Board discusses tax money use

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

The Nevada Parks Board spent about two hours Wednesday night discussing the projects voters approved when they renewed the parks and recreation sales tax last year. At this point the board members have a good idea that a new civic center tops the list of the five projects that Nevada voters wanted and the improvements at Twin Lakes comes in a close second, followed by Earp Park improvements and walking and biking trails.

What they need to do now is to determine what are the most important features to be included in a new civic center and at Twin Lakes, as well as look at ways of paying for everything and in the process perhaps be able to replace the Public Safety Building and the City Hall.

The new lights at Lyons Stadium and Bushwhacker Field have already been installed and the parking improvements still need to be addressed by either the city or the R-5 School District, which is planning to lease the property and make substantial investments in the facility.

However, the problem they face is that the $5 million the tax will generate over the nine years of its life is probably not enough money to do all of them the way they would like to do them.

"I realized when I first got here that the money from the tax would not be enough to do all of the projects," Harlan Moore, city manager, said.

"I am concerned that if we have $5 million to spend and the civic center is considered the most important, we will spend all of that money there and there will be nothing left for improvements at Twin Lakes," Jim Novak said.

"We are a town without recreation facilities. There are no city owned tennis courts or fields for men's fast pitch or slow pitch softball and not enough baseball and softball fields," Novak said. "We need to address all of these issues."

Tim Holmes said there was no reason to not do both.

"All of these projects are important. They are the core of the park department," Gina Cripps said.

"Improving Earp Park could help make this entire city block beautiful and useful."

Jim Adams, Adams & Associates, told the board that he had told the previous administration that the tax money would not be enough to cover everything, but they decided to go ahead anyway.

"The money is not there to do these projects the way we would like to do them," Adams said.

Adams has a contract with the city to provide architectural and planning services for the capital improvement projects covered by the sales tax.

"I'm here to help," he said.

What Adams proposed is for the council to take a couple of weeks to follow the process that his firm has used for more than 20 years to determine what the most important features are for each of the projects.

The process involves the members of the park board answering a number of questions about the projects from their knowledge and including the current usage and potential future usage of each project.

"This usually takes six to eight weeks to complete, but it can be compressed into two or three weeks," Adams told the board.

Adams said since the board is dealing with public money, they want to be sure the process is very methodical and no stone is left unturned.

Since the amount of money available from the sales tax will not be enough to do everything, the parks board is considering looking at what grants are available and possibly combining the Earp Park improvements and a new civic center with other facilities the city needs.

The city owns the entire block, Adams told the board.

The Public Safety building has served the city for a long time, but it may need to be replaced. Moore said the city hall used to be an automobile dealership.

"There are grants that we could get for a new fire department," he said.

Moore also said it might be time for the city to work together to get a lot of things done.

"You could take the lead as the park board to do this and not just the four projects approved by the voters," he said.

Adams said if they are able to use this $5 million as seed money and with grants turn it into $10 million, they could do a lot of things.

With all of these things to consider, Adams said he did not think they could have a serious recommendation for the city council at the Nov. 7 meeting.

"Any decision you make now is five years old, because it will be five years before you move into the facility," Adams said.