Regular users of the town's off-leash dog park will meet with town officials again this fall to discuss future improvements to the park.
Users reached out to town staff earlier this year to talk about some of the challenges the park faces and provided insight on possible solutions.
A meeting was organized in an effort to establish a dialogue between the users of the park and the town.
Sixteen regular users attended the meeting where they answered four questions pertaining to the park.
The first question asked was what users valued about the park and what initially drew them into using it and continuing to use it.
Responses included things such as the large size, new relationships with people and dogs, the fenced perimeter, the quality maintenance, and good parking.
Next, users were asked what the future of the park looks like to them and some of the ideas included paved walkways and a paved parking lot, shade structures, a fenced off area for dogs under 40 pounds and a paved path from the town to the park, which is located west of 70th Avenue in Mountain View County.
Users were asked how they can impact the usability of the park and they responded with suggestions such as cleaning up after their dogs, more benches through a possible fundraiser, promotion of the park throughout the county and communication with the town during the winter.
The final question asked what small changes could be made in the near future to encourage new people to come to the park and responses included more benches, porta-potties in the north, more garbage cans, more lights and a committee for the park.
It was suggested that a 10-year capital plan for the park be created that would outline when significant changes could come to the park but there hasn’t been any movement on it as of now, said Doug Wagstaff, director of community services for the Town of Olds.
“There hasn’t been any work further done on the tenure capital plan for the dog park,” he said.
At the end of the meeting the group of 16 regular users were asked if they would be interested in joining an advisory board for the off-leash park, and 13 people signed up.
The advisory board has met multiple times at the Town of Olds administration building, where they further discussed how to improve the park.
The advisory board will next meet in October or November to review how the summer season went this year.
