Parks board seeks ways to move projects forward

For more than two hours last Saturday members of the Nevada Parks Boards tossed out ideas and talked about what should be done to make the parks sales tax projects become a reality, as well as voted on two recommendations for the city council to help move the projects forward.

"The big thing is to get started. What we can get now for $400,000 we can't get in a year," parks board president Jim Novak said.

On April 5, 2005. Nevada residents voted 589-294 to renew the city's 1/2-cent parks and recreation sales tax for nine years, with the money to be used to pay for capital improvement projects in Nevada's park system.

According to the ballot the "revenues from this tax will be used to fund park capital improvement projects to include:

• Community Center Complex

• Earp Park improvements downtown

• Lyons and Bushwhacker ball field lighting and parking

• New paved bike/walking trails

• Twin Lakes/Golf Course Complex

The 1/2-cent parks sales tax brings in about $700,000 per year and after $200,000 is deducted to replace the parks property tax levy that was rolled back to zero for the life of the tax, the city has about $500,000 per year to spend on the sales tax projects.

While the parks board is not recommending that the city simply renovate the current building they want to know what it would cost to update the current building as a starting point for further discussion.

In 2005 it was estimated that it would cost about $330,000 to complete renovate the current community center, without adding any additional facilities.

"We'd like to get the 2005 numbers updated to the current numbers to work with," Jeff Post said, before the board voted to recommend that the city council get a current cost estimate to renovate the existing community center. The board wants the estimate to include bringing the facility up to ADA standards, replacing the gymnasium floor and updating the appearance of the building.

They also voted to recommend that the city have an engineering study done for the Twin Lakes baseball and softball complex, with the idea of having the new fields ready for use next summer.

Post told the board that he has a program that he uses in his insurance business to estimate the cost to reconstruct various facilities and according to that program it would cost about $2.5 million to build a community center exactly like the current one and it would cost about $1.7 million to build a double gymnasium with a 24-foot high ceiling.

"These programs are usually fairly accurate," he said.

"What if you close Hunter Street?" Novak asked.

Post said that would let them attach a new double gymnasium on the north side of the current building.

"We could have something really neat if we closed Hunter Street and be able to use both sides of the street," Novak said.

That would let us have a double gym, and turn the current gym into a multi-purpose room, as well as add parking on the north side of Hunter Street, Post sad.

McHugh told the board that the city owns everything up to the Neal Center.

Another option McHugh told the board would be to put the new gym on the south side of Hunter Street and move the meeting rooms to the north side of the street.

"You could use key card access to the meeting rooms and before the user's deposit is returned check the building," McHugh said.

Other ideas the parks board came up with for the community center include: seating in the gymnasium, walking/running track, soundproofed exercise/yoga room, updated locker room, update the game room, an outdoor seating area, a public address system and additional parking.

For the ball fields at the Twin Lakes Park: four softball and four baseball field complexes, batting cages, equipment storage building, conces-sion/restroom facility and upgrade the playground equipment.

Earp Park suggestions include fixing the fountain, landscaping and an electronic reader board.

The board's ideas for improvements at the golf course include: update the clubhouse, add a covered patio area, watering system for the fairways, mow more grass along the road leading into the golf course, improve the grass on the fairways and additional landscaping.

The board also suggested that walking trails be located around the baseball complex, or to designate the sidewalks around the former Nevada State Hospital buildings as walking trail, placing distance markers on the trails.