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Tufts Farm Field UPDATE

Written by Webmaster

Thursday, 01 July 2010 00:09

[Here's a message we received, sent to fans of the Facebook page "Tufts Farm Field" about the meeting that was held Wed. evening in response to Tuft's announcement to close their field. Emphasis below is mine -- webmaster]

Subject: Meeting Results Information

Since I know there are quite a few people here that didn't make the meeting, I wanted to make sure everyone knew about the major points. They will be reopening the field in hopefully a couple of weeks, but they need a way to track and address some of the problems that have happened more frequently over the past few months (the attacks with some dogs, confrontation with some owners, etc). So, here's the scoop:

Tufts will require all dogs walking in the fields to be registered. This registration will be a relatively short form you'd fill out with obvious info (name, address, phone number, etc) and some not so obvious info (type of dog, description of his/her temperament, proof of up-to-date vaccines). For Westborough and Grafton residents they're leaning towards waiving the registration fee, but for residents of other towns, you'd pay a registration fee (which doesn't sound like it'll be all that expensive - maybe $5-10). There may also, in the short term, be a requirement to bring your dog to registration for an "interview" for lack of a better term so they can get a feeling for the dog's personality.

With registration, you'd get a numbered tag your dog will have to wear while you walk in the fields. So, if there are any issues, hopefully we can pinpoint which dog (or maybe more likely, which owner) is causing the issue. Obviously, this brings a ramp up period where not everyone will be registered. They key here will be not to be confrontative about unregistered dogs/people, but rather just educate them about the registration process and why it's needed.

In conjunction, all dogs in the field have to be on a leash. This is the policy now, and obviously they've been pretty lax about it, but it's going to be more enforced. HOWEVER - Tufts will be fencing off an area that sounded like it would be a couple of acres where dogs can be off leash. This fence would be a pretty significant cost to Tufts (in the order of $5-10k), and they still have some stuff to figure out in terms of funding.

Now, to make sure there's an open dialog between the owners and the administration, one of the other things they'd look to set up would be an advisory committee/board type of group comprised of dog owners to make sure we can be active participants in the fields and how Tufts deals with them.

All in all, I think it was a really productive meeting. Obviously the ideal situation for us would be to go on with business as usual, but the issues as of late clearly represent a significant amount of risk for Tufts. They're compromising as best they can to make sure they meet all of our needs with some realistic accountability constraints.

The dean was overwhelmed with the support we showed not only in the emails and phone calls leading up to the meeting, but also tonight's dialogues. Personally, I think the best thing we can do is to keep doing what we have been in showing how much we appreciate all that Tufts has done for us so far, and show that we will all be responsible in our use of the fields and our respect for their house rules.

I did talk to Tom after the meeting and said I knew of a couple of guys with pickups (myself as one of them) that would be happy to pick up a bunch of empty barrels, go around the field, grab the full ones, and swap them and drop them off for them so they don't have to take a tractor around. He was blown over by the generosity because that's one of the jobs the Tufts employees absolutely detest.

Charter Channel 3 also interviewed me after the meeting was over and hopefully that did some good - I mentioned how much we all appreciate what Tufts has done, and also talked to the fact that the attendees are the people who truly care about things, but the people that weren't at the meeting were those we need to help realize what's going on.

I think that hits the major points covered. If anyone else that attended thinks of anything major I forgot, please correct me!

I hope to see everyone at the park soon!

Chris Nichols, aka Baxster's dad.