City Council Retreat Notes: Dog Park Ideas Include Possible New Location, Volunteer Marshals

The Stone Mountain city council met Saturday, Feb. 25 for its retreat, and at the top of the agenda was the controversial Red Dog Park. All six council members and mayor Pat Wheeler, along with public works director Jim Tavenner, chief of police Chancey Troutman and city judges talked about a number of items at length.

Some of the dog park ideas and issues discussed:

• Moving the park to land for sale next door to the public works department and having the proposed cell phone tower there as well;
• Maintaining the park from a security standpoint;
• parking issues, including narrow streets;
• VFW Park out as a possibility, due to the community garden and children who play there;
• the creation of a dog park association
• volunteer marshals
• the few people creating problems at Red Dog Park
• creating limited hours at the Red Dog Park

The city council will vote on the dog park at its regular business meeting on Tuesday, March 6, 7:30 p.m. at the .

At the retreat, the council also discussed a comprehensive smoke free ordinance, hearing from Astrid Wilkie-McKellar, coordinator, Communities Putting Prevention to Work Tobacco tobacco program, office of Chronice Disease Prevention, Health Assessmen and Promotion.

• grandfathering in existing businesses;
• how businesses may be affected by the ordinance - pros and cons;
• protecting workers of businesses that allow smoking;
• the affects of second-hand smoke;
• smoking ordinances adopted in the cities of Lithonia and Decatur
• more time needed by the council to investigate the issue

The court operations item included discussion about collecting revenue and an increase in people going to jail for not paying tickets.

Here is the full agenda from Saturday's retreat:

• Red Dog Park
• Comprehensive Smoke Free Ordinance
• Court Operations
• Cell Tower
• Main Street Stone Mountain/Downtown Development Authority Position
• Golf Cart
• Rankin Street issues