Dear Editor,

The information provided in your dog park plan is faulty. Unless you have personally been out there at both the dog park and the Locomotive Park sites and measured them yourselves, you will know that the information we have been provided is incorrect. I went out and paced the areas off. There is more than double the space available for vendor tents within Locomotive Park alone – appx 100,000 sq ft), vs. the area identified on your plan at the dog park (about 50,000 sq ft). Add to that the voluminous spaces along Beale Street at Locomotive Park and our downtown streets not available up there at the dog park. 

This is really a joke now. If this goes through, you have created an island event for people to attend. If they are travelers, they will park, they will stroll through the vendor area, they will go back to their cars, and drive away to their destinations. If they are locals, they will do their morning grocery shopping No one is going to get in their car and drive to downtown Kingman after they visit that event at the dog park. There is nothing within walking distance of that park. If anything, an event up there at the dog park vs in downtown Kingman would serve nothing more than to draw people (who even know about the event) AWAY from our downtown.

As I have stated in a prior email, there are no restaurants within walking distance. There are no businesses within walking distance there is no way that people at that park or at that event are going to walk to downtown Kingman to visit the local merchants or to get in their cars and drive to downtown Kingman to visit our Route 66. But I know from personal experience, during prior events at the Locomotive and Metcalf Parks, as witnessed by the droves of people that stroll past our shop, that people will walk to visit our downtown and the downtown merchants.

 If the idea that people can walk around with an alcoholic beverage is an attraction and will bring people to the event, that is, on its face, ludicrous. What do we want to do, get people inebriated and then put them back in their cars to travel our city streets and our highways?

I count 14-17 vendor spaces and 2 food trucks in your plan. If the idea is to generate revenue and pay for the cost of the event by charging vendor space, then to put an event like this at that park is even more ridiculous, compared with the 50 or more vendor spaces available at Locomotive Park and along Beale Street all the way up to 5th.

If the plan is to attract people to Kingman and Kingman’s Heart of Route 66 premise, then there is no other place to hold an event like this than in downtown Kingman with all the parking available at the Powerhouse, the Extension Service, and along the streets, and I would even open up our lot for free parking.

Set up your drive-through arch, block off the beginning of Beale Street and Andy Devine, do your advertising and promos, do whatever is necessary to drive people to downtown Kingman and the Heart of Route 66—not out there in the middle of nowhere, to a destination island event where there is nothing else to go to, nothing else to see or visit. Do whatever is necessary to support and benefit your downtown merchants.

Again, why an event like this was planned out wherein the Mayor of our city did not even know about it and not a single downtown merchant (that I know of) was included in your planning commission or even knew about it either, leads one to believe that there is something sinister afoot. Who was in charge of the planning of this event? Who were the participants? Are we entitled to this information? It would be appreciated if you would provide.

Jack Alexander