Bethesda Elementary School Principal Lisa Seymour sent a message to the community via the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center yesterday, reminding residents that it is illegal for dogs to be on the grounds of the school when it is in session, and to pick up waste their animals leave behind on the property. The school grounds are "not a dog park," Seymour wrote in a memo. Uncollected dog waste is a disruption and health hazard for students using the playground during lunch, recess, and gym classes.
The memo cited and quoted Montgomery County laws regarding both matters, as well as the applicable fines for breaking them. Seymour also advised that dogs brought onto the property outside of school hours must be leashed at all times. Dog waste must be picked up, bagged, and disposed of properly. "Kindly please leave the area as you found it and dispose of all trash for the safety and well-being of our students," Seymour requested in the memo.
"Kindly please," which is sad. Either one of those words should have been enough.
ReplyDeleteI totally sympathize with the school administrators and students here, but good luck getting everyone to comply with this.
Years ago, I pointed out to a Capital Crescent Trail bike rider that there were very large signs (whose simple instruction he hadn't followed) that riders should dismount and walk their bikes through the gravel-filled detour around a construction area on the trail. The guy nonetheless tried to argue that somehow this didn't apply to him.
Those signs are driven by Liability, not safety. I certainly can speak for legions of bikers that most if us know our strengths and weaknesses.
DeleteYou didn't mention if you felt danger for yourself, tho that would be far less officials of you. I bet on reflection you might now feel personally endangered. Better for the umbrage argument, too.
This is an example of a few bad owners ruining it for all. Probably the same people who leave their shopping carts all over the place.
ReplyDeleteSure looks like what it's used for to me every day as I walk down Arlington Road.
ReplyDeleteI wish we residents could require the developers to include a dog park with each residential building they construct. It's just another part of the infrastructure they should own; it shouldn't be the neighborhood's job to deal with everyone's dogs.
ReplyDeleteIf the county would put a much needed dog park in downtown Bethesda, dog owners wouldn’t use the fields.
ReplyDeleteIt is the only enclosed green space in Bethesda. So the dog owners, who are invited to buy or rent in pet-friendly high-rises near by, will use it as a dog park. The county won't or can't fence Caroline Freeland Park (beyond the tot playground), nor fence any part of Norwood. It's very frustrating. I feel for this principal.
ReplyDeletePeople who let their dogs off leash on public property are the dregs of the universe.
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ReplyDelete5:22 As dog lover. I have never felt that the taxpayers owe me an enclosed field for my dogs.
Start a dog club and buy your own field and fence it. An not having one, I certainly would not claim the right to take over a school yard.
Regarding 2:04 your thinking fits the stereotype of the arrogant cyclist.
Learning
Re : arrogant cyclist... the guy rode around you, I seen arrogance on his part. Balance the equation.
DeleteAs a child lover, I have never felt the taxpayers owed me a place for kids to play. Buy a house with a yard, fence it in, and call it a playground. As a book lover, I never felt the taxpayers owed me a building with books. Buy your own books, put them in a room, and call it a library. As a nature lover, I never thought the taxpayers owed me a place to be outside, buy your own land, fence it in and call it a park. And since I don’t have kids, but am a taxpayer, why our my taxes going to educate other people’s kids?! If parents want their kids educated, let them buy a building, fill it with stuff, and call it a school. But certainly don’t make *me* pay for it. I could go on.
DeleteOf course, all of this is specious. There is clearly a need for a fenced-in dog park in downtown Bethesda and the county, just as it provides other community services, is in the best position to meet that need.
Thinking outside of the box here. Is it an open space just sitting there empty 20+ hours a day? If it it, then maybe not the best use of space? Let's close the school and open a pet center. Bus those kids somewhere else, and hire police as bus drivers. It's a learning experience.
ReplyDeleteTo the representative of the "Biker Legion." from the original poster about the gravel detour:
ReplyDeleteHow nice of you to think that a simple, clear, totally justifiable sign about trail safety for all is merely an invitation to bike-riders' individual interpretations of what they perceive as the motivations and wisdom (or not) of public policy, in light of their (surely entirely accurate!) assessment of their own personal strengths and weaknesses.
All while many of them are also riding much faster than the *other* posted signs on the trail call for (or are those all about the liability, too)?
