Has Rec & Park been unsympathetic to the requests of Dolores Park dog owners?
My dog weighs six pounds, and I’ve estimated that I have already spent 55 hours per pound fighting for him to use the park. Nobody except the few people in Friends of Dolores Park seem to resent us. In the summer, the park is packed with the “Boys’ Beach” on the slope, with its wall-to-wall bikinis, plus the playground folk and the soccer folk, and we all get along quite well. Rec & Park’s new dog policy generated more outcry than anything else in Rec & Park’s history, but Rec & Park continues to act against our wishes. Elizabeth Goldstein, the general manager of Rec & Park, admitted that they didn’t even read the close to 3,000 letters we sent! Goldstein was hired by Willie Brown after she helped create New York’s dog pens. Veterinarians in New York tell you to not go to those pens because of the diseases they collect, because there’s no way to properly clean them. In San Francisco, Goldstein has an opportunity to continue our reputation as a progressive, dog-friendly city, but instea
