All right. Good afternoon. The parks, arts, recreation and culture, advisory board.
Welcome to its meeting. The meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m.
copies of the agenda are available on the day of the meeting in the lobby outside of council chambers
and online at city of northlossvagas.com. Items on the agenda may be taken out of order.
Two or more agenda items may be combined for consideration, or items may be removed from the agenda, or have the discussion delay to another date.
If you are in attendance at the meeting, and which to speak on a particular item, please complete one of the blue cards located at either the table outside the main entrance to council chambers or inside at the podium rail.
Wait and submit the card to the city clerk.
At this time, I will confirm compliance with the open meeting law and ask everyone to rise for the pledge of allegiance to be led by Mr. Castillo.
With liberty and justice for all.
Moving on to the first portion of the meeting dedicated to the public form, public comment during this portion of the agenda must be wanted to matter on the agenda for action.
After completing submitting a blue speak card, come forward to the podium.
Please state your name and address for the record and consideration of other citizens. We ask that you limit your comments to two minutes and that repetition be avoided.
At this time, I will open the public form for comment.
Having received no blue speaker cards and no request to speak. I will close the public form and move on to the election of officers.
Item number one, parks arts recreation and culture advisory board to elect from its membership a chairperson.
And I will open the item for nominations for chair of the park at board.
Are there any nominations for chair?
This is board number round. I nominate Alex Festillo as the chair of the parks arts recreation and culture advisory board.
Member Ward. I motion second that motion. Are there any other nominations.
Hearing no other nominations, we have a motion to elect Mr. Castillo for chair of the park at board.
And I will call for the question. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any extensions?
And that motion passes Mr. Chair, congratulations and I turn the meeting to you.
Thank you so much. We'll now go to the second part of the elections of officers,
where we will open for nominations for vice chairperson.
Member Ward. I nominate Ian Brown for vice chair.
Member Ramirez. I second that.
Are there any other nominations?
And then do you call for the motion? Call for motion everyone.
I.
Hi. Any opposed?
And that motion passes unanimously.
I'm motion to approve recommendation.
Member Ward. I second for approval.
And that motion passes.
I'll move on to the consent agenda. Motion for approval for the park arts recreation,
culture advisory board, regular minutes for me 12.26.
This is board member Brown. I move to approve the consent agenda.
Member Ward. I move to second.
All those favor?
All those. Any opposed? Thank you.
All right. Moving on to business and I'm five update on parks and recreation master plan.
Hi. Welcome back everybody. I feel like we haven't seen each other in a very long time. So I'm
excited to see everyone here in present. Valerie Derek, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation.
We have been busy doing our city of Morpheau Stegus Parks and Recreation master plan.
We had a presentation to city council on July 15th, where our consultant Jason Gennick.
He's our project manager came out and did an update. Basically Barry Dunn has been working closely
with the city staff, community stakeholders, and residents to evaluate our parks facilities
programs and future recreation needs. He provided an update on master plan process, shared key
findings from the community engagement efforts, and then also talk about the next important steps
to completing the planning document. So in front of you or on the monitors, you'll see that this is
a presentation that was done that evening and I'm just going to go over it briefly, but if you feel like
you have any questions, I ask that you wait till the end and we kind of discuss it at that point.
Let's get going. Here we go. So the first picture shows some of our engagement efforts with our staff
members. We have two lunches and usually around July Parks and Recreation Month, and then also in the
end of December to get some of our feedback. So that was just some photos from that day.
But this presentation we'll talk about just overall introductions over you, preliminary findings next
steps, and then in questions and answers. There was a planning process that overview of where
we are now, which really established a framework that guides the future, represents unified vision for
the city of North Las Vegas, recognize and interrogates previous plans that we had for citywide efforts,
and then it considered all community members from every ward, and then provides an action plan and
help us guide decisions for the future. We have done the process of far of discovery and engagement
and our next steps are analysis and visioning with the finals being the draft of the final plan.
Hopefully in January of 2027 completion and then information in January of 2027 as well. So we're moving
on target and on on pace. Our public engagement efforts, you'll notice here it's an
next portion, where we were really good about collaborating partnerships in North Las Vegas,
going to the people, implementing engagements in person online and virtually. We did
individual's and groups. I think you guys were a part of that and you had an opportunity to meet with
Barry Dunn in person. We did a statistically valid survey. We did on-site data collection with
pop-up events. We were they did Craig Grant Regional Park. I think they went to a brewery night. They went to
a lot of events in the different words that Mesa and Ablewood Recreation Center because we want to
hear from all words, not just allow this word. We did focus groups to include your styles, to include
city leadership, to include stakeholders, allocation users, heavy, heavy involved folks in our
and our community. We did public meetings. We also did, like I said, key leader interviews, virtual meeting
social media online surveys and website tools. So you guys probably saw it was planned to get
planted a play tomorrow initiative with the web page and everything where people could click on the
survey link and share their views in there. What are they want us to see us in 10 years? The next 10 years.
So the voices in North Las Vegas we really wanted to meet people where they were and that's why we were
very intentional about going to pop-up events and going where people were so that we could really hear
information and the focus groups and the interviews were really great. We had a lot of outreach that came
from this. We were able to get about 728,000 impressions. Social media alone had over 100,000 email
marketing newsletters, over 500,000 pop-up engagement, about 1200. Social pinpoint visits, about 6,000.
This is the statistically valid sort of a tongue twister. How about 418 and then the city website
visits, how about 30,000. So we had a really good engagement from all words so that was really reassuring
for us to see such a huge turnout in our voices that we heard. Our community highest priorities were
trails and pathways, land acquisitions for parks, trails, natural areas, community and neighborhood parks,
arts and cultural programming events, and then our medium priorities were senior programming, wellness
and fitness, shade structures and trees, open spaces, aquatic facilities, playgrounds and restaurants.
