In Scotts Valley, dog owners and officials clash over proposed off-leash crackdown in city parks

Dogs running freely across sports fields, digging holes, leaving waste and sometimes charging at parkgoers have ignited a community debate over leash laws and enforcement in Scotts Valley.

Under city rules, dog owners must keep their pets on a leash and pick up after them in city parks, with a fine of $100 for noncompliance. But unruly dogs in city parks, and owners who disregard the city’s leash laws, have become a growing problem since the pandemic, city officials say. Scotts Valley City Councilmember Donna Lind told Lookout this week that she was charged by a dog in a city park.

“Even though we have these leash requirements posted, dog bags and waste containers, we see lots of unleashed dogs and feces left behind,” said Scotts Valley Parks & Recreation manager Allison Pfefferkorn.

At the center of this tension is Siltanen Park, a popular recreational area in the northern part of the city. The park is a large source of complaints about feces, holes in the baseball fields and aggressive behavior from unleashed dogs because of its many overlapping uses, according to the city. It has seven sports fields, an amphitheater, playground and swimming center. Patrols of Siltanen Park have stepped up in frequency, and warnings are being issued by the Scotts Valley Police Department, but in the future officials say those warnings could turn into $25 and $100 fines for repeat offenders.

The ongoing dog problems require Scotts Valley Little League to lock the park’s upper fields after practice to keep dogs and people off them, the league’s president, Jason Robideaux, said as he unloaded his pickup truck for baseball practice. People still lift their dogs over the fence to get around the restrictions.

“We’re not anti-dog. I’ve got dogs,” said Robideaux. “I wish there were more dog parks in our city. Until there is, keep the dogs off the fields.”

The incidents have prompted the city to propose tightening the rules for dogs in city parks, including more police patrols, better signs, more costly fines for misbehavior — and possibly banning dogs from the majors baseball field and softball fields at Siltanen Park.

That has drawn the ire of local dog owners, including those from the Siltanen Pup Party, a 90-member private Facebook group that meets regularly in the park. Group members insist that outsiders are creating problems, not the regular dog visitors. They say they’ve built a close-knit community where they enforce rules themselves: letting their hounds loose in the morning and at night when few people use the park, and shaming dog owners who can’t control their pets. 

At a Parks & Recreation Commission meeting earlier this week to consider updating the city’s rules for dogs in parks, Kerry Maxwell, who founded Siltanen Pup Party, stressed that the fields are used for a only few hours a day and he always picks up the dog poop and coyote scat he sees. He pulled out rolls of doggie bags to illustrate his group’s commitment to cleanliness.

Maxwell blames people who are not part of the community for leaving poop and not training their dogs correctly. “That’s what’s going on here, one rotten apple,” he said. “Then we have passed a law for one rotten apple as opposed to fixing it ourselves.”

Maxwell said he was issued a warning the morning of the meeting for having his dog off its leash, but he said the police officer was “embarrassed” to be coming up to him because of the insignificance of his offense.

Erik Hansen, who lives near Stiltanen Park, said the holes in the fields — one of the city’s primary concerns — are mostly caused by squirrels and gophers rather than dogs. Hansen, who visits the park regularly with his pet, said it was rare for him to find dog waste, since regular park visitors conscientiously clean up.

Commissioners didn’t make any decisions about new dog rules at the meeting but said they wanted staff to look into “canine citizenship,” a licensing program for well-behaved hounds, along with formal times and locations for dog owners to let their pets run wild at the park while they work on a longer-term fix.

On the other hand, the dog owners of Siltanen Park suggested that increased signage, self-policing and more responsible dog ownership are enough to solve any problems.

Commission Chair David Sanguinetti said he thinks the city needs to enforce its laws equally and provide more official spaces for dogs to run freely at specified times so the whole community can enjoy the fields. 

“I’m very familiar with the Siltanen group and how they operate, and they operate illegally, and have to be careful when the controls come through,” Sanguinetti said. “But they are the most responsible group that I ever encountered.”

One of the ideas is a “peer pressure” campaign to encourage parkgoers to intervene when dogs are digging in the fields, causing “unsafe areas for our sports teams and for our residents to enjoy our field,” said Pfefferkorn.

Commissioners say many of the issues could be alleviated if the city had more sanctioned spaces for dogs to roam off leash. 

In fact, there is only one temporary dog park within the city, which commissioners say is crowded and dangerous, forcing dog owners into becoming scofflaws. “I don’t want to criticize our dog park, but I would not put my dog in there,” Sanguinetti said. 

Shugart Park, an overgrown field adjacent to Siltanen, will become the city’s dog park once the city redevelops Skypark as part of Scotts Valley’s Town Center plan, Pfefferkorn said. A new dog park could be brought back to Skypark at a later date during discussion of the Skypark master plan. 

Pfefferkorn said the city would continue to gather community input before any decisions are made. For now, the issue remains unresolved, with tensions simmering between dog lovers and other park users.

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