Kearny’s dog park will have separate spaces for smaller and larger pooches, as shown in sketch.
It looks like, finally, Kearny canine worshippers will have plenty to yap about now that the town governing body has found a way to build the town’s first-ever dog park.
The mayor and Town Council voted last Tuesday to give Reivax Contracting Corp. of Newark the job of assembling the “off-leash dog run” in Riverbank Park along Passaic Ave., just north of the Community Garden, for $300,303.
Representatives of Neglia Engineering, the town’s consulting engineers, said that Reivax submitted the lowest of six bids to qualify for the contract award.
Neglia’s Joseph Vuich said the project is designed for two areas, one measuring 87 feet by 75 feet, for small dogs (under 35 pounds) and a second plot, measuring 81 feet by 127 feet, for larger dogs.
“Each will have its own access gate, drinking fountains with faucets to fill dog water bowls, trash receptacles with waste bag dispensers, benches and a select number of trees to provide shade areas within the dog run,” he said. (For water, the dog park will tap into the Community Garden’s water supply source.)
All of that, he added, will be complemented with “handicap-accessible parking and sidewalk facilities for access to the park.”
When asked when the facility would open, both Vuich and his boss, Michael Neglia, hedged, saying that while the contract did set out a specific number of “construction days,” the timeline could be extended, given the vagaries of the approaching winter season.
Council President Carol Jean Doyle, who has been an aggressive advocate for the dog park, told The Observer that, “the mayor is pushing to have a shovel in the ground” as soon as possible and to “have the project complete before spring.”
But Doyle conceded that there is also “pressure for the work being done above the [Bunny] hill – Veterans Field – taking priority.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Neglia reported that delivery of the new field turf was expected this week. At a prior council session, Neglia sought to allay concerns raised by Councilman Richard Konopka about whether materials inside the turf presented potential health hazards for kids playing on it. Neglia said he was unaware of any problems arising from the turf being installed at Veterans Field.
Several months ago, a hiccup developed over the financing plan for the dog park when the state monitor assigned to oversee local spending vetoed the town’s proposal to draft a new bond ordinance to supplement a $175,000 grant from the Hudson County Open Space Trust Fund to fully fund the project.
Since then, however, town CFO Shuaib Firozvi told The Observer that the monitor has now sanctioned a plan to draw the extra $125,000 needed from a previously approved 2014 bond ordinance that included funding for general parks and playground improvements throughout the town. That bond was previously approved by the state Local Finance Board, he added.
Doyle estimated that, “easily between 75 and 100” pet owners – many who live in apartments and who would, otherwise, have no easy access to an outdoor dog run, will likely take advantage of the new facility when it’s ready.
“And many of those owners who have attended our public forums on the dog park have assured me that they will make every effort to keep that park clean by monitoring their dogs,” Doyle said.
