[0:00] This meeting is being recorded.

[0:04] Good afternoon. The time is 130, the Washington County Open Space and Regional Parks Commission, meeting is now in session.

[0:14] We will do call to order and the roll call.

[0:19] Cheney Guevira, she will not be here. She has it excused absence. Tracy Kosecki reside

[0:27] and everybody else should be here, so we'll start with Timothy Dake.

[0:32] The call flankers. Sean Hill. Reisen. Neil Jones.

[0:37] President. Chris Baker.

[0:39] David Joel.

[0:42] Reisen.

[0:43] Miles Kinsler.

[0:46] President and Board of County, Christophiles, Liaison, Varlas Garcia.

[0:52] We have a quorum.

[0:54] Thank you.

[0:55] Moving on, do public comment?

[0:57] Do we have any public comment?

[1:03] I'm sorry.

[1:05] Pledge of Allegiance, Commissioner Dake, would you please lead us?

[1:08] Please stand.

[1:13] I pledge allegiance to the flag in the United States of America.

[1:16] And to the Republic, which stands, one nation under the individual that liberty, that it's all.

[1:29] Thank you, Commissioner Dake.

[1:31] Now we go to public comment.

[1:35] Did you want to go ahead, sir?

[1:37] Come on up and fill out a four, please.

[1:40] While we're waiting for this gentleman, I do have one person online, Chris Myers.

[1:45] You can go ahead and unmute princess state your personal aspect for the record. You'll have

[1:49] three minutes.

[1:51] Hi, yes. My name is Christopher Myers. I'm a resident of South Reno, and I want to start

[1:56] by just thanking all the commissioners for everything that you do, all the hard work, all

[2:00] the time, and effort that you put in to providing such great recreation spaces for our community.

[2:05] I have two children. They love all the different parks, and so thank you so much. My comment

[2:11] is not relate to an agenda item. It relates to just something that my wife showed me in a community

[2:17] Facebook group and asking for people to come today to support unleashing dogs at Virginia

[2:25] for Hills Park. And I just wanted to say, you know, as a father, two children, a person that

[2:34] in my wife was viciously attacked by dog. I was viciously attacked by a dog. We have dogs

[2:40] going up to us off lease all the time for junior

[2:43] foothills. Brown Elementary where my kid goes. They

[2:46] use that park. I just wanted to express just, you know,

[2:50] hope that that doesn't happen. There's not a lot of parks in that

[2:53] area for children to enjoy. And that's, you know, a great one

[2:57] it has shade and understand people want areas to walk their dogs.

[3:02] But preferably, you know, it would be on leash.

[3:05] And, you know, so sorry, this is about an agenda item. I just

[3:08] When I saw that, it just kind of took me back a little bit because dogs are dangerous.

[3:15] I've learned that firsthand. Unfortunately, the hard way by wife and I have the scars to

[3:20] prove it. And so we would just support that the park stay as it is now, which is dogs are

[3:26] required to be on a leash. And thank you again, everybody, for all the hard work you do. And

[3:31] that's it. Thank you, Chris. Thank you.

[3:40] Well, it's public comment. Sir, how do I say your last

[3:42] sir. We have Richard. I need this Richard. I need this Richard IA. I certainly appreciate

[3:49] the gentleman's comments. I have the petition to board.

[3:55] I'm expecting the commission to

[3:58] board.

[4:00] Canadian off-leash access in the park that he's talking about. There are certainly dogs that

[4:08] have no responsibility of being there. Responsible dog orders form a significant growing part

[4:19] of the park using public, off leash access is clearly marked. If it was clearly marked,

[4:26] appropriate size zones provided essential physical exercise, it creates a lot of mental

[4:32] stimulation for the dogs. There's lots of people there with dogs and it's kind of frustrating

[4:37] to not be able to use the park.

[4:40] I support a measured practical approach.

[4:43] The experience shows that social pressure alone does not

[4:47] deter every irresponsible owner or aggressive, poorly trained dog.

[4:53] I've found in this process that I've been kind of lucky to

[4:57] I didn't even realize he had a...

[5:00] We're pretty well-trained 18-month-old puppy that loved people and was easily managed and loves

[5:09] to run. He's got long legs. So I would recommend that this commission support an off-leash zone with clear boundaries and signage in the park at the Virginia Fort Hills. Thank you.

[5:23] Thank you.

[5:25] I have no further public comment in chambers, no further public comment on Zoom.

[5:32] Very good.

[5:33] Thank you.

