While people flout the rule all the time, residents are, in fact, prohibited from walking their dogs in Brookfield’s parks.
However, when the village spent $1.1 million to improve the eastern portion of Jaycee/Ehlert Park earlier this year, they spent a couple of bucks on a permanent water dish for dogs and located it in the middle of the new area, near the pavilion.
So which is it? Are dogs allowed in the park or not?
That’s what the Brookfield Playgrounds and Recreation Commission wants to find out. So at their next meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7 in the courtroom of the Brookfield village hall, 8820 Brookfield Ave., commissioners want to hear from residents on the matter.
“We’re going to hold an open forum to see how people feel about it,” said Linda Hyerdall, chairwoman of the commission.
“We’d like to see how citizens of Brookfield feel about it and we’ll tell the village board what the feedback was. Then they can see how they want to pursue it.”
Hyerdall said that the forum would likely focus on Brookfield’s larger parks and would not include allowing dogs in areas such as tot lots.
“It can’t be village-wide,” she said. “You can’t have dogs in tot lots; there’s not enough room.”
Over the past five years, the Playgrounds and Recreation Commission has broached the subject of creating a specific dog park within the village on a couple of occasions. However, the discussions led nowhere.
The roadblock that the commission has run into in the past is the resistance from neighbors who don’t trust dog owners to curb their pets or clean up after them.
Brookfield residents also have another close option since dogs are allowed-on leashes-in the forest preserve meadow just north of 29th Street at Prairie Avenue, a site the village once hoped it could get as an official dog park.
The playgrounds and recreation commission won’t be voting on any suggestions at the Jan. 7 meeting. The purpose is simply to gather information, Hyerdall said.