|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For many decades the open fields of West Matheson Hammock Park have brought pleasure to generations of local people and their dogs. It is also used by cyclists, joggers and birdwatchers, but due to its location the vast majority of park users are people who drive there specifically to have some quality time with their dogs. That will all change under Miami-Dade County Resolution 210813, a proposal by Commissioner Raquel Regalado that is the first step towards banning dogs from the park.
The 110 acres of West Matheson Hammock consists of two main areas of environmentally precious rockland hammock and the central area of grassy fields. Just about the entirety of the park, including the open area, is classified as Environmentally Endangered Land (EEL), a program managed by the conscientious scientists of DERM. However, the grassy fields are no longer pristine, virgin wetlands. For years they were ploughed and cultivated, and then the park was used as a waste dump for the debris produced by Hurricane Andrew. As a result the beauty of the rough mown fields is skin deep, under the surface the earth is full of tin cans, bottles and other waste. It would be hard to argue that dogs running in these fields are causing environmental damage.
For this reason the pre-pandemic arrangements of accessing the park via Schoolhouse Road for a quick dog walk in the central area was really without consequence, the park goers stayed away from the protected hammock areas. Then, during the lockdown period, Bill Ogden, the President of the Hammock Lakes Homeowners’ Association, along with Judge Michael Hanzman, another Hammock Lakes resident, used political connections to get private meetings with Commissioner Suarez and other County officials and a hurriedly revised Miami-Dade Parks Department $5 million “masterplan” was born.
Parks Director Maria Nardi had the gate off Schoolhouse Road closed to non-handicapped park goers and suddenly almost all park traffic was diverted through the delicate rockland hammock. Of course some park goers have just had to give up going altogether, e.g. the elderly, pregnant women, those with handicapped or elderly pets. They were not helped by Coral Gables Vice-Mayor Vince Lago dotting the public swale around the entrance to the park with “No parking” signs, an act of complete civic thoughtlessness to please a few connected constituents. He never attempted to address the root cause of the swale parking, the improper closure of the gate into the park.
DERM’s dismay at the hugely increased traffic up and down the lovely, historic nature trail from the Old Cutler car park is completely understandable. For years they had tried to defend it from mis-use by the Parks Department only to suddenly have every man, woman and their dog walking through there. All park goers would rather go back to the previous status quo to have safe access to the park and not have to traipse 1/3 mile through the rockland hammock.
For this reason it is an extreme deception to see that Commissioner Regalado is now pushing a resolution that clearly has the ultimate objective of entirely banning dogs from West Matheson Hammock Park. So rather than reversing the corruption driven closure of the gate off Schoolhouse Road to solve the environmental issue, she is pushing the next phase of pleasing the owners of the twelve homes in Hammock Lakes by taking away the reason that 95% of visitors go to the park.
It appears that Commissioner Regalado and Maria Nardi of the Parks Department have a new future planned for this park, they just want it to be empty. It is already visited by relatively few members of the general public but they want to reduce visitation even more. Needless to say the public will have to continue to pay for a park that they will have been systematically discouraged from using, purely to benefit the Hammock Lakes residents.
Please write to our elected officials and let them know what you think of their plans.
Daniella.Cava@miamidade.gov
