To the editor:

In 1970 Joni Mitchell wrote the song “Big Yellow Taxi,” in which she sings about “paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.” Fast forward 50 years, and this is still happening, but now it is the land surrounding our wonderful dog park that is in the city’s bull’s eye.

We have been daily users of the Mutt Run for over 20 years and are closely following the recent proposal to pave the existing maintenance road along the park’s north side.

At a cost to tax payers of at least $1,250,000 and, just as importantly, the permanent destruction of acres of green space, more facts must be considered before this proposal is finalized.

One of the problems addressed by the proposal is reducing the wait time when exiting the soccer fields. Until plans for the completion of unimproved portions of the K-10 bypass are finalized, it won’t be known what, if any, exit problems will still exist, and the wait time issue will likely go away. In the meantime, great harm will be done to this beautiful space and, as the song goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

We would certainly welcome any carefully considered plans to improve the dog park for all users, but it seems a more appropriate use of available funds would be to expedite completion of the bypass since it is a scene of frequent accidents, including the recent one that killed a family of six.

Gretchen and Tom Underwood,

Lawrence