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Put a leash on itCity Council candidate calls on city to enforce current dog-licensing lawsPeter Marcus, DDN Staff WriterTuesday, March 30, 2010 | |
A Denver City Council candidate says rather than charge for the privilege of using off-leash Denver dog parks, the city should enforce its current licensing ordinances.
Larry Ambrose, co-chair of the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation Parks and Recreation Committee, believes only 12 percent of Denver’s dog population is licensed. City officials question Ambrose’s statistic.
But Ambrose says his proposal beats a city proposal to charge a $25-$50 annual fee for people who want to use off-leash dog parks.
He says at $15 per license, if city officials were to increase the percentage of people who license their dogs to only 50 percent, it would raise nearly $1 million for dog parks across the city.
“Just enforcing the dog license requirement is a much simpler and fairer way to raise the additional needed revenue,” said Ambrose, who is running to replace former Denver City Councilman Rick Garcia, who was appointed by President Obama to serve as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new regional director. “Increased licensing could easily be achieved through a public awareness and media campaign and increased participation by community-based dog owner groups.”
Jill McGranahan, spokeswoman for Denver Parks and Recreation, questions Ambrose’s statistic. She says there’s no way to validate such a statistic since the city doesn’t know how many total dogs are in the city in the first place.
“Not all the dogs are licensed, so we don’t know exactly how many dogs aren’t licensed,” said McGranahan.
“The issue isn’t so much in licensing and enforcement,” she continued. “It’s really about space available for multi-family housing and people living downtown for them to take their dogs. And if the land isn’t available to purchase, it’s about taking existing land and finding new uses for it, or repurposing it, or expanding it for use as park land.”
Ambrose, however, is focused on how to pay for the demand for more dog parks in general. He calls the proposal for new fees “regressive and unfair,” instead calling on the city to enforce current laws.
“Working together we can achieve these goals,” he said.
| Comments: |
| Larry Ambrise @ 2010-03-30 14:06:23 | The statistic of 12% which I am using and which was quoted in this article was taken from directly from information in a Denver Post article on Saturday, March 27 and attributed to the City of Denver. (22,000 dogs out of an estimated 177,000) As a member of the City's Dog Park Master Plan Task Force for more than a year, I was consistently told by other officials in Ms. McGranahan's Department, Denver Parks & Recreation, that only 10% of the dogs in Denver were licensed.
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| Larry Ambrose @ 2010-03-30 14:08:55 | The statistic of 12% which I am using and which was quoted in this article was taken from directly from information in a Denver Post article on Saturday, March 27 and attributed to the City of Denver. (22,000 dogs out of an estimated 177,000) As a member of the City's Dog Park Master Plan Task Force for more than a year, I was consistently told by other officials in Ms. McGranahan's Department, Denver Parks & Recreation, that only 10% of the dogs in Denver were licensed.
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| GladysKravitz @ 2010-03-30 16:48:12 | And what pray tell was that Dagny? Again, nothing to back up your antagonism, zzzzzzzzzzz
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| Daniel Markofsky @ 2010-03-30 22:29:39 | Finally a common sense approach - enforce existing law rather than creating a new one. We in Denver love our dogs and deserve to have some park space fenced and maintained for that use. We have many other park areas designated for particular uses. We should have fenced dog areas too. |
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