We organized as an official Friends group in September 2019 in order to fight against the City of Portland’s imposition of this first-ever leash law in Mayor Baxter Woods (MBW). Initially a small cabal of City Parks Department officials sought to ban off-leash dogs in MBW 24/7/365, which we vehemently argued against. Ultimately a few wiser minds prevailed and the City compromised (with itself) and banned off-leash dog walking for just 4 months of the year from April through July, a period it said coincided with the migratory bird nesting season. This criminalized off-leash dog walking for some of the best months of the year in Baxter Woods!
Eventually the new leash law was passed by an 8-1 vote of the Council on 10/5/2020 after a 6 month delay due to the Pandemic. Those who voted in favor of criminalizing dog walks in MBW were: Mayor Kate Snyder, and Councilors Belinda Ray (D1), Spencer Thibodeau (D2), Tae Chong (D3), Justin Costa (D4), Kim Cook(D5-sponsor), Jill Duson (at large), and Pious Ali (at large). Each felt the criminalizing of off-leash dog walking was justified and some (Duson and Chong) wished for stricter penalties and wanted us arrested if possible for walking with our dogs.
The one and only no vote was cast by Councilor Nick Mavedones (at large) - who stated while he felt daily off-leash hours was the reasonable compromise, cravenly did not have the courage to propose the amendment as we requested to remove the 4 month ban from the leash law proposal enacted that day.
The Current City of Portland Leash Rules in Mayor Baxter Woods are as follows:.
1. Daily Off-leash Hours: 6am-9am, 3pm-10pm.
2. Dogs must be leashed: 9am-3pm. every day. 3. Dogs are supposed to be on leash at all times in the Bird Habitat Restoration Area (on the condo/highrise side of the Woods).
4. FULL-TIME ON LEASH HOURS.
IN ALL OF BAXTER WOODS ANNUALLY
FROM APRIL 1ST - JULY 31ST!!!
Friend’s Group President Marc Lesperance’s personal legal actions in process:
The FoMBW Group President, Marc Lesperance has two cases pending in Court at this time regarding the MBW leash law. One is an appeal of a MBW leash law violation summons he received in June of 2023, with a Court hearing in February 2024 where District Court Judge Jennifer Nofsinger decided against Marc and imposed a $500 fine on him, five times the $100 fine the City was seeking. Marc appealed the decision in March, filed briefs in June and August, and the case is now before the Maine State Supreme Court (sitting as the Law Court). The Court advised Marc in late October that it will make its final decision “on the briefs” without a formal hearing. So a decision on this case may be issued at anytime.
The second case is a civil complaint, filed in Superior Court on April 29, 2024, where Marc is the Plaintiff and the City of Portland the Defendant. This case is essentially a corrected and updated re-filing of his original complaint submitted in 2021 that was dismissed in October 2023. Now with over four years of knowledge about the legal process and a better understanding of the law and Court functions, Marc is confident there are no technical flaws in this case filing and believes he has sound arguments for why the MBW leash law is not compliant with Maine Law. There is a clear supporting precedent for his contentions on Gov. Baxter’s intent about off-leash dogs, and the blatantly incorrect if not illegal manner in which the City passed the MBW is leash law in 2020 and has enforced supposed “at large” dog violations ever since.
The precedent is based on a Maine State Supreme Court case that was decided in 1978, Fitzgerald vs. the Baxter State Park Authority (BSPA), that involved how the BSPA conducted a massive tree clearing operation in BSP, that a concerned citizen like Marc (Fitzgerald) took exception to, as a violation of Gov. Baxter’s intent for how the BSP should be managed. The MBW case is very similar, and to date the City Attorneys have made no legal arguments refuting the case! In July ‘24 the Superior Court Judge stayed further action in this case pending the Law Courts decision on the leash violation case as discussed in the previous section. This Superior Court case will continue once the Supreme Court case is decided.
What can you do? What else have we done?
