Prospect Park and 311

5:15 P.M.: More than 20--say, 30--unleashed dogs on the Nethermead. When we got there, some people were still trying to play soccer, but they soon left. Plenty of other people remained on the Nethermead. So we tried calling 311. The exercise took about 15 minutes before we received a complaint number and was a frustrating one. The 311 operator was prompted to ask all sorts of irrelevant questions, such as Prospect Park's street address and the precise location of the Nethermead. What's worse, when it was all over the operator informed us that our complaint would be "referred for action to the Department of Parks and Recreation". Why not the police? On its own the DOPR has made itself incapable of doing anything about this problem because its agents go off-duty at 5 P.M.--even assuming that the DOPR wanted to do something, which we strongly doubt. In short the fox is in charge of the chicken coop, with predictable results. But we intend to follow up on this complaint and make future ones.

UPDATE: SEE OUR POST ON MAY 20

6:oo P.M.--2 unleashed dogs on the east of the lake.