Other priorities included recreation and aquatic facilities, splash pads, dog parks and
proven maintenance, safety improvements, youth and teen programs, aquatic programs, adaptive recreation
and before and after school programs, which is basically everything. All of the things, right?
And then we also did a level of service assessment. So we went through all of our assets. Within the city,
we have over 36 parks, free recreation centers. Two of them have gymnasium space. Two out of
our pools want to call it aquatic complex and one out indoor aquatic complex. 15 miles of multi-us drill,
municipal golf course and the Craig Grant Regional Park and amphitheater. And what we did was they did
amenities for 1,000 residents and what they did was do a city and more of our biggest count of our existing
amenities. What we have per residents, per facility, residents, per the national recreation and
parks association standard and then gives a targeted count. The negative though do show on this,
where we are deficient. So that's the deficiency. Anything over and a positive is a good thing.
So we do well in our splash pads. We do all in our volleyball courts. We do well in our swimming pools
at one, even though we only have four. But you'll see deficiencies in our playgrounds and our
entertainment fields and our basketball courts, tennis courts, recreation centers, you see those
deficiencies per the national average. So this is really good data for us to look at, help us plan for the
future and see where we really need to invest. We were really good about making sure that we looked at the
walkability of parks and kind of assessing what that looked like per ward, per the estimated population,
poor ward, how many acres we have and then how many acres per residents we have. So 56% of our residents
lived within a 10-minute walk of an outdoor recreation opportunity. So that's that's that's not bad.
Per the national average, that's not a bad number. Obviously we'd like to increase. But this just
gives us a map and a pinpoint of where we are now in history and where we need to be in order to
provide more programming and accessible services in the future. So our key finding was that we have
a diverse and well programming system, a performing system that really functions well with serving our
residents effectively. We do need to highly consider reinvestment in our established parks and targeted reinvestment
will help maintain equitable park quality across all of the neighborhoods. We have to focus on growth and
changing level services. So park land availability is inclined to 2.5 acres per 1,000 residents
in 2004 to approximately 2.2. So it's like really identifying our new parks, our new facilities,
our lane acquisition of how we're going to grow and build for the future. The benchmark
context had some amenities, fall below national meetings, which is the kind of established for
a similar size community. So when you take like a community that has the same population, I use
Henderson because they're very similar in population, they have much more recreation centers and
pools because they grew with the times and North Las Vegas kind of had a pause where we didn't have
a funding and the resources to grow so that that was heavily shown. Our profit 56% of residents
live within a time and walk of the park and outdoor wreck is a good number but it's the opportunity for
us to grow and expand on that and getting that number that percentage higher. Our war level findings
were conditions in service levels, very between the war is based off of park sites, age,
development and patterns and presence of community and regional facilities and you'll see like
we don't have as much park space in word one as we do in three and four obviously because of
the grow patterns of world times or when they were established. So it's really good key findings for us
as we now need to identify which wars need more more park land and more services so that it's more equitable.
And then we did a facilities assessment. We did a facilities assessment of our existing
conditions so all the recreation centers sky view neighborhood Mesa, senior center safety offices, pools,
all the pools the bulk of course is our maintenance facility are in our great grant regional park.
And this was done by BRS, and it really showed that we need to look at the city of maximize the service delivery, all facility. So what we do have we work really well with. And we, we, we, we, we, we, we program a maximize to our, to our potential.
Our facilities have struggled to keep up with impacts and needs from the rapid growth as our community has grown, you know, being one of the fastest growing cities. We didn't keep up with the growth. And so you'll see that inequity and that's something we need to focus on the next 10 years.
So if facility upgrades are a major priority building systems, the modernization of some of our facilities are, you know, 20 25 plus years old site circulation parking and way finding need improvement and then interior spaces need to refresh and better functional layout.
Pools and aquatic facilities have to significant life cycle and accessibility issues, as you know, some more pools are older and then we have some more pools that are on a new earth, so if you look up a TV, which is much older and walker, which is like older, but then we have our new one, like sky view and so or may so you see a difference there.
Storage and staff support services are consistently inefficient as we've grown, right, we're growing out of our spaces.
Safety and security improvements are needed, some facilities need full replacement or major repositioning.
Prioritize and notification of funding opportunities or resources to renovate or replace or expanding existing facilities as well as develop new recreation and aquatic facilities to meet future communities and as we grow.
So we need to identify a funding source either a part bond or a penny tax, we have to look at how we're going to grow and build with, you know, being inequitable as we are right now, how do we get there and what's the goal.
So there is a strong opportunity to align with capital improvements and then with program growth.
We also did a program assessment to look at what we're doing for our current programming throughout our community.
Future considerations for growth that were identified were health and wellness programs, adult recreation and structured athletics.
Some of our gaps that they were identified were arts, culture and creative programs, teen and teen activities, youth and childhood recreation for zero to four.
We do a work programming, older adult social enrichment programs, family, multi-generational teen programs, recreation programming as a whole.
Structure fitness and wellness programs, outdoor rec programs and adult social recreation hobby programs.
And a lot of this is based off the fact that we're at capacity a lot of these facilities, right.
So adding more programming is difficult when you don't have the facility or resources to do so.
And it's more just kind of showing that we need more facilities, we need more rec centers, we need more pools, we need more trails, parks.
Rising fitness and wellness demand growth of rackets for it's obviously pickable, that's a huge thing going on right now.
Outdoor recreation expansion, active aging programs for aging community and then partnerships of alternative providers and services.
And it resources to work with local vendors or shops in order to increase.
They also get a golf assessment.
Part three golf course is currently one of our, we have two golf courses, Aliante and I'm part three, and Aliante is doing very well.
And further graph that they show here, you're over your change, it's at a plus 40% but then you look at part three golf.
