Is it time for a dog park in the City of Santa Ana?

Wouldn’t the Santa Ana Lawn Bowling Center make a nice Dog Park?

Did you know that the City of Santa Ana has no dog parks?  I called today and spoke with a lady at the City of Santa Ana’s dog license department.  She was very helpful! 

She said that we have 11,835 dogs currently licensed in our city.  And she figures there might be even more dogs that are currently unlicensed.  While I have questioned the cost of our licenses in the past, they do accomplish a couple of positive goals, in that they help to assure that dogs are properly vaccinated – and that they are fixed.

The lady at the dog license department also told me that the only dog park in the area is in Costa Mesa – and they don’t like it when out of town residents bring their dogs to their park, as it is hard to corroborate that the dogs are fixed and vaccinated.

I have an idea for a dog park, in Santa Ana, at NO COST to our city!  The Lawn Bowling center, at Santiago Park, is only used four times a week.  Gerardo Mouet, the Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Director, verified this today in an email I received.  “The Lawn Bowlers practice on the bowling area on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play on the weekends.”

My proposal would be to get rid of the lawn bowling altogether as it is an anachronistic sport that very few people in Santa Ana are involved in.  The people who come here to do lawn bowling are, for the most part, from out of town!

This area, as you can see in the pictures embedded in this post, is fenced in and it has benches to relax on.  The lawn is also well maintained.  It would be a perfect dog park!  And the City would hardly have to spend any additional money to do this.

As an alternative, if our City Council for some reason wants to keep the lawn bowling activities, we can use the area as a dog park when the lawn bowling is not going on.

If we had a dog park in our city, we could advertise the services our city provides with regard to dog licenses, vaccinations, etc., right there at the dog park!

What do you think? 

Click here to contact Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Director Gerardo Mouet.  Click here to contact the Santa Ana City Council.  Click here to contact Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who represents the Santiago Park area.  You can contact City Manager Dave Ream’s assistant, Mark Lawrence, at MLawrence@santa-ana.org. 

Click here for a list of dog parks in Orange County.

Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.
Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

View Comments

  • Admin; You throw the racist word out there fairly freely. Of all the posts, yours is the only racist one out there. What did you do with the initial "Mi familia" and my "hermanos" posts? I would guess they were not suitable for the eyes of your beloved council members or whoever you are trying to impress. You are barking up the wrong tree.

  • Gregory,

    Your anger isn't going to help you one bit.

    You need to contact OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen and ask her to build you a lawn bowling center on county propery.

    Your days of ripping off Santa Ana residents by using our resources for your entertainment are at an end.

  • 60% Of the bowling clubs are from Santa Ana, others are fro nearby city, and new members signed ups in the last few months
    There are alot of members that play in Tornaments in Western State and Nationally, and represent Santa ana, and we will also hots some of this tournaments>
    There is park right next to the lawn bowling, and it is big enough and a good are for the dog park, they could try that and see how many people go.
    Totally cool to share something
    God Bless you
    John

  • John,

    That is very hard to believe. I visited the lawn bowling center last Saturday and took pictures. The players were 100% white. How odd this is in a city that is over 80% Latino...

    Let's put this another way. At most the lawn bowling center serves less than 60 lawn bowlers. The dog park will serve THOUSANDS of Santa Ana residents. We have over 11,000 dogs in the city that are licensed and over 20K that are not licensed.

    We will go with the use that serves MORE of our residents.

  • Admin,

    Once again you right codswallop. I would like to see you get 11000 dogs in on the bowling greens. Also if you adopt the myopic attitude that you are taking back what belongs to you then how about handing back all of Santa Ana to Mexicoa who have a greater and longer claim than you. If you want a dog park how about a golfe course moist of which seldom have a capacity utilisation during the week let alone at weekends. Your dog will have many acres to roam and deface without having to have a poop sccvop. That instrument is foreign to you probably and you Chihuahua can depoist his excrement without fear. Now that is a thought. Amazing how Nations or Towns can quicklyh go to the dogs !

  • Admin,

    Here is a thought. Why don't you visit the lawn bowling club and try playing bowls for a while. (No matter whether you have played any sport or not). Bowlers are very nice people and welcome all newcomers. After a few sessions being taught the basics and how to deliver the bowl you will be allowed to join in the friendly and social games. Now the fun starts! You do not even need to buy your own equipment yet as the club will lend you some bowls. You only need a flat pair of shoes (preferably smooth sole) or bare feet. Lawn bowls is open to ALL including those with handicaps or partially or completely blind. Few sports cater for that seqment of the population.

    There is an unwritten sports code that determines that sports people never criticise other sports unless you have played it. In bowls it is expected that no player how good or bad criticises another player. (That is written in their rules of etiquette). Even the best players make mistakes. The whole idea is to enjoy the sport and have fun and friendship. You never know you may so enjoy the sport and become so passionate about it that you become Santa Ana's and beyond champion promoter of the sport so much that Santa Ana may require more bowling greens. Now don't you think that is quite something? GOOD BOWLING!

  • IT'S 2013 AND WE STILL HAVE NO DOG PARK IN SANTA ANA... WHAT IS GOING ON HERE????? I DO NOT LIKE THE FACT THAT I AND MY PUPS NEED TO GO TO ANOTHER CITY TO ENJOY MINGLING WITH OTHER CRITTERS. SMH. WE JUST NEED A DOG PARK IN THE HEART OF ORANGE COUNTY ALREADY!! CAN WE JUST MAKE THIS HAPPEN ALREADY CITY OFFICIALS/ MANAGERS?????

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