[5:35] Moving on to item 4 approval of the draft minutes for the joint parks commission meeting

[5:42] held on April 30, 20, 26, this is for possible action.

[5:48] Commissioners take a moment.

[6:12] Commissioner Hill, I moved in and approve the minutes from this special joint works meeting.

[6:19] Thank you.

[6:24] Motion has been made to accept the minutes as written.

[6:27] I'll second. Motion has been made and seconded to approve the minutes as written. Do we have any public comment?

[6:37] I have no public comment in chambers. No public comment on Sue.

[6:41] very well, any further discussion?

[6:46] Hearing none, all those in favor,

[6:48] say to Bob by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

[6:54] Aye. Motion carries.

[6:58] Moving on to item five,

[7:00] approval of the draft minutes for the Washow County Open Space and Regional Parks Committee

[7:04] meeting on May 27th, 2026. This is for possible action. Missioners take a moment.

[7:26] Mr. Speaker, may I move to approve these minutes of the May 27 meeting of the

[7:32] Marks Commission.

[7:34] Very well.

[7:34] Thank you.

[7:35] Motion has been made.

[7:44] Mr. Hill, I second.

[7:47] Very well.

[7:48] Motion has been made and accepted seconded to accept the draft minutes as written.

[7:55] Do we have any public comment?

[7:59] I have no public comment in chambers.

[8:02] I have no public comment on to you.

[8:04] Very well. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion?

[8:10] Hearing none. All those in favor

[8:12] say goodbye by saying aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries.

[8:24] Moving on to item six. This is for possible action.

[8:30] This is the Davis Creek Weather Station License Agreement. Presentation, Discussion and

[8:36] possible recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners to approve a license agreement

[8:41] between Washow County, Grant Torch, and the Truckey River Flood Management Authority,

[8:47] Grant T for the construction operation maintenance and replacement of a weather monitoring

[8:53] station within a portion of Davis Creek Regional Park, assessors parcel number 046, 04110,

[9:03] contingent upon a determination by the Nevada Division of State Parks that the proposed

[9:08] license agreement is consistent with the Land and Water Conservation Fund requirements

[9:14] and does not require a conversion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund protected park land.

[9:26] Thank you, Commissioner Jones. I know that's a mouthful for the action item.

[9:30] For the record, this is Spain Replicar, part to planner with Washow County.

[9:33] As stated, this is a licensed agreement before you today for a quest from Chuck E. River

[9:39] Flood Management Authority, also known as Turfma for a weather station at Davis Creek

[9:44] Regional Park.

[9:45] I could have my presentation.

[9:50] Thank you.

[9:59] This is like...

[10:00] I work in the change.

[10:06] I believe so. If we turn it on, that should help. Perfect.

[10:14] So location of the crest is in New Washington City, Nevada. The proposal is for a replacement of the 25-year

[10:21] weather station that is assisted previously that was destroyed in the 2024 Davis Creek Fire. The

[10:28] The location also is proposed for a new site, if I could go back to my other site.

[10:36] The location for the station is also being asked to be in a new area within the park that would be more suitable for accurate data collection.

[10:44] The loss of the station has created a data gap in the area that is important for monitoring storm water events,

[10:50] Flood forecasting and hydrologic modeling.

[10:53] The new weather station will store long-term data records and maintain effectiveness

[10:58] of the flood warning system.

[11:06] For example, on the map that you're seeing before you,

[11:11] the orange triangle that is at the top of the page

[11:14] shows the former location next to the park office for the weather station.

[11:18] The bottom south proposed location of the orange triangle

[11:23] is the new location for the weather station.

[11:25] The station itself supports weather resource management and forecasting emergency response

[11:31] in public safety decision making.

[11:33] It collects precipitation and temperature data and that data is related to turfma every

[11:38] 15 minutes and is also publicly available on somatic data viewer.

[11:45] Some differences between the original weather station location and the new weather location

[11:49] is that the old station would require proximity to power, which is why it was located next to

[11:55] the Ranger Office. It was in a fenced area and it had clear line of site for station data

[12:00] communication. Although this was the old site, it wasn't ideal for accurate data collection.

[12:06] It was in an open area that was sparsely treated. Had significant wind exposure and contributed to

[12:12] precipitation undercatch within the actual weather station itself. The new location should be

[12:18] Improvement for data measurements and data collection. It'll have reduced wind exposure and more

[12:24] treat. The station itself also does not require power as it'll be solar and battery powered.

[12:30] And it will use cellular communications in order to relay that data. Lastly, it'll be an updated

[12:37] precipitation sensor and it'll have more accurate readings. So at the image that you're seeing right now,

[12:42] of the center photo is the previously existing data station

[12:46] weather station at Davis Creek.

