Nevada City Council members discuss proposal process for Earp Park caboose

At the closing of Tuesday evening's council meeting, council member Lyndon Eberhard wanted to discuss the City's recent decision to publish a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the 1972 train caboose that currently sits at Earp Park. Eberhard noted the public response to the post made by the City on its social media page.

“Has any of the rest of the council members here released their phone to the public?” asked Eberhard. “Because, as I recall, I voted 'no' to putting the caboose to where we could sell it and I've done nothing but get call after call in the last few days because somebody put this on the City's Facebook page that this caboose was up for sale. I'd like somebody else to field those phone calls because I'm pretty much against it and it looks to me, from the Facebook page, there's several others that are grumpy about that.”

In regards to the caboose, council member Kendall Vickers stated, “One thing that's missing from the online discourse is that the Parks Board had recommended that it be removed as maintaining consistent with their plan for the area. I want to go on the record as being 'caboose neutral.'”

Nevada City Manager Mark Mitchell then made clarifications about the situation. “Council declared it surplus,” Mitchell explained. “What we're doing is accepting proposals, then proposals will come to council. At that time, the council will make a decision whether we do one of three things: Remove it; rehab it where it currently sits; or relocate it within our community.”

Mitchell noted that the City has already received a lot of interest in the caboose. “We are getting a ton of hits,” he stated. “It somehow got to a railroad message board. We're getting calls from Illinois, St. Louis... so, there's a high demand for that caboose.”

Vernon County Economic Developer Ben Vickers then asked Mitchell a clarifying question. “The Request for Proposal does say that somebody could put in a proposal to rehabilitate it where it sits, correct?” Mitchell confirmed that this was correct. “I just wanted to clarify that,” noted Ben Vickers. “I know it's been a real pain in the caboose.” Mitchell noted that hopefully a local organization would come forward and offer to paint it and rehab it.

In addition, Eberhard wanted to mention the social media response to the closure of the swimming pool and movie theater. “Also, on that note, I read one (Facebook comment) today that said 'we've lost our swimming pool.. we've lost our movie theater.. now our kids can't even go play on that (caboose).' Kids haven't played on that caboose in years,” he stated. “The swimming pool was operating at like 32 percent capacity the last 10 years and while they had it available, they didn't go. Same way with the theater. The theater had been running 12 to 15 people to a showing over the last year and half or two years because the kids simply didn't go. But, now all of a sudden because it's not there, everybody is grumpy about it and it's the City's fault. I've had enough. If you want to complain about something for our kids to do, then whenever you've got something you need to utilize it.”

For any questions about the caboose, contact City Manager Mark Mitchell at (417) 448-5509.

For more information about the proposal process, contact cityclerk@nevadamo.gov.