Winston School has legal right to use park
DEL MAR — A presentation on plans to update Shores Park drew residents divided over whether the city should continue allowing off-leash dogs on the baseball field when it isn’t reserved for The Winston School.
City staff presented a report by the Shores Park Master Plan Ad Hoc Advisory Committee at the Sept. 22 City Council meeting, accompanied by a representative from the Schmidt Design Group, the architectural firm hired to oversee the park update.
The city purchased the park from the Del Mar Union School District in 2008 for $8.5 million. However, The Winston School helped raise $3 million toward the purchase price, and the school district required that a school remain on the property.
The Winston School, a private school serving students with special needs in grades six through 12, has leased the former Shores Elementary campus since 1988, originally from the school district.
Del Mar began working on a master plan to update the park in 2014, then hired the Schmidt Design Group. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns, the project was put on hold.
Last September, the City Council revived the process and reestablished the ad hoc committee. In October, it selected the Schmidt Design Group again to prepare a design in response to community feedback.
The ad hoc committee met with the Schmidt Design Group and gathered public input beginning in December, with the last meeting in late July. The committee’s report to the City Council said opinion on the shared-use field for dogs and students was split throughout the process.
The city received dozens of letters and emails about the Shores Park proposals ahead of the presentation, most of which urged the city to continue allowing dogs to use the field off-leash. The next-largest group of letters encouraged the city to add a new playground at the park for young children.
Just a handful opposed allowing dogs to use the field, but one was from park tenant The Winston School.
The city first allowed dogs to use the field in 2012, but only when the school wasn’t using it. The current hours are 6 to 8:30 a.m. daily and 3:30 p.m. to dark on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
At the Sept. 22 City Council meeting, feedback was more evenly split between dog owners and those who felt a shared-use field is not hygienic for students at The Winston School.
Kim Kanetis, executive director of The Winston School, reminded the council that the school not only provided $3 million toward the park’s purchase but also pays $250,000 a year in lease payments.
“We do not like the shared use with the dogs,” she said. “It has been very, very difficult since dogs started using the area.”
Kanetis said the city began enforcing the rules more strictly last spring, which has helped.
“Before that, we had students who were tracking feces down into the classrooms,” Kanetis said. “We spent extra money on cleaning carpets. It was virtually unusable. We are concerned that if that level of enforcement doesn’t continue, it will go back to being an unusable field.”
Camilla Rang, a senior researcher in microbiology at UC San Diego, told the council that having students use a field that dogs use as a bathroom creates health risks that cannot be fully mitigated and may put the city in legal jeopardy.
Rang pointed out that nobody would tell people to use a park field as a bathroom and that dogs doing so pose just as much of a health risk.
Steven McDowell, a longtime board member at Del Mar Little League, told the council that the youth baseball program stopped using the baseball diamond in 2014 because of health concerns.
Other speakers introduced themselves as dog owners, one with her dog in tow, and assured the council that owners police themselves and clean the field every morning.
However, in response to a question from Councilmember Terry Gaasterland, City Manager Ashley Jones said the park ranger regularly has to sweep the field and clean up feces left behind before turning the field over to the school each morning. She also said some dog owners do not obey the posted times.
“Users are not adhering to the exclusive hours. These are not new hours. The problem was it was up to The Winston School to enforce when it was available, and that’s not fair to them as a tenant. There is still a daily process there. The city has this responsibility.”
Deputy Mayor John Spelich also pointed out that at least one staff member was verbally abused by a dog owner.
“We really have to stop with the one or two people who are abusing city staff,” Spelich said. “That has to come to a screeching halt now. If we can’t make that happen, then this conditional use can go away. We can’t abuse our employees.”
Mayor Tracy Martinez reinforced that view.
“I think it should be a probation. If things are working well, we continue. And if they’re not, we stop it. I think that’s the only fair way to do it,” Martinez said.
Councilmember Dan Quirk asked staff whether there is a way to create a dog owners committee that the city could work with to enforce accountability. Jones said she would ask her staff to explore the legalities of such an arrangement and report back.
The council made a few other suggestions to the architect regarding foliage, parking, meeting space and exercise equipment. The council will bring the master plan back at a future meeting.
