The Oswego Village Board held a Committee of the Whole meeting on September 16, 2025, at 6:00 PM to discuss the relocation of the Happy Tails Dog Park following its closure on September 1. Staff presented survey data, cost savings from salvaged materials, and three potential interim locations. The board ultimately directed staff to pursue the Hunt Club site and to make the dog park free of charge.
Please. President Kaufman. Here. Trustee Cooper. Here. Trustee Hughes. Here. Trustee Koenig. Here. Trustee McCarthy Lang. Here. Trustee Novi. Here. Trustee Torres. Here. All right. We're going to call the uh public. Well, open the public forum, excuse me. If there's anybody wishing to address the public or the board, please feel free to step forward now. Seeing nobody, we will close the public forum and move on to old business. Under new business, we have uh the happy dog happy tales dog park update. Alejandro. Come on down, sir. Welcome. Good evening, President Kaufman, Village Trustees, Village Administrators Dan and Jean, and Director Kurt. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. All right, so we have the Happy Tales Dog Park update. Our update this evening follows our previous committee of the whole meeting on June 24th. Um I will quickly highlight some of the summaries from the unleashing insights, Happy Tales Dog report, current updates through today, and we'll wrap up uh with any questions that the board may have. And ultimately, uh staff is seeking board direction on the preferred interim dog park location and salvage operations. Uh pending the decision tonight, staff at a future date uh will return with any kind of site specific layout plans, any refined costs, and any necessary agreements. All right, unleash and insights. Following the board's guidance, uh, village staff, um, including our village administrator, the chief financial officer, assistant to the village administrator, our GIS specialists, forestry technician, and more, all compiled financial data, access usage swipe data, survey data, and more that was analyzed to compile this unleashing insights report. Moreover, staff wants to thank all the 50 various uh active registered dog park uh residents who participated in an additional survey in order to get this information for you all. Um it focused on the Happy Tales categories, including enjoyed aspects, suggestions for improvement, and preferred location. All right, digging into a 90-day look back, a swipe entry data that ended June 23rd, uh the Happy Tales averaged just over six unique users on average per day. Those counts and graphs can be found on page five of the report, followed by a mapping of all registered dog park users. Quantitative kind of quantitatively, 84% of surveyed participants expressed a positive view of the park site. The survey inquired about the residents' willingness to travel, with uh 50% of the results indicating willingness to travel under 10 minutes, and an additional 30% of responses indicating a willingness to travel up to 15 minutes. Many of the respondents, about 43 percent, own medium to large dogs, which are about 26 to 50 pounds and 51 to 75 plus pounds, respectively. Our open-ended questions provided an opportunity to uncover valuable insights in the residents' thoughts, feelings, and expectations regarding the Happy Tales Dog Park. Again, across the three core categories, aspects of the current park enjoyed most, preferred location for the new park, and suggestions for improvement. Overall, residents enjoyed the natural qualities, the closeness to home, and room to run. The preferred location focused on somewhere close to the existing Happy Tales location or nearby or even downtown. Suggestions for improvement, including adding more shade, more benches, and more water. Word clouds are shown for each of these categories on pages seven and eight. All right, our current update. After unleashing those insights, here we are today. Happy Tales Dog Park was closed as of September 1st. Staff's removal and asset salvage plan is well underway.