And it's at a minus a and you in a comparison to the value of shadow and those products and painted desert and those are pines, you can see that.
Municipal part three is underperforming so we asked for an assessment to kind of look at that golf course and kind of established what does this look like.
So they made some determinations of basically is a location is a location a good location for it should we look at capital needs improvements or reinvestment in it.
Looking at the infrastructure upgrades because the irrigation needs to be replaced and and then updated to come in the current times.
Course playing condition turf health.
Expanding program participation or amenities so customer experience but.
Aliante golf course was also our golf course is does really well right and we have a lot of usage there and have a usage there so it's do you pivot there.
So it just kind of gives us ideas of what we can do and thought process of what we should do for the future.
We also did a program assessment of our fees.
We haven't done a fee study I've been here for four years I hit that mark who this month and we had never done a program fee assessment when I came on we did a we did a light one and we did a very one but now we're doing a full one with this process.
And so in 2024 we collected significantly less revenue per capita compared to several parks and recreation agencies around the valley we compared.
46% less than the regional average and 58% less than the national average.
So the level of revenue doesn't necessarily indicate or program performance it just reflects that we have a higher level of subsidy like our mayor council subsides programs that our community can come at a low cost.
Which is a good thing but we want to make sure that we are still making sure that we're financially stable enables us five as we proceed.
Which typically allows our department offer broader access to program.
It gives us our free programming or free pool parties or free events and activities which is part of stuff we really like doing.
So the average household income and percentage of households below the federal poverty level of poverty level in our class figures so much of those in the back across the United States and this alignment suggests that there could be opportunities to certainly consider increasing fees in the future.
Some of the observations were that arts, culture and outdoor wreck programming are areas of strong community interest we have limited infrastructure which you've been saying with program facilities and items.
So we so we they their conclusion was a lot of our community is going to like store friends or other providers because we just don't have the facilities or the pools so they go to other places because we don't have the capability of offering it.
And also services provided by the city or of high quality.
Yet the community interest seems to be average or limited so future continued analysis should be done and monitored just to see what should we do with par three do we to be transitioning to keep it all at all.
How to say do we like invest in it what do we do with that that that that's what the findings were.
Except for indoor fitness recreation areas general indoor recreation needs within the community they're not high.
I'm compared to other priorities from the community and that North Las Vegas community appears to have more demand for outdoor gathering experiences.
Then bring community gather other park and our agencies and they're theory with that is made to that that that's a high observation because we don't have a lot of indoor facilities.
So if we have more indoor facilities would there been a higher emphasis on meeting more.
What is really about educating your community of what it looks like to have a good parks and recreation system and identifying what the real needs are.
So we're finally to the next steps.
We're to the point where we're going to be doing analysis visioning plan development action planet implementation.
You guys did probably receive email from Jennifer she sent our assistant she sent it out a request from your input for our visioning cycle.
We had a really good engagement with our staff on site on actually on the 16th of July.
Where we've provided the mind should be the whole visioning of what what our future parks for our mission vision and values and we ask for you guys to thought that survey.
I think she put a new date of August 18th that it's do so we'd love to hear your your feedback and input because you represent our community and our point awards.
So I asked you guys take the time to fill that out because we value your opinions as well, but.
That kind of concludes that that portion of it, but we're in we're in the next part like I said and so we're just waiting for results of the vision and the visioning vision.
I guess that that we're out and then your feedback so that we can give you guys a final updated report on that.
But that's the process of the plan plenary finding to this point. So I'll turn it over for you guys to ask some questions to a lot of information. Sorry.
Thank you so much.
Holy moly. Are you sure we cannot cannot have this meeting once a month again. I feel like we could get a lot of stuff.
Well, we'll start and you have a.
Processing.
Yeah.
You know.
There was a lot of information. Thank you, Valerie for that great presentation.
I had one question. It was probably about 10 slides in.
It was there was an asterisk next to one of the numbers, but there was no like footnote at the bottom that.
Describe what that asterisk referred to. It was in a slide that had a table of numbers.
I'm thinking it was about 10 slides in, but I.
For the back, maybe that one pop up engagements.
1,259, then we have that asterisk next to the toll. What does that represent?
Or what is that, what is that signify?
That's a great. Valerie.
I will do.
There's another aspect by the pop up engagement.
Yeah. I notice I'm going to have to ask our consultant what the asterisk means.
If they have one under pop up engagements and then on the toll.
So I'll I'll ask our.
Our focus on what that means.
Okay. Thanks. I was curious about that.
And then maybe one, two, three, four slides further along.
Here we are. This is it.
Thanks.
Hi priorities and medium priorities.
I can't help in that abundance of information that we received.
Focus on what.
The voices of our city have identified as high priorities.
And this is sort of consistent with what if you're concluding remarks about.
Outdoor recreation opportunities seeming to be more highly.
Prioritized or recognized than indoor ones.
Again, there's the whole question of what came first.
The egg, but I think that this this is a key slide here because these are our high priorities.
At least in the words of our citizens right trails and pathways land acquisitions.
That's related to trails and pathways community neighborhood parks.
Those first three there have common elements between the three and so.
I can't help but sort of focus my mind in those areas as we look at.
Priorities for the future and where the resources go.
Where does our focus lie.
Of course, it's a lot to go through to that right.
There's there's.
The fact that our revenues are much much lower than other in the region.
I think it was 46% and 58% or something.
So I think there's a lot going through I'm brain to.
I think you were wise with me.
You just said you're still processing your information and I'm sort of.
Offering up some verbal area, but those are some of my.
Observations and.
Again, I'll probably have more but thank you so much for the abundance of information.
I'm just on the same slide member ward.
I just was really happy to see.
Arts and cultural programming events are even hopefully one day more venues.
That offer that.
Performance space or creative space or gallery opportunities.
I was really really pleased to see a vein of that throughout the survey.
