What's Ahead For Moraga's Rancho Laguna Park?

What's happening with Moraga's Rancho Laguna Park? Dog owners who like to let their dogs run unencumbered there want to know, as do park users who say their park experience has gone to the 57,000 dogs who visit each year -- and the little presents they sometimes leave behind.

Plans for a fenced-off dog run appear to be on hold after the Moraga Town Council, citing concerns about costs, hit the air brakes and declared they would be meeting March 14 to consider reversing their decision to build the "spatially separated" run. According to a brief missive in City Manager Jill Keimach's "About Town" report, the town's planning staff will be readying options -- including a new approach to popular (among dog owners, at least) off leash dog hours, currently restricted to early morning and early evening hours.

So, where does that land park users? In limbo for the moment, though the playground equipment removed earlier in the process for being out of date and dangerous is gone -- with there being little hope of the town coming up with the money needed to replace it. Locals and park users who brought their kids to the park to clamber on the equipment are a little sore that it was removed, though Parks and Recreation officials aver the gear presented a hazard and needed to be taken down anyway.

Who's happy? Dog owners are happy. For now, they can continue exercising the beloved family hound during off-leash hours before 9 a.m. and an hour after dusk.

Who's unhappy? Park users who say they're tired of having their picnic lunches sniffed by inquisitive canines, and those unlucky enough to have stepped into a doggie monument the assiduous corps of owners missed during their daily cleanup efforts.

Also unhappy, but probably less likely to say so, might be former Mayor Karen Mendonca and council members Ken Chew and Howard Harpham, who voted in favor of the spatially separated zone in apparent consensus after nearly three years of often contentious debate. Council member, now mayor, Mike Metcalf and fellow council member Dave Trotted cast the "nay" votes in a losing effort back in December but, well, that was then.

Keimach, in her "About Town" message last week, said the decision to reexamine the issue was "In recognition of the council's priority to spend its limited resources wisely." With the first phase of the project estimated to run the city between $140,000 and $155, with new sod and other work estimated to cost another $30,000, the bill for giving the dogs a fenced in area of their own may have seemed a bit much in hindsight.

It's money Moraga doesn't have, critics say, and if the potential cry of "spendthrift government" weren't enough of a negative, there was a lawsuit waiting in the wings -- filed by an Orinda attorney who questioned the project on many levels.

Curious? Interested in how it will all turn out? Join the club. But we'll all have to wait until March 14 when the council next takes up the issue.

Meanwhile, if there's a dog in your house who likes you to run him or her, Rancho Laguna is open before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m. in the summer, and 4 p.m. in the winter.

If you get there after the dogs do, you may want to keep an eye open for what dogs sometimes do.