Village of Oak Creek residents may have been in for a bit of a shock when they went to walk Fido at the Big Park Community School field recently, only to be accosted with a padlocked fence and a sign forbidding the four-legged friends.

“Sedona-Oak Creek Unified School District is prohibiting unleashed dogs on any area of the Big Park Community School property due to safety concerns.

“As always, we welcome community use of school facilities, but at this time we must pursue all measures to make community use safe for all those who desire to use school grounds.

“It is our hope that a secured area for unleashed dogs may be provided in the future with appropriate permitting and insurance approval.”

The school district still owns Big Park Community School, although it hasn’t been used as a district campus since 2018. Instead, the district rents out different classrooms to other businesses and groups, including Sedona Village Learning Center preschool and Red Mountain Music Academy.

Even though the wordage of the new sign only prohibits the illegal use of letting dogs roam off-leash on the field, the gate is locked to any human or canine that is not part of SOCSD or in contract with them, for now. SOCSD Facilities & Operations Director Jennifer Chilton said the district did have a sign instructing the public to keep their dogs on leashes, but it was often ignored and the district didn’t have a way to enforce it.

The liability concerns of having the field be treated as an unofficial dog park were too large for the district, as was determined at the Nov. 10 SOCSD Governing Board Meeting.

The concern was brought up at the meeting by Heather Hermen, vice president of the council through the end of the year and president-elect of the VOC Rotary Club. Hermen noted that a sponsor of the Rotary Club’s community garden being built at the site was scared to enter because of off-leash dogs. She said she has also received countless emails from residents worried about the safety of the field.

“I know our dog park up at Sedona Posse Grounds requires dogs to have certain vaccinations, and the signage everywhere,” said council member Lauren Robinson. “I’ve been to informal dog parks where my dog actually got bit by another aggressive dog and if it’s on our school property and that happens, wouldn’t we be liable?”

Chilton said that in 2018 after the Big Park Community School was closed as a district school, some groups did look into the possibility of opening up the field as an official dog park, but ran into some logistical hoops.

“When we kind of got to the rezoning and one of the interested parties researched that to determine what it would require, and the cost, and I think requested that the district pursue that at the district’s expense, that’s kind of where we stopped with them,” Chilton said.

The rezoning and additions to make the area an official dog park would be complicated, costly and time-consuming, and now that there are children on campus again, that complicates things even more, Chilton said.

“For that time period where there were no children, we wanted to be good neighbors, we wanted to build and rebuild relationships with the community, and I always appreciated people walking there. They were our eyes and ears,” she said. “Now, however, we have children on the campus again, which are our legitimate renters at the preschool, so they’ve expressed concern, because the person walking their dog would come in through their entry.”

Councilmember Karen McLelland said she understood the liability issues, but also the value of the park to dog owners, especially in the time of COVID-19. She believes those who use the park and live in the area would be happy to raise funds to make an official dog park as they did for the garbage pick-up at the park, and would like to get some kind of group together.

SOCSD Governing Board President Randy Hawley also noted that the field is often scattered with feces and other trash.

“It’s going to take a lot of time, effort and money to make it legal, so what are you going to do from here forward?” he asked the board. “Do we lock it up and say you can’t go in there? We’re going to get a lot of kick back. But in the same breath, it wasn’t being done legally to begin with. So now that we know about it, do we have a responsibility to do something about it?”

If, and when, the field will reopen to the public is still up in the air. However, Fido still has a multitude of options to get exercise in the area, whether it be a walk around the neighborhood, the 20 minute drive to Posse Ground dog park, or the dozens of trails and miles of forest lining the red rocks.

VOC Dog Park Committee Notice:
“The invitation is open to community members who would like to form an official group and contact Jennifer Chilton, director of operations for the district [chilton@sedonak12.org], to hear the history and identify the steps necessary to move forward to see if creating an official dog park is a viable option.” — Randy Hawley, Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board President