No Oglesby dog park, commissioners respond with silent protest

Oglesby City Council again took no action on the dog park. And after that proposal stalled, little else got done, either.

Monday, the council resurrected the proposal to establish a dog park. As was the case at recent meetings, no consensus could be reached.

At issue is the location. Commissioner Jim Cullinan, backed by Commissioner Tom Argubright, wants to put it by the water tower and has proposed allocating up to $15,000 to make it happen. Mayor Dom Rivara and Commissioner Jason Curran want more public input and for that discussion to include other possible locations.

From there, the discussion quickly devolved into recriminations.

“You sat there and said we should look for another piece of land,” Cullinan told the mayor.

“And did you agree there were probably better places for a dog park?” Rivara countered.

“I thought it was just another way to push me off,” Cullinan replied.

No action was taken. After several minutes, Argubright urged the council to move on.

“This clearly is going nowhere,” he said.

But Cullinan and Argubright remained unhappy and declined to act on remaining agenda items, sitting silently when Curran moved for action – and Commissioner Terry Eutis was absent [illness] and unavailable to second Curran’s motions.

With one exception – referring a matter of fostering dogs within city limits to the Plan Commission – each subsequent item failed for lack of a second.

Among the stalled items was a proposal to regulate the installation of stationary electric generators. Curran said failure to act could result in the death of a first responder. Yet Cullinan and Argubright declined to second his motion and that item fell short, too.

Before the silent protest, the council proclaimed April as Fair Housing Month on behalf of the Illinois Valley Association of Realtors as well as National Child Abuse Prevention Month on behalf of La Salle County Court-Appointed Special Advocates.