As a group we believed in 2021 that there was a chance the current leash rules could be amended by City Council to allow for daily off-leash hours. But in the 4+ years since passage the City has taken no action to remove the bans on off-leash dog walks in Baxter Woods and short of the Court issuing an injunction - no indication the current Council will do anything to stop the City’s punitive and arguably unauthorized enforcement of the egregious leash law. We have no current plans to work with City Council or City Staff on amending the obnoxious MBW leash law rules, but if the opportunity arises - we are willing to meet and discuss steps the City should take to decriminalize the daily walks we take with our controlled dogs in Baxter Woods.
At this time, with Marc’s 2 Court cases pending, If you are interested in sharing your thoughts with any members of City Council or Leadership, below are names and addresses where you can send communications. FYI - talking points and other ideas or info about the leash law are listed in the "new leash law" and "unintended consequences” sections of the website. Our current City Council includes the following people:
District 1 - Sarah Michniewicz - elected ‘24
smichniewicz@portlandmaine.gov
District 2 - Wes Pelletier - elected ‘24
wpelletier@portlandmaine.gov -
District 3 - Regina Phillips - elected ‘22
rphillips@portlandmaine.gov
District 4 - Anna Bullett - elected ‘23
abullet@portlandmaine.gov
District 5 - Kate Sykes - elected ‘23
[email protected]
At Large - April Fournier - elected ‘23
[email protected]
At Large - Pious Ali - elected ‘22
[email protected]
At Large - Ben Grant - elected ‘24
bgrant@portlandmaine.gov
Mayor - Mark Dion - elected ‘23
mdion@portlandmaine.gov - term ends ‘27
City Manager - Danielle West
citymanager@portlandmaine.gov
Some thoughts and experiences we’ve had with our current City Council regarding MBW:
Councilor Ali is the only Councilor remaining who served on the Council that passed the MBW leash law in 2020, and he voted in favor of it. Before the 10/5/2020 meeting we asked him directly to propose an amendment to the Ordinance removing the 4 month ban, but he ignored our requests and never responded. A few months later responding to an e-mail, Ali noted that he thought the ban had already been removed from the MBW rules earlier in the year, but he was mistaken. That was for a misguided city-wide leash law that Kim Cook (D5 Councilor in 2020) had proposed during the pandemic hysteria. Regardless he has not been willing to take action since 2020 to correct the error that’s this leash law, and continually defers to the Parks Department on any revisions to the City Code.
Councilor Sykes in 2020 was running for the D5 seat she now holds (since elected in 2023), and spoke in support of our call for daily off-leash in MBW at the 10/5/2020 council meeting when the leash law was passed. She is the only Councilor serving who supported us and stood up against the terrible actions City Staff were proposing.
Mayor Dion met with us after the initial leash law vote, when he was running for the D5 Council Seat in October 2020. At the time he supported our call for daily off-leash hours. While he may have initially agreed that daily off leash hours every day of the year was a reasonable request, as Mayor he has been a vocal opponent of Marc and our ask for daily off-leash hours every day of the year.
As Corp. Counsel in 2020, City Manager West supported the leash law changes and allowed these inappropriate rules to take effect and has done nothing to prevent City Staff from unlawfully enforcing this unjust leash law!
Please ‘cc any correspondence you send to City Council/Leaders to our e-mail address at: baxterwoodsfriends@gmail.com
Eventually the new leash law was passed by an 8-1 vote of the Council on 10/5/2020 after a 6 month delay due to the Pandemic. Those who voted in favor of criminalizing dog walks in MBW were: Mayor Kate Snyder, and Councilors Belinda Ray (D1), Spencer Thibodeau (D2), Tae Chong (D3), Justin Costa (D4), Kim Cook(D5-sponsor), Jill Duson (at large), and Pious Ali (at large). Each felt the criminalizing of off-leash dog walking was justified and some (Duson and Chong) wished for stricter penalties and wanted us arrested if possible for walking with our dogs.
The one and only no vote was cast by Councilor Nick Mavedones (at large) - who stated while he felt daily off-leash hours was the reasonable compromise, cravenly did not have the courage to propose the amendment as we requested to remove the 4 month ban from the leash law proposal enacted that day.
