Kim Perez and members of the Friends of the Hays Dog Park have been busy raising money and telling their story and it paid off on Thursday night.

The City Commission voted to allow the Friends of Hays Dog Park to build the park in three phases. The first phase is to consist of improvements totaling approximately $33,000. The Friends of the Hays Dog Park must raise the funds and they must return to the city for approval before any construction begins.

Vice Mayor Henry Schwaller IV also asked the city attorney to draft a resolution to guide for the development of the one and one half acre park and that the city would make no monetary contributions to the project.

“We help Rotary, Kiwanis, Optimists, all those groups and we have not put them, those groups, through the intense scrutiny that we have this particular group because it involves dogs,” said Schwaller. “This group has been working on this for awhile and now that there is a focus, I will support any resolution.”

Mayor Kent Steward did not like the phased idea, “It is simply bad business and most definitely bad government to start a construction project when you don’t have the financing arranged,” he said.  ” won’t support doing it in phases.”

Schwaller stated that the project is different than the USD 489 FAST project. “At some point when it inevitably dies the commission will come in and fund it as the school board foolishly did with the FAST project. This is different in that the Friends of the Dog Park will not do any construction until they raise the money and they must have approval of the commission before they can turn one shovel of dirt and they have a time frame in which to do that”

“You’re not experienced in fundraising. You’re going to have to twist some arms to be a successful fundraiser on this,” said commissioner Ron Mellick.

Commissioners also unanimously approved the amended newly seeded lawn permit.