Following community demands for a place to play with their canines, the city of Le Center is moving forward with plans to develop a dog park in town.
At the March 12 City Council meeting, city leaders held a discussion on establishing a community focus group to work towards establishing a dog park in Le Center. City staff have already been scouting possible locations for the park, including a strip of land by the water tower just south of the Le Center Sportsman’s Club.
“This would be a good start. It wouldn’t be a terribly expensive venture. There are a lot of people in the community that have asked about it,” said Mayor Christian Harmeyer.
City Administrator Dan Evans said he reached out to a nearby community which built a dog park in 2018 and found out the overall cost was just shy of $60,000, and half of that was subsidized by donations from volunteer organizations. Given the financial feasibility of the project and the high level of interest in the community, Evans considered building a dog park to be a worthy cause.
“I’ve had countless people pop in and express interest in a dog park, so I think it’s something that we can work with that community group as far as trying to get some ideas together on location,” said Evans.
The next steps for the city will involve assembling a community focus group to draft ideas on where the dog park should be placed and what it should cost.
“[We’ll] start formulating a plan sooner rather than later because a lot of people have expressed interest in it, and I think it’s probably good to work on those things as we can,” said Evans.
As the city moves forward on plans to build a dog park, Le Center is also making moves to capture state funding to bolster other recreational opportunities in the local area.
At the same meeting, the City Council formulated a Parks Committee to start drafting future goals for a master parks and recreation plan. This future plan would prepare the city for building up its parks and trails by mapping the city’s existing assets, establishing a vision for Le Center’s future and setting a timeline for the city to complete those goals.
Evans said creating a parks master plan was a necessary step for the city to acquire state grants which would lessen the local cost burden on recreation projects.
“When we look at other cities, and their parks and getting funding for it, it all starts with a plan,” said Evans. “If you don’t have a plan you can’t go out and solicit for grants for funding from the DNR.”
“This will build a guideline down the road of what the council wants to see put in for parks and recreation,” Evans continued. “We can start doing a planning phase and with that planning phase we can start going out so we can get some grant money to potentially help do some match funds with that.”
The Parks Committee established by the City Council includes Mayor Harmeyer, Administrator Evans and Public Works Director Dan Steinborn.
“I had some ideas; I know City Administrator Evans had some ideas that he’s expressed to me; and I’m sure Mr. Steinborn has some great ideas, too, for our parks,” said Harmeyer.
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