Politics & Government

GGNRA's Dog Leash Laws Considered Tonight

Hundreds expected at open-house on dog-management plan tonight for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is hosting a public event at Tam High this evening about its proposed dog restrictions throughout the 75,000-acre parkland, changes that would restrict and in some cases ban off-leash dogs from 21 areas, including Olema Valley.

“This is truly a plan that effects everybody who visits, whether you have a dog or not, have kids or not, are a jogger or a windsurfer or anything,” said Alexandra Picavet, a spokesperson for the National Park Service. “Every one of the 16 million annual visits to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area will be affected by this draft dog management plan.”

And while agency officials expect a few hundred attendees, they’ll be keeping them on a short leash, so to speak.

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Tonight’s event is being held in the Ruby Scott Gym from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., but it is not a public hearing in the traditional sense. Rather, the event is an informational open house, with individual tables focusing on the geographic areas and other aspects of the draft plan. There won’t be a microphone for attendees to share their opinions and discussions will be held in a workshop-style setting.

“The goal of this format is to facilitate the opportunity of everyone being heard and for no one feeling left out because they didn’t get a chance to speak,” said agency spokesperson Alexandra Picavet. “The intent of the whole meeting is to get public input into the process and that's not met when only four or five people get to speak.”

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The agency is implementing the changes for a number of reasons, including protecting sensitive habitat, reducing conflicts between dog owners and non-dog owners, providing a variety of visitor experiences and improving visitor safety, among others, according to the draft plan.

The 2,400-page draft plan, first issued Jan. 14, covers 21 specific areas within GGNRA. For each area, the agency has outlined six possible policies and recommended one of them, ranging in severity from banning dogs completely in some areas to restricting the areas where dogs can be off leash in others.

For the Oakwood Valley area off the south side of Tennessee Valley Road, for instance, there would be restricted off-leash access along the Oakwood Valley Fire Road. But dogs would be banned from parts of Oakwood Valley Trail, which connects with the Alta Trail and Orchard and Pacheco fire roads near Marin City, and would need to be on a leash on the parts of the trail where dogs are permitted.

Such a change would make Lis Fuchs, a Strawberry resident who uses those trails regularly, much less likely to use the trail.

“Rufus is a hunting dog, a running, sporting breed,” she said of her five-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback. “These dogs need to run, and I don’t walk along these trails alone, so when they add these leash laws, they become trails I won’t use, which is a shame because these are a beautiful trails.”

Fuchs suggested the plan incorporate peak hours, whereby dog owners would be required to keep dogs on a leash on weekends and at times when trails get the heaviest amount of traffic but could let them roam free at non-peak times.

Under the draft plan, dogs will be required to be on-leash along the Homestead Valley Fire Road on Homestead Hill, which runs along the east side of Panoramic Highway, and would be restricted to the fire road and some neighborhod connector trails.

That would limit the ability of Mario Klip to train Villa, his black Karelian Bear Dog that is used to help relocate bears from populated areas around Lake Tahoe. Klip said he needs to be able to direct Villa from a distance off leash to maintain the dog’s training.

“It’s a difficult situation,” Klip said. “I can understand both sides of the argument, because I know that having dogs running around can have an impact on things like nesting birds and deer and things like that.”

The problem, as Klip sees it, is a policy that puts all dog owners into the same group and not making a distinction between dog owners who are able to maintain strong voice command of their dogs from those who are not able to do so. Klip compared the move to reacting to mountain bikers who go off trail by banning all mountain bike use from an area.

He proposes a permitting system, whereby dog owners are required to display their voice command over their dog and then pay an annual permit fee to let them run their dogs off-leash.

 “There are people whose dogs who are not well trained and do not listen to voice commands,” Klip said. “It’s always a few people but it affects the entire population of dog owners.”

Picavet said the suggestions of Fuchs and Klip could be incorporated into one of the alternatives and she encouraged residents to submit potential tweaks on those existing alternatives.

The plan has drawn the ire of officials in San Francisco, where Supervisor Scott Wiener said he is worried that the policy changes will send dog owners to more of the city’s parks and thus places an additional burden on the city. Wiener has called for a Board of Supervisors hearing on the matter.

Today’s open house is the first in a series of public events the park service is hosting before the public comment period closes April 14. Picavet said the park service intends to use the open houses as a platform to hear specific input from the community.

“Don’t let anger or misunderstanding get in the way of being part of the process,” she said.

Draft Dog Management Plan Open Houses:

March 2: 4 to 8 p.m., Tamalpais High Student Center, 700 Miller Ave., Mill Valley.

March 5: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., San Francisco State University, Seven Hills Conference Center, State Drive, S.F.

March 7: 4 to 8 p.m., Fort Mason Center, Building A, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, S.F.

March 9: 4 to 8 p.m. at Cabrillo School, 601 Crespi Drive, Pacifica.


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