Last modified: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 1:13 AM EST Dog park foes file lawsuit against town BY FRANK MORTIMER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF FOXBORO - Residents seeking to close the Foxboro Dog Park on Mill Street have filed a lawsuit against selectmen and the conservation commission. And William Hocking Jr., conservation commission chairman for well over two decades, has resigned in an action a colleague links to the gnarly dog park conflict. "If this isn't a morass of difficulty, nothing is. And we created this," selectmen Chairman James Thrasher said during the board's meeting Tuesday night. Neither panel has accepted Hocking's resignation, and board member Douglas Davis said he hopes Hocking can be convinced to change his mind. Selectman Mark Sullivan said the town should fight the suit, rather than close the dog park, a view shared by Robert Boette, acting chairman of the conservation commission. "I'm not in first grade anymore, and won't be bullied. I'm not going to bow down to a lawsuit," Sullivan said. The dog park and the lawsuit, brought Monday by 17 residents of Milton Lane and Mill Street, was the subject of a lengthy debate among the two boards Tuesday nigh t in the auditorium of Foxboro High School. About 60 residents attended - about the same number who showed up Monday night for a brief conservation commission discussion of the dog park impasse in the McGinty Meeting Room at the Public Safety Building. Boette, standing in as acting conservation chairman in Hocking's absence, announced Monday that the lawsuit had been filed against selectmen and the commission, and for that reason the commission would not be discuss the dog park that night. But in response to a question from dog park supporter Paul Hubrich of Lakeview Terrace, Boette said the commission does not plan to close the park, a comment that drew applause from the majority of the audience. At Tuesday's joint meeting, Thrasher took some lumps during the debate. Boette confronted Thrasher with a rumor that the selectman had once promised an abutter of Cocasset River Park that a dog park would never be sited there, a charge Thrasher denied. He said he's always tried to act in the best interests of the town, not of any one party. Thrasher said a dog park is a good idea, but "I don't think it's in the right place." Heather Harding, who co-founded the park in 2006, presented a petition - signed by 400 residents, she said - charging that selectmen would be "overstepping their authority if they were to vote to shut the park down." Commission member Judith Johnson said the park appears to be well managed. Robert Garrigan of Cedar Street said he is neither an abutter nor user of the dog park, but that he would never want such a facility in his backyard. He said it's absurd for the town to potentially spend $50,000 or more on a court case over a dog park, and that anyone who says dogs aren't barking is lying. Selectman Robert Hickey urged the board not to accept Hocking's resignation. A member of the conservation commission since 1982, and its chairman since 1984, Hocking, 73, abruptly resigned Tuesday. His resignation letter did not specifically mention the dog park, but Boette suggested in an interview that it was a factor in Hocking's resignation. "Non-conservation issues have escalated and taken up a lot of time," Boette said. Boette said the dog park controversy was apparently "the last straw" for Hocking. "Bill didn't say that, but that's my feeling," Boette said.