Community Corner

Dog Park Contest Voting Goes Dark for Remaining Week

You can still vote in the Bark for your Park contest but you can't see the tallies until after voting closes Aug. 1.

Vote tallies for the top 15 finalists in the "Bark for your Park" contest will be hidden starting today and through the end of the competition on Aug. 1.

, which moved into 2nd place overall earlier this month in the PetSafe-sponsored contest, had a little more than 95,000 votes late Tuesday night. Texarkana, a city in Arkansas with a population of about 30,000, holds onto 1st place with more than 132,000 votes.

Oak Forest has secured a 7-acre piece of Cook County-owned land near 160th and Oak Park Avenue for the dog park.

Find out what's happening in Oak Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Volunteers on Oak Forest's Bark for a Park committee tasked with securing and funding the dog park have worked for months to find anyone and everyone willing to vote for the city. This final push includes a trip to a Windy City Thunderbolts game on Friday.

"To help all of us who have been working so hard over the last few months, we ask every citizen in Oak Forest, Midlothian, Tinley Park, Orland Park, Crestwood, Robbins, Posen and anybody else who knows how to use Facebook to get online and vote for our dog park," said , a committee volunteer and Oak Forest Patch blogger.

Find out what's happening in Oak Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Orland Park also is in the contest and currently sits in fifth place. A brief spat broke out between Orland and it fellow south suburban city in June over a .

The city which collects the most votes in total wins the grand prize of $100,000 cash to use for its dog park. There also are two runner-up prizes, both for $25,000. The town with the second-most number of votes wins one of the runner-up prizes while the other goes to the contestant who has the most votes as a percentage of its population. Mountain House in California was listed with that distinction late Tuesday.

Here's how to help Oak Forest win it all:

  1. Visit the PetSafe contest site.
  2. Click on Oak Forest.
  3. Create an account, or log in if you already have one.
  4. Click "Vote Now."
  5. Next, visit PetSafe's Facebook page.
  6. Log in and vote again!

To purchase a ticket of the Thunderbolts game, contact Jason Akai at jasonakai@yahoo.com.


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