Dog, soccer clubs bury hatchet

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Frolicking Fidos at the new Loyal Duke Dog Park don’t necessarily evoke grins from everyone. Chaffee County United has invested years of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money and in-kind services in the soccer fields on school district land near the new dog park; they are protective of their interest.

Ben Oswald, instigator-in-chief for the eponymous soccer fields, says that the club wasn’t adequately included in the decision-making process which led to the school district granting approval for the dog park. Dog Club president Laura Pintane disputes the point, noting that nobody from the soccer club commented on dog club presentations before the school district or the city council.

Kept awake at night by visions of vandals joyriding across the soccer fields, Oswald saw the dog club’s request to keep the normally-gated parking lot open during daylight hours as problematic. The negotiated settlement between the two clubs involves a partial payment by the dog club for a chain-link fence to help protect the fields, the remainder to be paid by the soccer club.

While the soccer advocates wanted a fence anyway, they don’t appreciate the timing of the expense. “For a little club that is struggling financially, $3000 is not ‘mission impossible’, but it’s added stress that we don’t need right now,” Oswald said.

Oswald was initially skeptical of the need for the dog park at all, given the proximity of trails and other open space. He became more convinced of the project’s utility for the community after learning that the dog park will be used by the elderly and infirm who are looking to exercise their animals.

Concerns about barking and odor from dog feces were also largely assuaged by the dog club.

And there is one distinct upside for the soccer club. The dog park will protect a network of underground pipes that harvests irrigation water and drains it into a well used to water the soccer fields. The plastic pipes, known collectively as the “galleries,” are close to the surface of the ground and could be damaged by, for example, a vehicle driving across them. Now that the fencing for the dog park completely surrounds the galleries, this less of a concern for Oswald and Chaffee County United.

There may be a more personal upside for Oswald, too. For years he has had a vision of a state-of-the-art recreation center, hockey rink, trails network and additional playing fields situated on the school district property. He waxes poetically about the benefits which could accrue to the community. And he asserts that there is money available via a wide variety of funding sources, including innovative public-private partnerships.

It’s easy to envision people standing at the dog park looking out over the empty land adjacent to the soccer fields, wondering aloud why a recreation center isn’t sitting there.

But any new community support for a recreation complex may already be too late for Oswald. Among other options, he is contemplating a coaching position in Panama. If he takes it, he isn’t sure when, or if, he might return.

Oswald and Pintane not only get along, they share in that camaraderie common to people who work long hours for little or no pay for a vision they believe in deeply. And in the end, Oswald is philosophical about the new dog park. “I believe if you do the right thing for the right thing’s sake, other good things will happen.”

That is something that Pintane, and the rest of the dog club, would heartily agree with.