And I was spoke up a lot in my own survey that I took and interview with the.
People conducting the vision for for our.
Benefit, but I also was wondering.
I did see a slide that mentioned partner opportunities.
And I know that that is something that we already are taking advantage of.
People that want a partner with the city.
Or utilizing our spaces.
But I was just wondering because some of those partnerships kind of a.
A fee attached that they want ticket prices and I wonder if that.
That is a you know part of the demand is that some of it is shutting a door to folks that are really wishing for some free experiences.
And I thought that our grand opening of the unveiling of the new amp.
The theater was just a huge step to introduce the public to that space and the free opportunities.
I didn't see the word free here.
I saw the word subsidized and I heard it.
And I just want to say that that is so important for families struggling and people really wanting to.
Take part in arts and culturally events and not necessarily with a partner with the ticket price.
So I was just wanted to put my two cents in there, but mostly.
Just to say how wonderful it is to see that main and showing up from the community and the voices from staff and everybody involved.
So thank you so much.
You're a person.
Castillo.
And you.
Come on.
Seems.
I have some.
Awesome.
Yeah.
I.
I've been.
The summer is always an opportunity for my family to go to super me.
So we loved how they had more movie nights.
We enjoy those.
It seems like the communities starting to enjoy more.
There's two times that we went and it was just so full.
And we love that.
I do agree with a lot of things that were said.
I do have a lot of family, especially with the World Cup fever that we had.
So many parents signed up for soccer and the league filled up super fast.
They're like, well, you can't play here anymore.
You're going to have to go find a league somewhere else.
There's no parts and I know they were calling.
Craig Ranch are calling me.
They're like, how do we get access?
And I do agree that there's a need for.
More fields for more direct center. So I love that. That was identified that that's talked about because I do see it. I do see parents in my community that leave to other places, because they have a volleyball, they have all this, where you can't have it, so we're mason because you already have basketball, you're hell of stuff. So I do, I do like that. I agree with Part 3. I don't know if that's something that we can have a conversation about, but I've recommended it to so many people. I say it's very affordable, go and,
and they try to get there, the lanes are smaller, right? I am, and they're like, I feel so acty, there's so much stuff happening, and so definitely I think that's something that we could have a conversation about. I love that part though. I love how it looks now, getting there, that new area through north-fit. So I think there's definitely opportunities, and we're trying, I think that's what I love the most about what staff and everyone's doing is we are trying, we are listening, we're showing up, we're working, we're planning, we have a lot of opportunities.
So thank you to everyone that's been working hard, diligently, for all those events, those pop ups, those, you know, all those things are so useful, because we're going to just make our city stand out that much more. So I appreciate everyone's integrity and hard work. Thank you.
You have fun, folks? He and Brown again. One more comment, sort of piggybacking on the numbers about Part 3. You mentioned maybe having further conversations about that.
I think those are in order. Those numbers, I mean numbers guy, and those numbers were very telling, right? Only on day at one extreme, and then Part 3 at the other, and, you know, we're also kind of trying.
We're also kind of trying up, right? Like golf courses, I love golf ones, I don't know if younger, I golf a lot.
But golf courses are thirsty. And so, as we look at Part 3 and have those conversations, the question of water consumption should probably be a part of those conversations,
you know, as far as just the responsibility, we as a city have a responsibility to provide recreation and parks and cultural activities and opportunities for our residents.
But we also have to be good stewards of the resources that we have, and we're all acutely aware of the lack of water and that Lake Mead has reached its lowest level and recorded history.
And so, yeah, there's a lot of things that should be going to that conversation. Where would be the forum that further conversation about Part 3 would be held with that being a meeting like this, or would it be, among, in a different forum, where would we take further conversation about Part 3?
Valerie Dirk, Deputy Director of Parks and Rec, but I can go ahead and talk to you about it and see if you want to put it on agenda. I am for an upcoming meeting once we get more data and information out of this process.
Part 3, golf course, you know, is it's, it's something's been here for a very long time and it's now in a industrial area.
I mean, as we've grown, it's kind of now, it's like, it's not like, our other alley on take all courses around a lot of homes and a lot of like in a community and so it's just a very different, you know, personal now that it's more industrial and so to have the assessment, we're going to look at that and kind of make some decisions, but I can ask Doug, if we want to put it in an upcoming future one and have a deeper conversation about that, what that looks like.
And then it also include to have area and our project manager come back and discuss some of the other future projects, we can probably put all on that kind of report.
Thank you.
Chairperson, I see any final comments for one.
Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.
Well, I move on to the update on the urban forestry management plan, including stakeholder interview process project timeline and next steps for discussion.
Good evening, everyone. Hi, Chris Voskis, parts of the superintendent, thank you for all being here today and hopefully I do our urban forestry master plan just this, it's a really cool.
And we got going on, so I'm going to share with you where we're at and where we're going.
Several initiatives are currently underway to advance our enforcement master plan across the region and city of North Las Vegas is emerging as the leader at this work.
And our 2022 urban forestry master plan has begun working with a daily resource group to develop the city of North Las Vegas is first urban forestry master plan.
Our first assignment was to do a ground based, light-arher smart tree inventory probably own trees throughout the city.
This comprehensive planning effort included in her grass tree master plan review.
tree inventory data analysis, land cover assessment, and canopy study, plan, and a series of custom
ArcGIS applications. These digital resources include interactive tree species selector,
a public facing story map, online tree, mapping applications, and other tools designed to support
information decision making and community participation. During the week of June 29,
26, David resource group, join our municipal forester Eddie Rodriguez to conduct 15 stakeholder
interviews here at City Hall. The interviews were designed to develop a deeper understanding of
how the city operates. Recommendations were strengthening and expanding the city's newly established
urban forest new master plan. The interviews were, is our initial stage of community engagement.
