A staff member told the Planning Commission on Jan. 8 that the Viking Dog Park’s trees are widely affected by laminated root rot and the City Council approved a two-part capital improvement project to remove and reforest the area and add an ADA-compliant trail loop.

"The trees that are currently within a dog park have laminated root rot, and there is no treatment for laminated root rot, which is why we keep having blowdowns during storm events. So we're going to have to remove the existing trees, reforest the area, with a different species, of tree that is not susceptible to laminated root rot," the Public Services Director said.

Staff said the project will include regrading parts of the site to install an ADA-compliant walking loop and that the city will bring in an arborist/forester to identify replacement species. The director noted that "big leaf maple is immune" and that some evergreen species—particularly Douglas fir relatives—are susceptible; staff emphasized they are not arborists and will rely on professionals to select appropriate species.

On timing, staff said they do not have a firm date. The director said the city will review CIP priorities at a management retreat next week to calendar the work. "I don't have a firm a firm date for you at this point...it'll probably take two weeks to log it and probably a month to do the grading," the director said. Staff said planting was hoped to be done by September, contingent on scheduling and construction sequencing.

Beautify Bonney Lake was mentioned as willing to contribute to planting. Staff said the city will provide more details after the CIP calendar is set and will report progress to the commission at a future meeting.

No formal commission action was taken on the dog-park project at this meeting; the item was reported as an informational update from staff.