I've pasted the post here for reference . . .you never know when a post might be removed:
You can read a bit about our process here and that may help. The best piece of advice I can give you is to get a group of interested citizens together to plan and lobby for a dog park. While your local Parks and Rec Dept and your local government can easily dismiss one or two people with a bright idea, it is much more difficult to dismiss a group, preferably large, of determined and well-informed people, especially if they get a lot of publicity in their local papers (write letters, get interviews, photos, etc.), hold fundraisers, pass out info, and so on. If you are really lucky, there might be an enlightened person at your Parks and Rec so that the initial persuasion would be reduced. By the way, it is better to pitch the idea as a place for people who have dogs than a place that dogs need.
I got a group started by writing letters to my local papers and inviting interested people to contact me. I also put together a small brochure and some business-size cards with a brief mission statement and contact info, which everyone in the group posted anywhere they could think of and dropped into neighbors' mailboxes, etc. You need to be inventive. Keep a record of everyone's contact info and begin an email list as soon as possible to save hours on the phone. Get other people to take over tasks like that. Meet regularly so you can plan strategy.
The other important piece of advice would be to try to get someone on the inside at Town Hall on your side. This can be invaluable - all sorts of hints, contacts, and info can come your way. We had the assistant director of Parks and Rec supporting us and helping us to find a suitable spot within the existing park land. He also helped us know what hoops we had to jump through - we had to make presentations to various town commissions that had to give permission for the dog park project.
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