Participants included the mayor, city managers, council members, planning and development staff,
researchers from the University of Madalois Vegas, and the Desert Research Institute,
non-profit leaders, regional urban forest new partners, and other key stakeholders.
The stakeholder engagement process was highly successful and provided a valuable insight
that will directly influence the recommendations, including in the final urban forest tree master plan.
The City of North Las Vegas expects to receive the final draft of the plan by December of
2026. More importantly, the project represents the beginning of a long-term community community
centered urban forest tree stewardship. A regional collaboration and the development of sustainable
strategies for going trees and one of the most challenging climates in the country.
We have here's an info graph of the information we're receiving from Davy resource group.
It's a land cover assessment and our tree canopy highlights. As you can see, the City of North Las Vegas
is 105 square miles. Our canopy growth is increased in canopy coverage at 1.67%. Over 1,400
acres to 1,428 acres. Our current carbon storage value is 46,300 tons of CO2s stored or
sequestered and an estimated value of $20 million. Our park tree canopy coverage across 628 acres
is 8.6% average canopy coverage. Oh sorry about that. Our tree canopy, our current tree canopy
coverage is at 2% citywide without open land zones. It's at 3% and are provided and built.
Our paid on site paid and built surfaces, 35.4% acres, which is 23,894 acres in an area where
an able plant. Our current room to grow is 39,943 acres of potential planting sites across the city.
On the next page we have here is our census track cover land assessment by the top 10
top 10 by most acres. So Ward 1, the canopy coverage is at 1.15%. Ward 4 is second with
2.4%, 2.04%, Ward 2, 3.79% and Ward 3 is at 4.22%.
And here is a representation of the canopy cover and this is by Ward. As you can see,
Ward 3, the highest above 4% and then Ward 1, which is below 2%.
And here we have, let me see, it's our canopy covered by sensors tracked and this is a representation
of the canopy coverage, the light green areas are below 2% and it increases to above 10% in some areas.
And then this is our land surface temperature map for the city of North Las Vegas
and the city boundaries, the land surface, some of the highest areas are 110 plus degrees
and some of the cooler areas get down to 63.26% degrees Fahrenheit.
And then scenario one is there's some gross scenario based on the consistent commitment of planting
144 trees, 144 trees per year and 35,100 trees over 25 years of objective is design and
stabilize our urban forestry, our existing forest will gradually expand and coverage in viable areas.
Under this model, we project achieving 4% canopy coverage by 251. This small increase provides
a manageable path for the city to establish and provide necessary establishment care while making
a measurable progress towards a more equitable distribution of shade.
And below are some costs for, we have a scenario for moderate growth.
So if we look at a scenario one, the tree planting cost estimates are current canopy covers at 2.9
planting an average of 1,400 trees over 25 years, 3,500 trees would be an average cost of 35,000.
Let me see is that correct. We have 35 million estimated canopy growth of 1.2%
for a total canopy of 4%. And then a moderate, below that is a moderate growth scenario and
it's a little faded on this slide. So I apologize for that. It looked like the print was running at a paper.
But at this time, I could take questions. I also brought Eddie because he's really been
immersed in this as well. And although I got multiple things on it, I do rely on Eddie for a lot of
the science and the data for this project as well.
Chairperson, Cassio, awesome thanks so much, Chris, for that presentation. Sure we have a lot of questions.
I'll ask one, just as I have it, what is like the standard percentage of shade like canopy
for Henderson? Is it 10%, is it 20, is that too much? Because I know he said by 21, you want to be a
4%, is that kind of less than 10% city or Petri Rodriguez municipal forester? The city of Henderson,
I believe, has a 6% canopy cover. City of Las Vegas, of course, has a little bit bigger canopy cover.
I believe it's like 7.9%. And they all have different numbers that they're striving for.
The numbers that you saw here on the map are on this sheet. If we were going to try to achieve a
4% canopy cover, we would have to plant 1,400 trees per year, right?
But in order for us to achieve equity, kind of beyond par with the rest of the cities,
we would have to plant approximately 55,000 trees. And the city of North Las Vegas doesn't really
have the space for that. We have estimated that we can probably fit somewhere in around 39,000 trees.
And if we look at that over a period of time of over 25 years, we would have to
plant at least 1,400 trees per year for the next 25 years. And you saw the cost of that is about $35,000,000,
hopefully that answers your question. Thank you. Now I'll open it up to share a
person to see all open it up to the board for any questions.
Member Ward. Those diagrams really do put in perspective. The heat index, the heat islands and
other things. And now just remembering back to the tree, giveaways. It really kind of-
I've triggered my mind as to how important those giveaways could really be. My husband received a tree and it's now kind of less not establishing anymore and he's just going to be more happy about it and we have a wide open space for it to live and thrive.
And I just feel like it really brings it home that one slide that showed how canopy can make a difference.
And not just that green space in general and so I feel like it's very important these goals that we have.
And I feel proud that we're trying to make a difference with the canopy because when when people are out walking or just anywhere, they just seek shade, you know, they feel so bad for people waiting at the bus stops and things.
And it just I remember days in my youth growing up and lived in North Las Vegas for most of my life and I remember at night it getting cooler and you'd want to stay up late so you could take advantage of the the temperature drop.
So that doesn't happen as much these days and and I feel like this type of initiative can try to maybe save that off a little bit and make us more livable because that's what we want to be we want to have pride in our space and and a livable space that you can sit under a tree and escape the heat or be in a green space.
So I applaud this effort and whatever we can do to support that and I know it seems daunting and the years seem warm but those trees you know they're they're not counting the death of the the years account decades if they're done right so we're really paving the way for.
a future for the younger generation and that's as well so I enjoy these conversations and I really applaud the effort.
Thank you.
Thank you, chairperson.
Anyway, I think it's municipal for sir today we we introduced or showed you some some just a very little bit I mean there's actually over a hundred and seventy six pages in the in the urban forest master plan.
