Critics Snap at Goldberg Over Dog Park Approval

It was a battle fraught with all kinds of political intrigue: Freedom of Information Act requests, allegations of censorship and abuse of authority, supercharged exchanges in the corridors of power.

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In short, it was a big fight over one of the few municipal issues that people really get exercised about: whether to create a leash-free dog park.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to create the one-acre Silver Lake park, on a one-year trial basis, at the urging of Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. But the action came over the bitter objections of some in the neighborhood who said they felt like they had been battling the Kremlin instead of Goldberg, a civil liberties champion who cut her political teeth as a UC Berkeley activist.

“This is old-time politics, not the politics of some defender of the little guy,” Silver Lake resident Ann-Marie Martin said. “And I voted for Jackie.”

For her part, Goldberg maintained that dog owners are notoriously underserved and need more places to let their animals run loose.

Moreover, Friday’s council decision only legalized what has been a very popular bootleg dog park for several years anyway, the councilwoman said. By making it a legally sanctioned dog park and fencing in the area, the situation will be safer, said Goldberg, who said the dog park was the most widely discussed issue in her district.

As dog owner Steve Fisk testified Friday: “It’s important to the dogs of this city.” He was among half a dozen dog park boosters who showed up for the meeting. Roughly twice as many opponents were on hand.

The action created the city’s second leash-free zone; the first is at Laurel Canyon Park.

The council’s decision did not surprise Martin and other opponents, who maintain that the real underdogs in the flap are Goldberg’s human constituents. They complain that there is precious little park space for humans in the city’s densely populated urban core--and to give some of it over to dogs is outrageous.

But Martin also claimed that Goldberg has acted imperiously in dealing with foes of the dog park.

The councilwoman, for example, initially refused to provide park foes with a copy of a petition that she has held up as evidence that the dog park is popular with her 13th District constituents. “You’d have thought it was top secret,” Martin said of her efforts to obtain a copy of the document.

Eventually, Martin and her cohorts had to file a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that Goldberg hand over the petition. After consultation with the city attorney’s office, Goldberg’s office produced the document--but it was heavily censored to delete all the names of the signers, part of their addresses and all their phone numbers.

In effect, the foes claim they still cannot tell if there really is as much support for the park as Goldberg claims.

Goldberg said Friday that she did not want to give out information about the supporters because the foes were getting so “nasty” that she feared for the park backers’ safety.

Goldberg, her critics charge, also had pressured city police and animal regulation officers to accept a de facto dog park in Silver Lake months ago--even though the action needed to legally create the park was not taken until Friday. “She’s told them not to enforce the leash law,” Martin said.

Sharon Delugach, Goldberg’s chief deputy, confirmed that her boss had asked city officials to “relax enforcement” of the leash law at the site for a period last summer but later told them to resume enforcement.

In October, in anticipation that a dog park would be created, an eight-foot-high fence was erected to enclose the site, next to the Silver Lake Recreation Center below the dam at Silver Lake reservoir.

Goldberg’s critics even claim that they have seen the councilwoman at the Silver Lake park with a dog off its leash. “I’ve seen her there with her dog,” Martin said.

“Absolutely not,” said Goldberg, an Echo Park resident who owns two dogs, Oaxaca and Montana. “I personally have never been to the park with my dogs on or off leash.”

Passions ran high throughout the debate, as Councilman Nate Holden learned when he initially voted against the park. Holden at first believed, inaccurately, that dog droppings might contaminate Silver Lake reservoir, a drinking water source. (He had arrived at the meeting too late to hear a city water quality official testify that such contamination was not a concern, particularly because the park was located below the reservoir dam.)

After Holden cast his no vote, an agitated Goldberg approached and heatedly informed him that “water does not flow uphill.” She stomped off, tossing a few choice words over her shoulder.

A stunned and apparently chastised Holden later asked that his vote be reconsidered.

The final tally: 14 to 0.