The Current City of Portland Leash Rules in Mayor Baxter Woods are as follows:.
1. Daily Off-leash Hours: 6am-9am, 3pm-10pm.
2. Dogs must be leashed: 9am-3pm. every day. 3. Dogs are supposed to be on leash at all times in the Bird Habitat Restoration Area (on the condo/highrise side of the Woods).
4. FULL-TIME ON LEASH HOURS.
IN ALL OF BAXTER WOODS ANNUALLY
FROM APRIL 1ST - JULY 31ST!!!
Friend’s Group President Marc Lesperance’s personal legal actions in process:
The FoMBW Group President, Marc Lesperance has two cases pending in Court at this time regarding the MBW leash law. One is an appeal of a MBW leash law violation summons he received in June of 2023, with a Court hearing in February 2024 where District Court Judge Jennifer Nofsinger decided against Marc and imposed a $500 fine on him, five times the $100 fine the City was seeking. Marc appealed the decision in March, filed briefs in June and August, and the case is now before the Maine State Supreme Court (sitting as the Law Court). The Court advised Marc in late October that it will make its final decision “on the briefs” without a formal hearing. So a decision on this case may be issued at anytime.
The second case is a civil complaint, filed in Superior Court on April 29, 2024, where Marc is the Plaintiff and the City of Portland the Defendant. This case is essentially a corrected and updated re-filing of his original complaint submitted in 2021 that was dismissed in October 2023. Now with over four years of knowledge about the legal process and a better understanding of the law and Court functions, Marc is confident there are no technical flaws in this case filing and believes he has sound arguments for why the MBW leash law is not compliant with Maine Law. There is a clear supporting precedent for his contentions on Gov. Baxter’s intent about off-leash dogs, and the blatantly incorrect if not illegal manner in which the City passed the MBW is leash law in 2020 and has enforced supposed “at large” dog violations ever since.
The precedent is based on a Maine State Supreme Court case that was decided in 1978, Fitzgerald vs. the Baxter State Park Authority (BSPA), that involved how the BSPA conducted a massive tree clearing operation in BSP, that a concerned citizen like Marc (Fitzgerald) took exception to, as a violation of Gov. Baxter’s intent for how the BSP should be managed. The MBW case is very similar, and to date the City Attorneys have made no legal arguments refuting the case! In July ‘24 the Superior Court Judge stayed further action in this case pending the Law Courts decision on the leash violation case as discussed in the previous section. This Superior Court case will continue once the Supreme Court case is decided.
What can you do? What else have we done?
As a group we believed in 2021 that there was a chance the current leash rules could be amended by City Council to allow for daily off-leash hours. But in the 4+ years since passage the City has taken no action to remove the bans on off-leash dog walks in Baxter Woods and short of the Court issuing an injunction - no indication the current Council will do anything to stop the City’s punitive and arguably unauthorized enforcement of the egregious leash law. We have no current plans to work with City Council or City Staff on amending the obnoxious MBW leash law rules, but if the opportunity arises - we are willing to meet and discuss steps the City should take to decriminalize the daily walks we take with our controlled dogs in Baxter Woods.
At this time, with Marc’s 2 Court cases pending, If you are interested in sharing your thoughts with any members of City Council or Leadership, below are names and addresses where you can send communications. FYI - talking points and other ideas or info about the leash law are listed in the "new leash law" and "unintended consequences” sections of the website. Our current City Council includes the following people:
District 1 - Sarah Michniewicz - elected ‘24
smichniewicz@portlandmaine.gov
District 2 - Wes Pelletier - elected ‘24
wpelletier@portlandmaine.gov -
District 3 - Regina Phillips - elected ‘22
rphillips@portlandmaine.gov
District 4 - Anna Bullett - elected ‘23
abullet@portlandmaine.gov
District 5 - Kate Sykes - elected ‘23
[email protected]
At Large - April Fournier - elected ‘23
[email protected]
At Large - Pious Ali - elected ‘22
[email protected]
At Large - Ben Grant - elected ‘24
bgrant@portlandmaine.gov
Mayor - Mark Dion - elected ‘23
mdion@portlandmaine.gov - term ends ‘27
City Manager - Danielle West
citymanager@portlandmaine.gov
Some thoughts and experiences we’ve had with our current City Council regarding MBW:
Councilor Ali is the only Councilor remaining who served on the Council that passed the MBW leash law in 2020, and he voted in favor of it. Before the 10/5/2020 meeting we asked him directly to propose an amendment to the Ordinance removing the 4 month ban, but he ignored our requests and never responded. A few months later responding to an e-mail, Ali noted that he thought the ban had already been removed from the MBW rules earlier in the year, but he was mistaken. That was for a misguided city-wide leash law that Kim Cook (D5 Councilor in 2020) had proposed during the pandemic hysteria. Regardless he has not been willing to take action since 2020 to correct the error that’s this leash law, and continually defers to the Parks Department on any revisions to the City Code.