What's your feeling about red lights on the streets?
Never mind, I've seen how some other (not all) members of the Biker Legion handle those.
And, yes, felt physically endangered by some of those idiots.
@7:12 AM - I hope you forget to add "/s" to your comment, otherwise you come off as a real imbecilic.
ReplyDeleteOver literally decades and probably over a thousand visits to tge trail I've seen lots and lots of people, both riding and walking and hardly ever, if at all, witnessed an accident involving someone walking. A few years ago an elderly and feeble woman was struck on the W&OD but accounts did indicate she caused the collision. Never seen two bikers wreck.
ReplyDeleteRemember that the county is trying to get out of building the Veterans Park Civic Green which would provide much needed green space for humans and dogs!
ReplyDelete10:3
ReplyDeleteI have on the CC trail. Two bikes going in different directions hit each other.
Learning
These poor kids today don't have the same wonderful experiences we did growing up! Poop on our playing field taught us spatial awareness, now there's a DogPoop App and GPS. UnderArmor is coming out with a whole new fabric, just in case. Poor kids of today!
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ReplyDelete6:06 Err. Schools including phys ed. which required playing fields. You're dogs aren't going to be flying you places, giving you medical car and feeding you when you get old.
Children are the future. Pets are luxuries. Learning
Doesn't the left believe that everyone should give up their cars and especially their pickup trucks and exchange them for bikes, scooters or walking shoes? Now maybe the folks always complaining about bicyclists are not lefties but the odds in MoCo are against it. The takeaway is that, if you want to do away with vehicles, stop complaining about bikes and their riders most of whom are trying to do the right thing.
ReplyDeleteEach bike is one fewer car. Woke wake up!
DeleteA few years ago I was riding my bike on the C&O Canal towpath a bit NW of Carderock where there is a steep drop off into the river valley. There were signs there that said to dismount and walk your bike. I felt that my riding skill was of such a level that I could keep myself from plunging off the cliff and so I did not dismount. Of course, this being the DC area, I was scolded rather sternly by a Frenchman (of all things) who berated me in no uncertain terms for my temerity in ignoring the sign. I told him that I would do as I damn well please and, if he did not like it, to go back to France. Don't you know that the NPS shortly thereafter replaced those signs with ones stating "No Motor Vehicles". Bikers ride through there now with zero problems that I am aware of. So, the take away, unless it is an issue which affects you personally, keep your opinions to your selves 5:24 and others of your ilk.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree! The officious like 5:24 should worry about themselves and not others. It's apparent his or her or thems concerns had nothing to do with their own safety until he or her or them lost their 'argument.'
DeleteMost those signs are for liability not genuine safety notices.
Besides there is now a sort of "gravel biking' craze now too. I know on a RAGBRAI ride I did we had an extra 15 mile "gravel loop."
DeleteWish they would finally build a dog park in downtown Bethesda and put this to all to rest.
ReplyDeleteThose "dismount" signs also alert walkers what to expect from others on the detour section of the trail. It's just peachy that you believed that your "riding skill was of such a level" that you felt comfortable taking a risk for yourself near "a steep drop off into the river valley." But you were endangering walkers who probably did not anticipate idiots like you. It's always fun until somebody gets hurt.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should consider wearing a helmet and pads when you go out.
DeleteBet you wish you could ride a bike 6:44. As I mentioned, its perfectly legal to ride that stretch. With ZERO problems. Nobody got "hurt". So "idiot" that. You and the thousands of bitter complainers like you are the reason I no longer live in MoCo.
ReplyDeleteIt has been my observation, over many decades, that people even reotely fearful of bikers are typically the arrogant party. The arrogance begins with them thinking the oncoming cyclist rides as incompetent and dangerous as themselves, if they had to gumption to even try.
ReplyDeleteThey project their own inadequacy onto the cyclist. I can kinda tell on approach how most react: the worst is 'the tap dancer,' they start hopping from side to side so no one e, including themselves, know what's next. Then they get all uppity when all they have to do is keep walking. They induce the problem and make it dangerous. Someone is sure to write 'but they're on the sidewalk!' When you get the cops to ever write a ticket yo an errant car driver who did something ticketable to a cyclist, then you'll have a point. That day will never come.