Dog-enthusiast nonprofits in Marin and San Francisco have sued the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for withholding documents and data requested under the Freedom of Information Act regarding dog activities in national parklands. That information, the suit contends, may have played a critical role in the formation of a draft rule that eliminates several popular dog-walking sites as part of the recreation area’s forthcoming Dog Management Plan.
The suit concludes that information leaves community members unable to provide substantive comments before the official comment period closes on May 25.
“We’re looking for a fair process,” said Laura Pandapas, a Muir Beach resident and longtime dog advocate. “Without this information, that can’t happen.”
Filed by Save Our Recreation, the San Francisco Dog Owners Group, the Marin County Dog Owners Group and the Coastside Dog Owners Group, the suit calls for G.G.N.R.A. to disclose all documents—dating back to 1999—related to the total numbers of visitors to G.G.N.R.A. sites; the number of dog-walking citations issued to park visitors; impacts to parklands caused by dog walking; the total number of dogs brought onto G.G.N.R.A. sites; and restricting dog walking within the area.
National Park Service officials have maintained that the draft rule strikes a balance between recreational access to the park’s 80,000 acres and the preservation of environmentally sensitive habitats. But opponents of the rule counter that the downsize in dog-walking areas is the biggest blow to public access in G.G.N.R.A.’s 46-year history.
Opponents also see G.G.N.R.A.’s nine-month delay in responding to the FOIA requests as a troubling sign that the agency intends to further reduce public access as part of a larger effort to convert swaths of heavily used, often urban-based lands into nature preserves.
“This lawsuit is the culmination of a long history, unfortunately, of the G.G.N.R.A. not being transparent in its planning processes and exercising an extreme control over those processes,” said Chris Carr, an attorney representing the nonprofits. “They have a lot of carefully scripted, allegedly public meetings, when really they’ve already decided what they’re going to do. It’s just a sham.”
According to the suit, the nonprofits submitted a FOIA request on Nov. 24, 2015. Under federal law, agencies have 20 business days to respond, with some exceptions. The park still has not met the request.
“Critically, they have not produced a single email about the alleged impacts on dogs to the park,” Mr. Carr said. “They’ve pointed us to information on their websites and there are some answers there, but nothing like a complete response.”
In response to an earlier FOIA request, sent in July, G.G.N.R.A. said the groups would be responsible for a $6,000 fee to produce the documents. The agency later dropped the fee after the groups revised and resubmitted their request.
“[G.G.N.R.A.] first tried to claim that it would cost many thousands of dollars to process the FOIA request as a strategy to block Plaintiffs from gaining access to the requested documents,” the suit states. “The fact that [G.G.N.R.A.] later conceded that Plaintiffs were entitled to a fee waiver shows that [G.G.N.R.A.] was acting in bad faith when it initially refused to produce documents.”
The suit also claims G.G.N.R.A. has not disclosed requested correspondence between agency staff and its “park partners” that support reduced dog-walking access, such as the Wild Equity Institute, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the National Parks Conservation Association.
Nikki Moore, a staff attorney for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said the nonprofits were justified in bringing forth a suit, especially considering the extra effort taken to revise their original FOIA request. Government agencies often delay document disclosures as a strategy to withhold information, Ms. Moore said, until the requester essentially gives up.
“Nine months seems like an unreasonable amount of time to wait for records,” she said. “We understand that government resources are limited. But there comes a point when they’re just hindering the public’s access to records. It’s disrespectful to the public.”
Howard Levitt, G.G.N.R.A.’s director of communications, declined to comment on the pending litigation. He was named as a defendant in the suit, alongside G.G.N.R.A. Superintendent Christine Lehnertz and United States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.
The draft rule would ban off-leash dog walking everywhere on national parklands in Marin County except for Rodeo Beach, at the county’s southernmost end. Currently, dogs are allowed off-leash at Rodeo Beach and Muir Beach, and on trails along Oakwood Valley Road in Mill Valley, Homestead Valley and Alta Avenue in Marin City—all areas managed by G.G.N.R.A. Dogs are not allowed on or off-leash at the G.G.N.R.A.-managed section of Stinson Beach.
The draft rule would also limit permitted professional dog walkers to no more than six dogs at a time and would give the park superintendent discretion to designate new trails added to the system in the future as on-leash, off-leash or dog-prohibited. A process 14 years in the making, the new rule is poised to take effect next year.
Comments on the draft rule may be submitted by mail to Fort Mason, Building 201, San Francisco, CA 94123, or online at federalregister.gov/articles/2016/02/24/2016-03731/special-regulations-areas-of-the-national-park-service-golden-gate-national-recreation-area-dog.