Dog Park Supporters Give Up the Search

After more than two years of unsuccessfully searching for a city park to convert into a place where dogs can play unleashed, a local organization created specifically to establish and operate a dog park in Fullerton has given up.

“We’re done,” said Sabrina Hall, founder of Friends of Fullerton’s Dog Park. “We can’t fight City Hall. The city has 53 parks and it doesn’t want to give up just one.”

Hall and her supporters make up Friends, a nonprofit organization that wanted a park where it wouldn’t be illegal to let dogs run free. They made their last plea to the Community Services Commission on Monday night.

They asked that a portion of Independence Park or the Fullerton parkland around the adjacent Brea dam be converted into a dog park. Commissioners said they would have to hold a public hearing on those requests before they could make a decision.

But Hall said Tuesday that her group has decided to disband and discontinue its search. She blamed city officials’ “unwillingness” to help convert any public green space into a dog park.

Hall said that even though her organization was willing to pay all operating costs of a dog park, she didn’t believe the city would ever approve one.

But Community Services Commission Chairwoman Bahia Wilson said the panel would support a dog park somewhere in town where neighbors also would favor it.

Finding such a place, however, has been difficult, she said.

Neighbors of both Grissom and White parks protested when the Friends proposed those locations last year.

Last month, officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns parkland below the Fullerton dam, said the corps would not approve turning it into a dog’s playground.

“For [the Friends] to disband now and to portray the city as being uncooperative is unfortunate,” Wilson said.

She said that although the Friends group has dissolved, the city will continue to try to find a suitable location for a dog park.