That will and that this was just kind of give you a taste of what it's going to look like and there are there's going to be heat maps in there and and so we showed you a.
of actual temperatures of the ground and so what this is going to do is it's going to help us give us a blueprint so that we can know where.
How to prioritize our planting programs so that we can help combat this heat mitigation and urban heat island that we're experiencing.
But we wanted to give you a little piece of it today just so that you can know and what's kind of going to go into it and what's going to look like and what it's going to tell you and so there's a lot of good stuff to come.
We're we're almost through with it and I think that you're going to be very happy when it's all done and planting tree planting is basically the future of our city and so that we can provide a better quality of life for our residents here by trying to cool environment and clean our air.
Any other term person can see any other comments from the work day.
Okay, so remember, remember, memories as a representative of ward one, I live there, if so sad to see those numbers so low, you know, and it's like what are we going to do about it, what can we do about it and I know my house we have lots of trees.
How can we encourage more residents to plant trees, what can we do.
So ward one Eddie Rodriguez municipal forster, or one is kind of has a unique kind of.
Set up and kind of goes all along the eastern border of the city where you see a lot of those white buildings and so there's a number of strategies a number of things that we looked at that the land cover assessment and canopy study looked at.
And so we have a lot of different strategies even as much as maybe even trying to figure out how to go back to some of those commercial areas and get them maybe to plant more trees in those areas to help with that we do intend to keep doing tree giveaways for as long as we possibly can.
To work with continued partnerships with our nonprofit agencies and other parts of our community, of course, the city only own so much space in that ward one and so we do need to help of our residents to help us get there.
It is a big big thing to get everyone's trying to figure it out across the region.
But North Las Vegas is is committed to to meeting the needs of its residents and is in there and they're doing it by installing this master we're going to put a master plan has never been done in North Las Vegas before the city spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to use state of the art.
Actually, software and we're giving you we're going to give you the very best and we're going to put the very best plan together and we're going to be committed to it till the end.
Okay, one more question.
So in that map with the it had the temperatures there was blue areas right the cool cool is parts are those parts or what are those areas that have the lowest temperatures.
You might have really good eyes that it wasn't too many blue areas.
There are not that one it's the land land cover temperature.
So this is how there's that little box more than likely your those are going to probably be some of your park areas.
What we didn't put in was we we have a chart one of our charts actually tells us our percentage you know that the city of North Las Vegas 61% is bare soil.
35% is paved surfaces and structures.
We literally only have 1.2% of roads and green.
That is it's just incredible when you think about it and so we've got a lot of work to do but those blue spaces are more than likely you're going to probably see.
The baseball fields or fields in which we.
We.
Graph the areas right.
Yes, yes, and unfortunately you don't you do see a couple of spots in word one, but they're not many.
Yeah, but that is not going to.
The distract us or sidetrack is from what we need to do we're going to continue on and I can promise you that where as long as we're here.
Our mayor and council are dedicated to and committed to planting trees and improving the quality of life in the city.
Thank you.
Ian Brown here so while board member Ramirez has the misfortune of being in that very very light green area in the war three I have the good fortune of being in a dark green area it still feels roasting hot and we still would love more trees.
Thanks for the presentation there's a lot of information I love trees I always love trees I was so excited when we received the tree city USA designation.
It's not trees, but the grass outside looks really really beautiful right now.
I appreciate that green as we walked in this afternoon.
So I two noticed that the disparity right between the darker green of word three and the lighter green of word one.
I look here to my mind there and you touched on it.
And it is toward one includes apex right the industrial complex doesn't not.
And what do we do there about trees typically great big tilt up warehouse complexes don't have a lot of trees because they're concrete right there's.
Roadways parking areas loading dox areas where trailers are parked roof tops the white roof tops of the buildings.
Where where do we go about encouraging the planting of trees in industrial parks do we or do we just wash our hands and say well do we live in industrial parks so let's not worry about it or do we say hey it's part of our city and as part of our.
Effort to canopy our city and provide the benefits that trees and vegetation provide is there something we can do in these developing areas.
Industrial areas like apex.
That that's hello Chris Vosquez Park Superintendent that's a great question in.
What I would say is with this master plan.
Taking it to our planning commission and making sure it's involved in our overall master plan to address those items this information is going to be directly used to help.
Shape the overall master plan for the city and so this information will definitely be used to help mitigate some of those.
What are areas and address items of that nature how do we get there right that's a great question and with this master plan we know those that information is going to be vital to help in us.
Actually create zones where we don't have those high areas right and how do we do it and how do we work with the city as a whole and our planning department to make those things happen so that's that's where we're hoping that we know this master plan will take.
Great yeah, it makes me appreciate the master plan even more than because it'll simulate those conversations and it will take them to the right places and.
The other future development in our city will hopefully reflect the conversations and the information in this study in the our master plan.
So thank you for that.
I know we encourage residential developers to provide.
With the requirements but they're also encouragements to provide green space and trails and trees and all that but.
Industrial developers hopefully will have encouragement to also.
Develop and and planned in a way that improves our city.
Our board member Ward mentioned seeing these people at bus stops and you know sometimes I see people here with umbrellas that's how desperate we are for shade.
Or I come from it's the opposite of.
Of the desert it's not it's it's super green people don't plant trees trees just grow themselves people prune trees people chop them cut trees down because they just don't stop growing and taking over your house and so it's it's kind of the opposite here but.
You know back where I'm from you'd see people with umbrellas and that was only because it was raining.
But here people never seem to have umbrellas when it rains they go and play in the rain and frolic but because umbrellas are trying to shade so.
Bus stops and the shade shelters they have are a great step in that direction but I think the greatest shade comes for trees better than umbrellas but better than melicanities there's no better shade than those provided by trees.