Councilor Sykes in 2020 was running for the D5 seat she now holds (since elected in 2023), and spoke in support of our call for daily off-leash in MBW at the 10/5/2020 council meeting when the leash law was passed. She is the only Councilor serving who supported us and stood up against the terrible actions City Staff were proposing.
Mayor Dion met with us after the initial leash law vote, when he was running for the D5 Council Seat in October 2020. At the time he supported our call for daily off-leash hours. While he may have initially agreed that daily off leash hours every day of the year was a reasonable request, as Mayor he has been a vocal opponent of Marc and our ask for daily off-leash hours every day of the year.
As Corp. Counsel in 2020, City Manager West supported the leash law changes and allowed these inappropriate rules to take effect and has done nothing to prevent City Staff from unlawfully enforcing this unjust leash law!
Please ‘cc any correspondence you send to City Council/Leaders to our e-mail address at: baxterwoodsfriends@gmail.com
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Our Mission & Values
The Friends of Mayor Baxter Woods (FoMBW) group was created to advocate for the preservation and protection of Mayor Baxter Wood’s natural beauty and its historic and cultural significance in the Portland's Deering Center neighborhood. We formed specifically to organize as a group to defend ourselves against a small but powerful band of political activists bent on seeing a restrictive leash law enforced in Mayor Baxter Woods.
Please join us in protecting this invaluable community resource. To become a member of our Friends group, just send a message to [email protected]. We will add your name to our list.
FoMBW advocates for volunteer stewardship of our precious woods and community resource. Regular visitors to these woods rely on this rare inner-city forest for exercise, connection with nature, and both canine and human socialization.
In early 2019, the Parks Department initially proposed that dogs should be on leash 24/7/365, igniting a large negative response from our then unorganized group of avid off-leash dog walkers. In April the Parks Commission asked the Parks Department to revise its full time leash law - which resulted in the current complex ordinance of set hours, locations and seasonal leash law rules (see details in July 18th Parks Commission Meeting notes, Section II. b, ii here).
We believe that the wisdom and legacy of Governor Baxter's wishes should be honored and advocate that City Officials should adhere to the stipulations in the 1946 Deed gifting MBW to the people of Portland (see original deed here).* Beyond the Deed, as a matter of the law - Mayor Baxter Woods should be managed by the City as Gov. Baxter intended, in the way former City Leaders understood for decades, as a place where off-leash dogs were allowed. Gov. Baxter even wrote a book about his dogs and how he loved being with them off-leash.
We also believe that requiring dogs to be leashed will create a host of unanticipated, negative consequences for both dogs and humans (see both "New Leash Law?" and "Unintended Consequences" for elaboration).
In both public meetings as well as public and private correspondence, Parks Department Staff has unfoundedly complained of dogs harming bird populations (see here), noted examples of dog waste on the grounds, and cited incidents of dog aggression as reasons to enact the leash law. We offered counter-arguments to each contention posed by the City - and at every step in the process were ignored by City Staff, Parks Commissioners, and City Councilors. Denied the opportunity to present our facts in an equal block of time - we were only allowed 3 minutes of public comment time to refute the City’s list of misinformation and outright disinformation about what was happening in MBW.
