On June 9th there will be a vote on the South Portland School Budget at the South Portland Community Center. There will be a couple of citizen initiated petitions you may be asked to sign when you go to cast your vote. One of them is to ban access of people who walk their dogs on Willard Beach for six months a year, access residents have enjoyed for years. During the winter months all dogs would be on-leash if this referendum passes.

The South Portland Dog Owners Group strongly opposes this referendum language. The ordinance currently in place allows residents to access the beach with their dogs from 7-9 am and 7-9 pm . Just four hours a day when the beach is less congested. This is very similar access to what other towns allow on their public beaches.

Since March the Dog Owners Group has spent many hours at the entrance of Willard Beach this spring promoting safety, respect and sharing the beach with everyone who chooses to use it. There have been very few complaints this spring called into the police department, and they were only about people bringing their dogs to the beach outside permitted hours (which by the way is a $100 fine for the first offence). This again shows there have been very few problems with access by dog owners to this public beach.

The Dog Owners Group is a group of community members who highly value our access to this public open space. We organize cleanups, work with other community organizations, promote dog owner responsibility, and we respect the spaces we access.

Our group will be at the Community Center to present our side of the issue and to provide information for the public. Before you make a decision to sign a petition that would ban us from this public beach please stop by and talk to us. An educated decision is the best one you can make when endorsing or choosing not to endorse a referendum item to be placed on a ballot.

I also welcome feedback to the following e-mail address: southportlanddog@yahoo.com or directly to me via my cell phone: 671-6393.

Sincerely,

Crystal Goodrich
South Portland Dog Owners Group


www.sopodog.com