Also just to commend the work of Nevada plants and the nonprofits that you mentioned.
I in my front yard in the recipient of the tree that was given away at one of those events and just recently my daughter and they were looking at our sliding glass door or backyard or backyard is is.
Not very pretty backyard it's ugly and and we were looking at it together and she was lamenting that the state of some of our shrubs you know that line or block walls.
And she she even said to me hey daddy remember when you got that trees in the front yard maybe you can go wherever you got that and get another one for our backyard.
So I hope that we'll continue to partner with nonprofits and provide those opportunities for residents of our city because.
That that tree that we received is blessed to our family and and beautified our front yard.
I know that there are so many yards that would benefit from a tree or to front yards or back yards and so I really encourage us to continue to provide that.
And that that gift for our residents and in my last comment would be you know we were talking about numbers of trees and quantities of trees and coverage.
I'm sure we are but let's also make sure we're looking at the quality of the trees the health of the trees right what good does planting a tree do.
If five years later the irrigation line is not being maintained and it's not getting water to dies or whatever the outcome might be I see that in a lot of residential developments.
The developer plants trees and then maintenance isn't happening quite the way it might and the trees end up dying and so.
As we consider the quantity of trees in the coverage in our city I hope we also are as key we had tentative to the health of our trees and making sure that we get the maximum longevity that we can from them.
I'm maintaining them and watering them and taking care of them is surely more cost effective than replacing them so those are my comments and thank you again for the presentation and for taking our questions.
Chair person you see I thank you boards for all your comments I just some final thoughts for me.
You know we're creatures of habits and one of the parts that we just always keep going to is the deers brings part.
Because it has a really nice, big open field. But then me and my wife can just walk around the whole park and there's trees everywhere. So we love to go to that park. Whereas my kids are like, well, we got soccer practice every park and you go to every park and that'll soccer fields have no trees anywhere. So you're bringing a canopy, you're bringing umbrellas here at point. So it's it's interesting to see it hurts now when we look back at what we did well.
That happened at the Craig Ranch with those soccer fields because we had to move some of those old trees that were just so big and beautiful.
But now you have that beautiful facilities, those six fields.
I don't know how you can put trees around soccer fields or something, but it definitely could be something that we can look at.
I think the more that we look at our parks and I'm glad that we have you now that we have this master plan because I feel like that's going to be something that was overlooked before.
But now something that we can continue to stress is more trees, more, more, more, more.
Any final thoughts or comments?
Perfect. Thank you both so much. Appreciate it.
We'll now move on to staff comments.
Okay, that's me, Valerie Derek, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation.
I did want to share two notes on that last thing you just made.
We did actually do a tree planting at Craig Ranch Regional Park most recently and we decided a bunch of trees.
How many did you plant?
We planted 32, 36 inch box trees and it has been on the mine of our deputy director that we say focused on planting and replanting is every possible space we can around those fields and I've already been directed by that.
So we've already, I think we just spent about 40,000 to put those, those 32, 36 inch box trees.
Yeah, so we are doing, we hear you and I'm glad that you did bring that up.
But a lot of those trees that we did remove for the multi-use folks were actually invasive weeds that just looked like gigantic trees.
So we actually did remove and we didn't get a lot of concerns from our public regarding that but a lot of them were actually weeds.
So we are replacing with actual real trees.
I was very happy to see that we did 32 and we do have future plants to put more around that area specifically because it is very hot.
And so we have a commitment to that.
But I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of updated what we've been doing for June, July since we get to see you kind of talk about a little bit of what we did in the past two months.
If you've been driving around neighborhood, you'll see that the sparkle construction has begun.
Specifically, I value you park most recently this week and then in the next couple of weeks you're going to see construction at college, Brooks and rotary taught lots.
So those predators are finally underway and then you will see in late fall of 2027 the construction will be starting on journey park.
So we'll be starting with those four parks and that will be in late fall of 2027 and once the conclusion of the existing parks happen.
You'll also see that we did plant several palms out here at city hall to help add to the tree canopy coverage out here in this world specifically which is ward one.
So you know when you guys probably drove in today you probably saw some new palms as you drove up and so Eddie did a great job.
Of coordinating with Chris and par three in order to take it those planted so we were very happy because it just really adds our coverage and then creates a really beautiful atmosphere.
We had several community events that were successful throughout June including our faith freedom festival of Craig Grant regional park foam wonderland at the amp.
We've had several successful splash bases at Craig Grant regional park that have been just taking off our outdoor movie nights at Craig Ranch and then our quark movie nights.
I've had six deaths of over 600 people attending those free movie nights.
So we also had some really great golf programs at par three and all the on today our sports programs really did great this summer with our youth basketball having about 300 participants with 28 teams.
With age divisions from six to age 15 so we're just doing really great things in the summer.
We had two summer camps this past summer.
Silver mace erect center and it's kind of you recreation center so we're so happy to expand that program to that facility.
And so we had about 200 kids with 100 averaging each site which was just huge success for us.
We had filled field allocations and all of our fields for baseball, softball soccer football and more and over 60 reservations and those too much loans for all of the park amenities.
So birthday party, HOA parties, all sorts of festivities happening in the parks.
We also had a lot of free programming and I'm glad that you know standard you brought that up because our goal is to make sure that we are doing free activities and free programs for our community.
So we had several free pool parties hosted with our council members councilwoman group Garcy Anderson hosted one at Walker pool on June 6.
Council and Churchill host at a pool party at Skyview on June 13 council member around hosted a pool party at Petit on June 20 which were all free June 4th we hosted a pool party at Silver mace pool free of the community for the July 4th celebration.
We also did a parks and recommend pool party July 18 you guys all have your shirts we celebrated parks and recommend the power parks and recreation which was such a great thing this year.
