play sports on that same grass. Grasping it with a plastic bag is not good enough if a hour later people are going to play or picnic on that same spot.

Who is responsible for enforcing the leash law in Prospect Park?

Thank you in advance

Winston Smith

In fact, the paths around the grassy area are not part of the designated off-leash area. And, nothing in the off-leash rules makes these off-leash areas the exclusive domain of unleashed dogs during off-leash hours. So on both counts, you should have been able to jog there during off-leash hours.

Winston, how much more of a proof do you need that the behavior of dog owners who let their pets loose has nothing to do with their not being sufficiently "educated", and everything to do with their belief that letting their dogs loose whenever and wherever they want is an entitlement, no matter what its effect on anyone else?