Priority on parks

At the Brooks Tot Lot near Civic Center Drive, Shyna Evans was playing with her daughter, Kristy, amid cracked and warped equipment sitting upon cracked and broken concrete.

It's a scene that North Las Vegas officials, who are campaigning vigorously to change the city's image, are trying to correct through a greater investment in parks and recreation facilities that includes an aggressive push to obtain federal funds.

Just 5 percent of the city's budget is now directed toward culture and recreation, including parks. By comparison, the city of Las Vegas, which has its own problems keeping up with the demand for ball fields and other open-space recreation, devotes 9.5 percent of its budget to culture and recreation.

The result is a growing city of 114,000 people that has the lowest number of park acreage per resident in the Las Vegas Valley. City officials acknowledge the problem and have stated that more parks and more park maintenance will remain a high priority for the next several years.

This is good news for Shyna Evans and other park users.

"A lot of the equipment is falling apart and nothing seems to be getting done about it," Evans complained Wednesday. "I wonder why the council isn't helping bring more parks to the city."

The City Council is beginning now to work toward that end.

Councilman Shari Buck, whose major campaign platform was to bring about more parks, is working with local lobbyist Rick Alcalde, whose company, Rick Alcalde & Fay, represents North Las Vegas in efforts to obtain federal grants.

Buck traveled to Washington last week and met with Nevada's congressional delegation to talk about the city's "wish list" of public works projects, including park construction. She was seeking information about federal money that might be available.

"I just wanted to introduce myself and let them know that North Las Vegas needs help in the upcoming year," Buck said of the visit. "It's more of a realization that there are funds out there and if we seek them, we could get them."

At numerous meetings during the past few months, residents have told the council that safe, quality parks are needed and are lacking in the city. In response, the council put creating more parks as a goal to reach by 2002.

Vytas Vaitkus, city finance director, confirmed that only 5 percent of the city's $55,650,000 budget goes toward culture and recreation, which includes parks.

Public Safety, which includes police, fire and emergency services, has the biggest share of the budget at 38 percent. Next is utilities (water and sewer) at 31 percent, Vaitkus said.

Eric Dabney, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said the major barrier to more parks is a lack of funding to buy land. This problem is forcing the department to reevaluate its goals and focus on rehabilitating existing parks until new land can be acquired, Dabney said.

"We have a good idea of what we need, but we've always had a funding problem," said Dabney, who has been director for 15 years. He said that until the recent council was appointed, his department was seen as a low priority.

The five-year master plan for the Parks and Recreation Department, which was adopted by the council in January 1997, outlined a number of goals, including land acquisition for parks.

"Unfortunately, we haven't been able to achieve most of (the goals)," Dabney said.

A recent citywide audit conducted by Ralph Anderson and Associates found the department had not made significant progress in maintaining existing parks or in buying land for new parks.

The results of the audit came as no surprise to Dabney.

"Part of the audit recommended we go back and look at the master plan and come up with more realistic goals. Right now, we're working with the board to come up with these goals and introduce them to the council after the new year," he said.

An assessment on developers is the major source of revenue to acquire land for new parks. The residential construction tax assesses a 1 percent fee up to $1,000 maximum on every new residential development.

The proposed District 3, the area north of Cheyenne Avenue, is averaging $400,000 a year in assessment tax.

That's great for District 3, where the majority of the population increase is taking place, because the money created from the tax can only go toward park development within that district.

But no growth means no money.

Of the 22 parks located around the city, the majority are in the older parts of the city where growth is stagnant, Dabney said. Because those older areas generate fewer tax assessments, there is less money for rehabilitation and land.

Dabney said it costs $600,000 to $800,000 an acre to acquire land for a park. And the council is focusing on 10-acre parcels, boosting the cost for one 10-acre parcel to $8 million.

But there's still a problem in the newer areas because waiting for $8 million to accumulate could take months or years, he said.

The auditors recommended the city pass a bond issue to finance the parks like the city of Henderson, which passed an $18 million bond issue for parks and was just awarded the 1999 National Gold Medal for Excellence in Parks and Recreation.

But Dabney said he has been told that bonding is not a feasibility, as the city is near its tax rate cap.

The city has higher property taxes than in the city of Las Vegas, at $3.38 per $100 of assessed value per year. Vaitkus said if the city wanted to levy a bond for parks, the rate could be no more than $3.64 per $100 property value and it would be up to the voters to approve.

A bond raising property taxes would include getting permission from the Clark County Debt Management Commission, and the item would be placed on the ballot.

In 1995, voters rejected a $7.5 million bond issue to fund a new library.

The parks and rec department's new focus is on rehabilitating existing parks until more money can be acquired to build new parks.

Two such parks soon to be rehabilitated are Herbert Memorial Park, on Burg Street and Cheyenne Avenue, and Brooks Tot Lot on Brooks Street and Civic Center Drive.

"We don't want to have to raise taxes," said Buck, who served on the parks advisory board two years ago. "Right now, we're requiring more from our builders."

Kenneth Fitzgerald, who serves on the parks advisory board, said because the council is faced with a dilemma, it should consider focusing on smaller parcel sizes to make creating parks more feasible.

"The money we have is very small and limiting when it comes to trying to buy 10 acre parcels," he said. "Instead, let's buy smaller parks -- 2, 3, or 4 acres each. The smaller parks will serve the community just as well as larger parks.

"Right now our children are playing in the street and playing in vacant lots. We need the money to be spent wisely so it can really benefit the people of the community."

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