QUENTIN ROUX / Staff

Critter Cafe owner Cindy Blatt takes Pepper the Dalmatian for a Tuesday lunch time walk in a grassy area off Bald Eagle Drive. Blatt says news of the proposed ordinance to allow dogs on leashes in all Marco Island parks is exciting.

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Marco Island is going to the dogs. After a lengthy discussion Monday night about making the island’s parks more “dog friendly,” City Council voted 6-1 to draft an ordinance allowing leashed dogs in the city’s public parks. Councilor Chuck Kiester voted in the minority, saying he could support such a move if Leigh Plummer Park was excluded from the list of parks where owners could walk dogs on an eight-foot leash.

It mirrored a similar discussion from October 2006 when council was considering a similar ordinance that excluded Plummer Park. One resident who lives across from the park spoke at the meeting on behalf of 12 other neighbors, she said.

“We have had it with dogs in the park,” MaryAnne Maniace told council. “We’re not against the dogs, we’re against the irresponsible owners.”

Maniace said she and her neighbors have had chronic problems with dog owners who fail to pick up after their dogs, both in the park and in their front yards. She said her neighbors are forced to do a dance called the “doggy-doo dance step-over” every time they walk to the mailbox.

“The park is already littered with dog waste from irresponsible dog owners,” Maniace said. “This mindset just will not continue, cannot continue.”

It forced council to have an extended conversation about excrement in its many manifestations, a humorous departure from discussions of construction contracts and lift station staging.

“I hate picking that stuff up, believe me,” said Councilor Jerry Gibson.

He added that his partner spends most of her time on dog walks picking up after other people’s dogs. However, he said, those problem dog owners should not be taken to represent the whole.

“I hate it when council gets bogged down and we talk about the miniscule minority,” Gibson said. “Those people are going to be slobs and pigs regardless. They’re doing it now. At least in the parks, there are park administrators and other dog owners who can say, ‘Hey, don’t foul it up for me.’ ”

The conversation occasionally veered toward the need for an off-leash dog park on Marco Island – something some residents at the meeting said the island sorely needs. Resident Deborah Chapman, who said on her small street alone there are 11 dogs, told council those tax-paying members of the island community have no place to go with their dogs.

“For now I ask you let pet owners go into public parks – remembering what public means,” Chapman said. “I hope in the near future, the very near future, we will be able to get a real dog park. We really need this.”

Councilor Rob Popoff, who made the motion to move forward with the ordinance, suggested revisiting the issue in a year and determining if changes needed to be made. In the meantime, he said the city would need to work toward strict enforcement of current laws regarding leashes and waste removal.

Interim City Manager Dana Souza took the order from council to draft the ordinance with a possible $500 fine for violations of either law, and to include restrictions on where dogs could go, such as playgrounds, the racquet center and certain areas like the dugouts at Winterberry Field. He said he would examine the possibility of restricting access to playing fields, even when there are no organized events under way.

Souza also said the city would continue looking into the feasibility of creating an off-leash dog park.

Like Marco Island will soon do, the city of Naples does allow dogs in city parks as long as they are on an eight-foot leash. Collier County operates a dog park at Veterans Community Park off of Immokalee Road.