The Parks Department has further stated that "education" has not led to compliance with the rules. But City Staff was never interested in educating the public or even enforcing existing rules. Although they have posted signs regarding rules governing off-leash dogs, they have never attempted to enforce posted fines. In their arguments for the leash law, the Parks Director even suggested that current usage (off-leash allowances) are a violation of the deed, which is a ridiculous proposition and we dispute.
FoMBW was formed in order to provide both on-going education and resources to address the Park Department's concerns related to off-leash dogs. Given that the population of dogs and their owners evolves over time, and that MBW experienced increased use as a result of the City's social media PR, local press reports about MBW and as a result of Portland's general population growth and increased dog-walking seen during the pandemic. As a group we ask for an opportunity to provide education targeted to current and future dog owners. The dog-walking community does realize that the park has various user groups, yet we are its volunteer stewards who both walk in and care for these woods on a day-to-day basis, rain, shine, or blizzard. We are asking for but were refused an opportunity to work with City Staff to organize and improve the day-to-day experiences of all MBW users. In the future we will seek collaboration again, but for now the City has shown it has no interest in working with us.
Please join us in protecting this invaluable community resource. To become a member of our Friends group, just send a message to [email protected]. We will add your name to our list.
FoMBW advocates for volunteer stewardship of our precious woods and community resource. Regular visitors to these woods rely on this rare inner-city forest for exercise, connection with nature, and both canine and human socialization.
In early 2019, the Parks Department initially proposed that dogs should be on leash 24/7/365, igniting a large negative response from our then unorganized group of avid off-leash dog walkers. In April the Parks Commission asked the Parks Department to revise its full time leash law - which resulted in the current complex ordinance of set hours, locations and seasonal leash law rules (see details in July 18th Parks Commission Meeting notes, Section II. b, ii here).
We believe that the wisdom and legacy of Governor Baxter's wishes should be honored and advocate that City Officials should adhere to the stipulations in the 1946 Deed gifting MBW to the people of Portland (see original deed here).* Beyond the Deed, as a matter of the law - Mayor Baxter Woods should be managed by the City as Gov. Baxter intended, in the way former City Leaders understood for decades, as a place where off-leash dogs were allowed. Gov. Baxter even wrote a book about his dogs and how he loved being with them off-leash.
We also believe that requiring dogs to be leashed will create a host of unanticipated, negative consequences for both dogs and humans (see both "New Leash Law?" and "Unintended Consequences" for elaboration).
In both public meetings as well as public and private correspondence, Parks Department Staff has unfoundedly complained of dogs harming bird populations (see here), noted examples of dog waste on the grounds, and cited incidents of dog aggression as reasons to enact the leash law. We offered counter-arguments to each contention posed by the City - and at every step in the process were ignored by City Staff, Parks Commissioners, and City Councilors. Denied the opportunity to present our facts in an equal block of time - we were only allowed 3 minutes of public comment time to refute the City’s list of misinformation and outright disinformation about what was happening in MBW.
The Parks Department has further stated that "education" has not led to compliance with the rules. But City Staff was never interested in educating the public or even enforcing existing rules. Although they have posted signs regarding rules governing off-leash dogs, they have never attempted to enforce posted fines. In their arguments for the leash law, the Parks Director even suggested that current usage (off-leash allowances) are a violation of the deed, which is a ridiculous proposition and we dispute.
FoMBW was formed in order to provide both on-going education and resources to address the Park Department's concerns related to off-leash dogs. Given that the population of dogs and their owners evolves over time, and that MBW experienced increased use as a result of the City's social media PR, local press reports about MBW and as a result of Portland's general population growth and increased dog-walking seen during the pandemic. As a group we ask for an opportunity to provide education targeted to current and future dog owners. The dog-walking community does realize that the park has various user groups, yet we are its volunteer stewards who both walk in and care for these woods on a day-to-day basis, rain, shine, or blizzard. We are asking for but were refused an opportunity to work with City Staff to organize and improve the day-to-day experiences of all MBW users. In the future we will seek collaboration again, but for now the City has shown it has no interest in working with us.