History of the Hamden Dog Park at Bassett, Good morning and welcome! In Connecticut, a dog owner is liable for any damage done by his or her dog, regardless of on whose property the damage occurs.
given as a speech at the Grand Opening, October 6, 2002
I am Veronica Soell, co-founder with Karen Hickerson of the Hamden Responsible Dog Owners’ Group, which worked with the Town of Hamden for the creation of this wonderful new facility.
You might ask why a dog park, although I think perhaps everyone here really knows why. Dogs need exercise and their owners need a safe, legal place to take them. Dogs are pack animals and get enormous pleasure from being with their own kind. (Watching people chatting at the park for the last few weeks, I rather think that people are also pack animals who get great pleasure from being with their own kind!) There are well over 600 dog parks in the United States as well as countless dog parks in developed countries across the world. If you’d like to find out more about dog parks in general and ours in particular, visit our web site at www.hamdenrdog.org and follow the links.
Now for a bit of history. I’d like to tell you how all of this got started.
Just about three years ago, when the League of Women Voters solicited questions for the Hamden Mayoral Debate, I sent in a question about allowing dogs in Hamden’s parks and only Candidate Carl Amento took it seriously, indicating an open mind on the subject. Of course he got my vote! Then Brad Durrell of the Hamden Journal picked it up and wrote a favorable editorial, and we were off.
Letters to newspapers followed and conversations with the Parks and Recreation Commission. Interested individuals began to contact me, in particular Karen Hickerson, who did a great deal of research on the topic and with whom I began to work closely. In August 2000, Karen and I founded Hamden R-DOG with sixteen people in my living room. The goals we set for our group were to create dog parks in Hamden and also to work toward a new, modern animal shelter in our town - stay tuned on that. From sixteen people the number of people on our membership and e-mail lists has increased to close to 350 today, just two years later. Hamden R-DOG has met regularly during that time at Larson Place, formerly Bridges at Lake Whitney, which very kindly provided us with free meeting space.
The leadership of our group consists of myself and Karen, who coordinated our very successful walkathon at Brooksvale last fall and is also our treasurer, and Jeff Euben and Dawn Tiedemann. As well as doing lots of other things, Jeff has been the R-DOG coordinator for construction planning. Dawn has been in charge of fundraising, including the Petco fundraisers and the brick fundraiser, whose results you see here on our patio, and which, by the way, has been reopened for those of you who didn’t get in on the first round.
I don’t think I’d better start naming anyone else in the group, or we would be here for the rest of the day. So many wonderful people responded to whatever needed to be done at the time, including 652 people who signed our petition over a two-month period early last year. Suffice it to say that our publicity was great, our turnout at meetings was extraordinary, and we raised around $15,000 for dog parks in Hamden.
Along the way, based on our common interest in the improvement of Hamden’s parks, our group became part of an existing non-profit organization, the Hamden Community Playground, Inc., which was responsible for two wonderful playgrounds, one here at Bassett Park (Larry’s Playground) and one at DeNicola Park in Whitneyville. I’d like to recognize Pam Greene, former member of the Legislative Council and president of Hamden Community Playground, Inc.
Why did we choose Bassett Park for the first dog park?
Bassett Park was, from the beginning, our preferred site. In the eighties and early nineties, several of our founding members had met here regularly to exercise their dogs. As baseball activity increased, tolerance for dogs decreased until the dreaded ‘No Dogs Allowed’ signs appeared a few years ago, with no alternative arrangements made for dog owners.
Beginning in Fall 2000, we worked with Frank Cooper, assistant director of Parks and Recreation, and Vin Conti from the town Engineering Department, to select a suitable parcel of this 46-acre park, which was left to the inhabitants of Hamden for their recreation and enjoyment by Miss Lydia Bassett early last century. After one false start with another site on Ridge Road, we came up with this one, which I’m sure you’ll agree is as close to perfect as we could wish. I’d also like to mention that I am grateful for an early vote of support from the Spring Glen Civic Association, whose members agreed that Bassett Park should continue to be a multi-use neighborhood park as well as a town-wide baseball facility.
So what have we been doing for the last two years?
The journey from idea to realization was long and intense. Mayor Carl Amento lent his support for the project early on, which was, of course, indispensable. Together with the Department of Parks and Recreation, we successfully submitted petitions, proposals, and applications to the Natural Resources and Open Space Commission, the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Inland Wetlands Commission, Planning and Zoning, and the Legislative Council.
We have attended countless public meetings and hearings, lobbied Council members, and listened to some truly remarkable comments and statements by members of the public and the Council. Our project has occasioned many letters to the local newspapers and almost as many articles and photographs. We thank the local news media for doing such a splendid job of reporting on this topic - a topic, I might say, which, despite its relative lack of importance in the great scheme of things, turned out to be one of the most surprisingly visible and controversial campaign issues in last year’s local election.
The culmination of all this activity was the approval last February of Mayor Amento’s request to the Council for $20,000 in State Local Capital Improvement funds for the dog park, which has paid for site preparation, as well as the fence and the trail.
Since then, town workers and R-DOG volunteers have been very busy working on this site, and R-DOG has continued to raise money to pay for the extras that help to make this park so attractive - benches, tables, Dogipot stations, tree plantings, and the brick walk and patio, not to mention the plastic bags that are so essential to a dog park! As you can see from this area here, a little landscaping work still remains to be done.
In addition, many individuals and businesses have contributed money, services, and materials to help make this park a reality. When I made up the invitation list, it came to 240 individuals or couples, all of whom had contributed in some tangible way. There are many more who gave generously of their time and encouragement.
We have received excellent cooperation from the staff of the Mayor’s Office, the Engineering Department, the Department of Public Works, and the Parks and Recreation Department, whose director is Frank Rizzuti, as well as the supervisor of parks, Stan Sablak and his staff members Rich Cumpstone and Ben Floriano. Thank you all! You can all be proud of this beautiful new facility, the first properly equipped dog park in the Greater New Haven area, and you can be gratified that so many dog owners already come here every day, grateful for the opportunity to exercise their dogs in a safe and attractive environment.
Thank you, Lydia Bassett!
Thank you, Mayor Amento!
Thank you, Karen, Jeff, Dawn, and all you wonderful R-DOG supporters!
Congratulations, Hamden!
Note: many people who are working to create dog parks in their own towns have asked us about liability. Our town insurance company has no exclusion for dog parks and so this recreational facility is covered by the town's policy, just as other facilities such as playgrounds, tennis courts, etc., are covered.