“It was like giving birth,” she said.
“And giving birth.
“And giving birth.”
The Dog Park, one acre in size, stands today as a shining monument to the many who may have thought it would not happen,
Four and a half years and four and a half million beads of perspiration after a knot of dog lovers declared their plans, The Boneyard, as oldtimers call that crowning section of Culver City Park, became a daddy.
Without fanfare. The celebration is scheduled for later in the year. The idea now is to circulate the word among Greater Culver City dog lovers that the park, at last, is alive. It is open every day of the week from dawn until dusk.
The Day a Park Was Born
When the curtain was raised early in the morning, two fenced-in areas — one for dogs weighing twenty-five pounds and more, one for smaller species — were unveiled.
The layout looked perfect to the most enthusiastic pet lovers, and there must have been a hundred who came throughout the first day.
Ms. Daly Redholtz, the face of the lengthy Dog Park campaign, the engineer who has been relentlessly driving the train since before 9/11, knows the head count better than anybody. She did duck home several times, on Saturday, but otherwise she stood guard nearly every minute of the day.
Ms. Daly Redholtz and her by now well-known organization, the Friends of the Culver City Dog Park, became a Monday night staple in Council Chambers over the years.
Periodically, she would report on fundraising — they have banked a hefty $80,000, so far — interruptions or other difficulties, or the annual dinner, the Boneyard Bash. Smartly maintaining a consistent public presence, she never let the community forget — in a low-key manner —how avidly the Dog Park was desired and needed.
Yesterday morning, she stepped into a small conference room in her third-floor business office on the Westside and spilled out many of her feelings.
Ms. Daly Redholtz sort of wandered into the first organizational meeting of the several residents who wanted to try one more time to establish a dog park. Community activist and city commissioner Jeff Cooper introduced the concept to her. After twenty-two years with volunteering for a youth-oriented organization, she was ready to spend her volunteer hours with adults.
As the only one of the eighteen participants at the organizational meeting armed with the weapons du jour, a pad and pencil, her importance multiplied exponentially. She has been soaring ever since.
Answering the Question of Why
Ms. Daly Redholtz said the motivation was elementary: “Since dogs are not allowed (even) on leashes in the city parks,” she said, “we wanted an off-leash park so there would be a place for dogs to play in Culver City.”
Thinking it up turned out to be the easiest part.
Culver City, she explained, is unusual among fourteen surrounding communities with its total restriction against dogs, on or off leash, in city parks.
“For a dog owner,” she said, “the alternative was to walk his dog in the backyard, if he even had one. That meant many dogs walked on cement.
“The main advantage of a dog park is that dogs are off leash. They can run and play. They can socialize and learn better behavior. They learn what it is like being around a lot of dogs and a lot of people.”
Ms. Daly Redholtz said the outing to the Dog Park up the hill at the southernmost extremity of Duquesne will be beneficial for both species “ For the dog,” she said, “it is socialization and exercise. For the community, it is a way to meet people. You exchange phone numbers, and maybe you will meet at the same time the next time”
Having the Dog Park does not replace walking — but it will for some older people. “They are able to drive,” she said, “but they can’t walk that much.”
A Little Doggie History
Ms. Daly Redholtz believes two earlier efforts to secure a dog park may have failed because the organizers did not follow through. According to her, they did not participate in trying to land a park, let alone sorting out the perplexing details.
“They sat back and waited for one to happen,” she said.
Just the opposite of how Ms. Daly Redholtz and her Friends of the Culver City Dog Park tirelessly performed throughout the last four and a half years.
“When we came to the city,” she said, “they told us, ‘Come back when you have a plan.’ We said, ‘We have made one.’”The strategy was to coordinate broad community support. Raise a little thunder — and money. “At the time,” Ms. Daly Redholtz said, “we thought we would need around $20,000.”
Having raised more than four times that amount, she said, the Friends of the Culver City Dog Park will continue to fundraise, indefinitely, to insure that support is permanently available.
“We wanted the land to be city-owned and city-operated,” she said, “and we would pay for building it. It was important that it not be a private entity. We didn’t want to own a dog park. We wanted something for the community.”
The financial spine of the Dog Park — $250,000 in one grant to clean up The Boneyard and $150,000 in another — is partially attributable to the connections of Mayor Albert Vera, Ms. Daly Redholtz said.
The mayor also backed the earlier dog park attempts.
She said that City Council members Gary Silbiger, the Vice Mayor, and Alan Corlin also have been supportive.
Ms. Daly Redholtz’s excellent adventure took detours that would have discouraged someone less doggedly determined to make the Dog Park happen.
“The city was supportive,” she said. “But it was up to us. ‘We have an interest,’ they told us. ‘But we don’t have money. It’s up to you.’”
Finding a site — a fairly well known community landmark — was not difficult. But when it came time for City Hall to nail down the city-owned property, vexing problems began knocking on the doggie door day and night.
“First we looked at the Ropes Course in Culver City Park, near the nature trail,” she said. “But that already had been given over. There really wasn’t any other parkland except for this dump (The Boneyard). One problem was, the city did not know what was (under) the land.”
By some accounts, the city had buried everything beneath the nicknamed Boneyard except pirate treasure and bones.
Old playground equipment, Stop signs and stoplights are said to be lying in peace, more or less, beneath the surface.
What made the process messy, though, was that oil drilling equipment also had come to an unceremonious end in The Boneyard, Ms. Daly Redholtz said. That brought in the Plains Exploration and Production Co., or PXP, the oil drilling company that has been in the news lately because of gas leaks in the Culver Crest neighborhood.
Even though building the Dog Park took longer and cost more than originally projected, “there was not one big holdup in the process, and we are very happy,” Ms. Daly Redholtz said.
Postscript
For a fuller picture of one of Culver City’s most unique parks, see culvercitydogpark.org.
