Despite a last-minute push from dog owners to delay the decision, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board voted on Wednesday, June 17, to close the Minnehaha Off-Leash Dog Park by the end of the year.
The decision came after a raucous meeting and a petition that gathered more than 1,000 signatures to delay the decision for more public comment.
The Minnehaha Dog Park runs along the Mississippi River below the source of Mni Owe Sni, or Coldwater Spring, on land that is considered sacred to the Dakota and other tribes.
The land will remain open to the public but Park Board President Tom Olsen said the resolution will require dog owners to have their pets on leash when visiting the area.
The Park Board’s planning committee voted on June 3 to recommend creating a plan to close the dog park. Prior to Wednesday’s vote of the full board, Commissioner Cathy Abene introduced an amendment to delay a decision until Sept. 16 to gather more public input.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, which drew a raucous, overflow crowd, close to three dozen speakers testified, most in support of Abene’s amendment. Each speaker was followed by clapping, cheers and some boos.
The amendment failed to pass; Abene was the lone vote opposing the immediate decision to decommission the dog park.
“I certainly understand that this is a change that is not pleasant for a lot of people,” Commissioner Jason Garcia said after the resolution passed. “But at the same time … this is about rectifying an ongoing harm, and the longer that we put off that addressing of harm, the more that it causes harm to people who have often had the least amount of voice and say on what goes on here on their ancestral lands.”
The National Park Service and the Minnesota Historical Society first raised an issue relating to Mni Owe Sni’s neighboring dog park to the Park Board in November 2024. They suggested fencing of the park, to prevent dog owners from taking their unleashed dogs outside the designated recreation area onto Park Service and Historical Society land, which detracted “from the sacredness of the sight and its traditional uses.”
On June 3, following a study item presentation to the Park Board’s planning committee, committee members advanced a resolution to decommission the dog park, due to its “incompatibility” with the Mni Owe Sni’s preservation and tribal use and the land’s sacred nature.
Mni Owe Sni has been a burial ground and ceremonial site for tribal nations for 13,000 years. The area holds not only historical and archeological significance but also spiritual and familial ones.
Among the speakers Wednesday was Erica Crazy Hawk, who as a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe shared her family’s trauma with internment camp and sexual assault.
“We haven’t even found our bones yet,” Crazy Hawk said. “I should be able to come back and pray on my [expletive] land.”
Mike Forcia, a Bad River Anishinaabe activist, also insisted on the necessity of the park’s closure to off-leash dogs. He referenced the traumatic history of the land’s colonization by European settlers and insisted that there was no other way but to follow through with the resolution. He then addressed the white audience of the Board’s meeting, telling them they should not have a say in the decision.
“We all know what’s going to happen. This park is going to be closed,” Forcia said. “It’s going to happen, I just don’t know why it’s not closed today. You already know the harms that it’s been doing, you’ve already been told what’s been going on … Imagine that area before the white man, before the pilgrims, pioneers and settlers, the extreme white Christian terrorists, who showed up on this land, imagine what the Dakota were going through …You guys have no say in this whatsoever.”
These views were opposed by the remaining majority of the speakers, who cited the city’s lack of areas for dogs to safely swim in, explore and play. Minneapolis dog owner Carter Casmaer, who started a petition against the off-leash park’s closure, told board members the decision deserved more input.
“You ignore dissenting voices within or outside of the Native community, using the religious preferences of a single group and incorporating them into public policy making,” Casmaer said.
“This is what punching down on dogs looks like, loud and clear,” he added. “It’s a bad look for the board and an embarrassment for Minneapolis.”
For the remainder of the meeting, Casmaer held up a sign that said “No dog is illegal.”
Andrea Williams, who has been going to the dog park for 15 years, emphasized the importance of sharing land among different cultural groups and the harm to the community values the decommissioning of the off-leash dog park would signal.
“Closing this dog park is the wrong decision because you’re removing the fellowship and the community that stands behind me,” Williams said, looking over her shoulder at the audience. “I recognize a lot of these faces, I know them by their dogs. I do not argue that the land is [not] special, it is, but there are only so many resources that we have as the public of this community, and we have to share those resources.”
As the discussion wrapped up Commissioner Meg Forney reminded the audience that the board welcomes input into the location of a site to replace the Minnehaha Off-Leash Dog Park, as the resolution requires.
