Dog Park in Ludlow Park

I finally had a chance to tally up the number of signatures on all the Dog Park Petitions that I'm aware of so far and thought you might like to see how we're doing. Our main goal was 250 LOCAL signatures to make an impression on the local politicians who have to work with the Yonkers City Council to initiate an appeal to NY State for use of that land. Along the way, we picked up quite a bit of non-local support!

A. The On-line Petition
Hosted at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/a-dog-park-for-Ludlow-Park/ from Nov. 30, 2010 to Jan. 12, 2011, the petition picked up a total of 263 signatures from all around the world! Of these, the 93 signatures from people in NY State will be important once our request makes its way to Albany. The on-line petition was closed by the host site when we stopped picking up new signatures.

B. The local Paper Petition Drive - based on those turned in to me thus far:
65 Total Dog Owner Signatures
109 Total Dogless People Signatures
174 Grand Total Paper Petition Signatures -- Thanks to all who have worked hard to gather these!!!

However, nearly two-thirds of those paper petition signatures are from outside our neighborhood! Here's how the truly local numbers look:
22 Dog Owner living in the neighborhood have signed on
44 Dogless residents in the neighborhood have signed on
66 Total Paper petition signatures from Ludlow Park

It's absolutely wonderful that folks who don't own dogs account for two-thirds of our support! However, when you stop to consider that there are around 250 homes (in the mid 400's counting multi-family dwellings), our 66 local signatures may not be impressive enough to sway the politicians whose minds are on the number of local votes they might get in exchange for supporting our effort.

Big Problem: Many homes in Ludlow Park have not yet been canvassed! The 66 local signatures that we've captured come primarily from the building at 25 Sunnyside Ave., from all of Ashton Road, with a few on Hawthorne, Culver, Franklin and Abeel, and less than a handful from the all-critical Purser Place houses closest to the proposed site.

We can do better than this! We must if we want the Dog Park to happen! I urge those who signed up to canvass Belvedere, Beechwood, Fairfield, Franklin, Hawthorne and Sunnyside to please get in touch with me ASAP, either by Reply email or on my cell phone (646-379-1507), to figure out how we can best wrap up the paper petitions and send them on their way.

We need additional volunteers to pitch in and help out those who are having trouble completing the assignments they took on at the Chema Center meeting we had late last fall. The summer is the best season for canvassing, so let's not miss this opportunity! Please don't be shy!! A "donation" of just a half hour of your time can make a Big Difference! I'm available to answer any questions and provide material and logistical support.

With high hopes,

Kathe Hertzberg