We also did mayor protams pool party with Marilyn Kirk Patrick which was on just last past weekend two weekends ago August 1st at Silver mace pool and the last free when we had was the back to school fair at neighborhood recreation center this past weekend we have very busy summer.
And I say summer just being June and July but that was been very very busy and then the power parks and recreation theme was just a really really great time and I love the fact that they picked that because I feel like right now with our master plan for our parks and recreation apartment.
We're just we're at we've got momentum and we're doing a lot of capital improvement projects and you guys are seeing a lot of efforts of you know construction breaking ground for the sparkle project and our simple projects are coming right behind that.
We also did passports for the power of parks and recreation month where we did passports were our community members to go to all of our amenities we had each day like go visit the pool or go visit a trailer go visit a park or go visit a rec center and they got stamps and and they collected stamps in order to order sweat and in order to collect swag and so it was just a really fun activity.
And I hope you guys saw the socials that our social team did they did a lot of social promotion and really kind of kind of highlighted parks and recreation and a really great way.
And then for August November the amphitheater is going to be booming.
And we have some concerts if you go to citymorepossagus.com and actually look at credit ranch regional park and events are coming up with the amp.
We have a tape B concert this is all third party promoters but they're coming to our venue so this is this is amazing for us.
So we have tape B coming August 28 we have lost and dreams concert coming September 12 holy priest coming October 3rd and turn style which is a Grammy award winning.
Band coming October 15 and so our name is out there are amphitheaters out there if you guys haven't heard the most recent statistics as that credit ranch was around 1.4 million users and now we're over 2 million users about 2.2 coming to that.
Regional park which makes us the largest most attend to regional park in the valley we've surpassed sunset park and so we're very proud of that.
And we like to share that information and then we have Hispanic Heritage Month coming up September 19 that the multi use bills from free to 10 30 with councilman grow.
And so we have a lot happening a lot of busyness going on and so I just wanted to share those fun updates of what we had happening for our minds and sitting at the see you all.
And then if you guys had questions or comments that's what I have for today.
Perfect will want to.
If I if I may before we move on I wanted to introduce you to someone.
To my right is April Paras she's the new assistant director to the city clerk's office.
And so in my absence April will serve as the acting city clerk whatever I'm out.
So you guys in particular will be saying more of April she will be attending the parks meetings.
Little less of me I'll still be around but April will be going forward you'll be seeing her attend more of these meetings.
And I think you guys are already know Jasmine Karina and reshonda but they are all team members as well.
But I wanted to let you know if you see a little less of you it's alright I'm still around but you get the pleasure spending a bit more time with Miss April.
Also she's just reminding me to remind you that as you know November 30th actually November 30th is election day so we will be seeing some minutes a new members to join our city council.
And as terms of some of the board members are called terminates to the existing council some of you may want to just check with us to when your terms expire and so.
Or if you're impacted.
Well what welcome April will be very excited to meet with you and and have you in our meetings thank you.
Any board comments with what was been discussed.
Ian Brown with a couple comments I told myself that I was going to be quiet and not make any comments that may only comment would be there haven't comments but here I am.
One one thought I had was sky view as it's been mentioned a couple times tonight.
The status of its transition from YMCA to city north Las Vegas.
I believe that's complete.
Valerie Derek deputy director it is it's been complete if you have if you've been out to sky you recently you'll see some upgrades we did some full painting on the whole front side of it.
We've purchased some new equipment for the fitness room.
We're installing new basketball court meeting court area and upgrading that and then we also have our.
Big capital permit project will be an investment that's coming.
We're working in the process of the design right now to fix the pool and create some of the full area amenities and so that will probably not happen until about fall twenty twenty seven.
But yes it's been very successful programming is booming camps are booming classes in in the aquatic area.
Our sold out with waiting list and so that kind of goes back to the master plan finding big we need more.
We need more facilities and more amenities, but we're seeing huge success and I think you guys are excited to see the fall brochure which will be posting very soon.
For the upcoming activities throughout the city, but specifically got a sky view as well.
Thank you very pleased to please was sky view.
Not so pleasing you tonight, I was driving along the.
La Madre way and a cross Scott Robinson Boulevard and I saw the.
Irrigation happening of the grass media in the list got Robinson Boulevard and it brought.
To my attention, the turf conversion, which I guess hasn't quite happened yet.
I know that Scott Robinson.
Boulevard and communal El Dorado were mentioned as the first two locations that that would be taking place.
I don't know when that's going to begin, but it can't begin soon enough.
I'm back on my train of no water again.
So it certainly hurt my heart to see the irrigation of that grass in the middle.
I just wanted to go and get a shovel and dig it up, but.
I didn't so.
The turf conversion can't start happening soon as far as I'm concerned as far as going functional turf.
We don't want to rip up our parts.
We don't want to get rid of the beautiful grass that we see, but.
Like the mediums of some of those streets, let's get that going.
And then just thank you.
Everyone April welcome and thanks for the great presentation tonight.
And the key word I'll take from Valerie Derek is momentum.
You mentioned it in your staff comments and we really really feel.
Lots of positive forward momentum with these studies and master plans and all the work that.
Our great city staff are doing so.
We acknowledge and appreciate that momentum and our excited to see it continue in our great city.
So thanks again folks for tonight.
I also piggyback with you instead of chairperson Castillo.
Thank you so much for for this presentation.
I really enjoy coming to these meetings.
I'm so grateful that we'll continue to have more and have more of you joining us.
So thank you for for all your efforts in all your work.
Well, with that being said, we'll move on to the second public form.
I'll go ahead and open that forum.
This is the second portion of the meeting devoted to the public to speak on any subject within jurisdiction.
Control or authority of the parts arts.
That's right, recreation and culturey advisory board.
See you in a particular.
Are there any cars to speak?
No sir.
Perfect.
Then I will go ahead and close that public forum and this meeting is adjourned.