Board of Aldermen 06-08-2021 Page 15
will not be accessible to them. It will belong to someone else, gates will go up and people will not be allowed
to go through there. | think Wards 3 and 4 deserve the same kind of access to the park that Ward 1 enjoys. |
really hope everybody can vote for this and | thank you for the opportunity to speak.
President Wilshire
You’re welcome. Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you Madam Chair. | wasn’t going to speak on this because I’ve spoken ad nauseum about it. But! want
to repeat some of the things that have been said and | know Alderman Jette and | appreciated him bringing
back the Mayor’s remarks of if we don’t purchase this now and then later on someone says, why not? We
have heard that about Daniel Webster College, we have heard that about many other things. And the bottom
line is we can’t please everybody. This is $325,000.00 and to me $10.00 is a lot of money but anything that we
can do that is going to enhance this, | can tell you personally as a person who uses the park regularly that is
one of my loops. | have mentioned it before, | go out of the park from that exit through the mill yard and then
back into the park. Without that exit, if someone were to gobble up that land and basically close off the park,
that actually does have an effect. And | believe that Alderman O’Brien or one of the other Aldermen mentioned
about the races etc. that go on. It would change the complexity, it would change the whole feel of this park.
| think it’s necessary, | think we would literally have a closed off entrance there. | appreciate what Alderman
Schmidt also said about this being an entrance to Ward 4 and Ward 3. That is one of the entrances that | do
use and | often use the entrance from Ward 1 as well at Lincoln Park. | uses the one over by Stellos’ Stadium
and the Y. But this is the walking entrance for Ward 4. This is extraordinary important to maintain this and to
not have someone put in — whether it be a gravel parking or whatever it would be — to close this end of Mine
Falls and then later on we will have residents who will turn around and say, it was only $325,000.00. | never
like that word “only” but that is what we are going to hear. So | am going to be voting in favor of this. The dog
park is an ancillary portion of it. We already had permission from the mill yard so this is not the driving force to
purchase this land. The mill yard had already given permission for the dog park. This is just purchasing the
land because it has become available, the dog park is ancillary and | really wish that it didn’t have that name in
it but it does and we just need to deal with. So thank you so much.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you Madam President. | am having difficulty here with my video. Here we go. | just wanted to briefly
comment that the dog park has been around or the idea of having a dog park or the want to have more dog
parks have been around since I’ve been on the Board in 2008. In addition to that, we as a City should keep
improving and should keep improving the lives of our residents. And one of the ways to do that is to create
new parks, new public spaces for people to enjoy. It is actually in my opinion a responsibility of our City
Government. So | believe that this is a worthwhile venture. | think that the dog park is a good idea. | think that
there is going to be a lot of people who will utilize it and enjoy it. | understand that the City is facing a lot of
pressure from the State and that there are a lot of other spending priorities that need to happen.
But we are a City that we need to look at everything. We need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same
time. | think we are able to do that. | think this is a creative financing option for this to make it happen and | fully
support it. | think it is the right thing to do and | think people will really like the fact that we did this 5, 10, 15,
100 years from now.
