To the editor:

While few would dispute the need to solve the often long wait times exiting the Youth Sports Complex, the fact remains that the complex is in use approximately 150 days a year, with exiting traffic comprising a couple of hours of that at most. Meanwhile, the Mutt Run is in use 365 days a year, from dawn to dusk, by anywhere from 100 to 400 people.

What is often overlooked when discussing the benefit of off-leash parks is the enormous impact they have on we the people. For many of us, and certainly many of our seniors, the Mutt Run is our source of daily exercise and our daily outing into the beauty of the Lawrence landscape. We can name the birds we hear and predict which grasses will seed when. During this pandemic, it’s been a major respite from isolation and of mutual encouragement. Exercising our dogs is our sport. And it delivers to us the very same inspiration and joy our youth derives from playing at YSL.

This new plan, which will cut through the calm of the Mutt Run with a 24-foot road to the complex, as yet has made no accommodation or assurance concerning the integrity of the dog park, much less the safety of its visitors, both four-legged and two. It seems to me the ity could save itself $500K by simply paving the road that already exists and opening it to egress those few hours 150 days a year when it’s needed, leaving us, our dogs and all the wildlife this project will affect to practice our sport in peace.

Lynn Gimpel,

Lawrence