Dear editor,
Please, Comox council, do not turn Port Augusta Park into an off-leash dog park, as you've been asked to do.
A group of dog owners has already been routinely treating it as such for a long time, despite the posted bylaw.
They now want council to legitimize what they have been doing illegally. This would effectively remove the park from free and full neighbourhood usage.
Responsible parents do not take small children to a park where unleashed dogs are running around. Also, this park is one of the few places in the neighbourhood offering beach access.
The public should not be separated from the beach by a bunch of unleashed dogs.
And the dogs are being driven to the park from other neighbourhoods, they don't live adjacent to it.
This park was created and has been maintained for people first, not dogs.
If they really can't live without an off-leash park for their dogs, find them a more secluded, and/or fenced area, as other cities do.
Don't give them a public park in a residential neighbourhood in the middle of town.
And, a warning to Courtenay: If they get away with it in Comox, they'll go after your Airpark next.
J. Cates,
Comox