City officials in San Jose have now drawn the ire of a powerful special interest group: dog lovers. Parks and Rec’s budget has been chopped to the point that it says it can longer afford to supply free bags at San Jose’s nine dog parks so that owners can clean up after their pups, as the law requires. The city’s newest plastic bag ban is expected to save $111,000, according to the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services department, including the staff costs of stocking the dispensers. Acting PRNS director Julie Edmonds says while owners will have to bring their own bags, dog parks will still provide trashcans so owners don’t have to take full doggie bags home. Smelling an opportunity, councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio press-released his $1,000 to the Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden, which will be seeking donations to keep the dispensers in District 6 stocked. Oliverio’s donation came from a grant fund that the city gives each councilmember to distribute to non-profits. The purebreds in the swanky Rose Garden, however, won’t be the only canines enjoying sweet-smelling recreational facilities if the populist executive director of the San Jose Parks Foundation has his way. “We’re going to do it citywide,” SJPF’s Jim Reber says. Terri Festa, president of Society Dog, which sponsors events for women, men and their best friends, calls the decision to no longer offer the bags at San Jose’s dog parks a “bummer” but expects dog owners to continue to do the right thing.
San Jose Inside
San Jose Inside (https://www.sanjoseinside.com)
Easy and No cost solution – Use Mercury plastic bags
or picking up dog poop with Merc’s
Another real easy solution: spend your grocery money in Santa Clara, Campbell, etc. I’ve oft said that the only way to kill the SJ political beast is to starve it to death. Moreover, one can get plastic bags beyond the bounds of SJ. Bring them home and use them for dog poop or whatever.
Personally, I go out of my to spend my money in Sunnyvale or Santa Clara. They are both well run municipalities and I can at least say that I don’t support our greasy SJ politicians in their underhanded and concealed endeavors to waste our tax money.
When the plastic bag ban (PBB) goes into effect, I will be doing all of my shopping in Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
The council should just pass out the same bags that they place on all the seats at council meetings. Why not just lay off another dedicated employee and they could buy bags for years.
Better yet, place one over your head and smell the same crap you are force feeding the rest of us.
As usually Chuckie and his clowns are a total joke.
Look at the bright side, the city has laid off everyone from enforcing the municipal code section that prohibits your pet from leaving a steaming pile on San Jose property.
Maybe we can have a dog friendly day at city council meetings. Just like the crapped on all of us.
This is silly, this should not be a city responsibility anyway. Dog owners should take responsibility for their dogs and bring their own bags. More than that – they should always clean up after their pets – and that does not always happen. Somehow dog owners also think it is ok to let their dogs to urinate everywhere too. It is disgusting. Let them urinate and defecate all over your own yards.
I’m tired of feces and urine in the parks, on the sidewalks, in yards etc.. left by irresponsible dog owners.
I have a better idea: Keep your F’n dogs out of the parks like the law you ignore says! The parks are for PEOPLE to use and enjoy. They are not your dog’s toilet. I don’t care if you live in an apartment or don’t have a back yard – train your pets to deficate and urinate on your own stuff.
There is no bag supplied on the taxpayers dime or any other dime that cleans all the feces off the blades of grass and there isn’t one of you who is responsible or conscientious enough (no matter how you try to portray yourself) to even attempt remove all your dog leaves behind from its behind! Which one of you ever removed the grass killing urine your dog marked our parks with?
The City should cite every dog owner walking a dog in a city park and the ones who let fido off leash should be fined x10! That will help close the budget defecit!
Since the bag dispensers have not been restocked at Quicksilver and the Los Alamitos trails, I’ve noticed that walkers/hikers are bringing newpaper plastic bags and stuffing or haning them on the dispensers for dog walkers. Hopefully, they will leave the dispensers in place.
The City Parks, County Parks are covered in Weeds, NOT grass. Dog’s urine doesn’t kill the weeds. We pickup our dog’s gifts, deposit them in the garbage cans provided. Some people are just jealous that they are not allowed to own a dog and want all dogs removed from the face of the earth. Others are just so afraid of dogs that they hang with the group in the afore sentence. YES, there are those who refuse to clean up after their dogs, SHAME ON THEM! You should call out the ones that you see refusing to pickup after their dogs. Take pictures of them, post it to social media, embarrass them as often as you can. As far as dogs off leash, report that to San Jose Animal Control. If they aren’t greasy like our council members, they MIGHT respond to it.
This story was posted 12 years ago…
I have yet to see ONE sign saying dogs are NOT allowed in any City, County, State Parks. They do say that dogs MUST be leashed though. Get your laws correct before showing the world how under educated you really are.