[12:49] So the intent would be to have this be in a similar style

[12:52] as that middle photo for the station itself.

[12:56] The equipment would be mounted on top of a seven foot tower

[12:59] and secured and concrete footing.

[13:03] The image to the far right shows the example of a precipitation

[13:07] gauge for the weather station, as well as the windscreen

[13:10] that could be proposed on the weather station.

[13:17] A little bit more detail of what this new location looks like.

[13:20] I know it's a little difficult to see it in this photo,

[13:22] but you'll see better in the next.

[13:24] There is a pink marker that indicates the approximate weather station location.

[13:29] If you're looking north and north and east,

[13:32] it's located approximately in the center of this photo.

[13:36] The next slide shows from the view from the south and the west,

[13:40] and I don't know if my point is working,

[13:42] but essentially in the center of this area is the location of the approximate weather station for the future.

[13:50] So this is just the example of the trees that are around it as well as the screening.

[13:58] So for the station itself, it was originally owned by washer County's Regional Flood Warning System.

[14:03] In 2011, there was an interlocal agreement between Firthma and the county in order for them to take over the operation and ownership of these weather stations.

[14:12] Although this agreement does give turf mud authority for the flood management warning system,

[14:20] it does require still any new equipment to be proposed on Parkland to go before Park Commission for approval.

[14:27] Another wrinkle in this process in its heavy lift, and this is why it's being brought to Park Commission today,

[14:34] is the Landwater Conservation Fund Compliance, which is also known as LWCF.

[14:38] So part of this work in 1967, the county accepted funds to build the

[14:44] Ranger station, the campsite hiking and nature trails within the park,

[14:49] with that acceptance of those funds from the state.

[14:51] It also created a de-distriction on the property.

[14:54] So the de-distriction essentially states that anything that's going to be new on the property

[14:59] would have to be-

[15:00] A direct benefit to the park, and it would also have to be for public outdoor recreation use only.

[15:06] So this compliance for the weather station would go before Nevada State Parks to review that against the LWC of Deeter's fiction, and making sure that it complies.

[15:17] A little caveat to add to this is if the state decides that this requires a conversion of use on our property, meaning that we'd have to offer up equal value of land in order to have this weather station,

[15:28] be located at Davis Creek.

[15:31] The county would not want to proceed with this due to the staff time and impact for us to

[15:36] have that clearance with the state.

[15:38] If, however, the state does determine that the weather station is compliant with the existing

[15:42] LWC of Detestriction, we can move forward this request to BCC.

[15:47] Typically, however, the state does flag weather stations as a conversion, so keeping that in mind

[15:52] that might happen.

[15:54] And historically, it's flagged underneath the LWCF as unpromoted use.

[16:03] Regarding alternative alignments,

[16:04] Turkma did not look at additional alignments based off of what's proposed for the existing

[16:10] site. It's best with the topographic conditions, the existing vegetation,

[16:15] it reduces wind exposure and the ability to produce accurate data.

[16:20] Again, another caveat with this is that there are certain parcels within Davis Creek

[16:25] our WCF de-districted. So the ask would be is that if the state denies this request and requires

[16:32] a conversion that we would ask this weather station to be relocated on other parcels within

[16:37] Davis Creek that are not impacted. The problem with that is that some of these sites are not

[16:42] ideal for the weather station location. It's more exposed. It's in the open and it's adjacent to

[16:46] the highway, which can affect data collection and accuracy.

[16:52] Fiscally, there's no direct impact to

[16:54] Ashakani, outside of staff time, that would help coordinate the LWCF determination with the state.

[17:01] The sole cost of the weather station, construction, maintenance, and overview of it would

[17:06] be the responsibility of TARFMA.

[17:09] Direct impacts to the park itself would be the installation of the weather station, it would

[17:13] be a seven foot tower secured in concrete, and we require hand excavation of about a three

[17:19] by three foot area for that actual base of the tower.

[17:24] Terfma will use the existing access roads in trails in order to do routine visits to the

[17:31] station and anticipate two times a year having to visit the station to make sure it's

[17:36] working accurately.

[17:39] If our commission agrees with staff recommendation, I do have a

[17:42] full-sole made of for you. And with that, are there any questions?

[17:46] Thank you, family. That's excellent presentation there. Looking at these images, I don't

[17:57] see any chain length fence or something to protect the facility so this doesn't happen

[18:05] again. Is there anything proposed or possible structure or something that we don't have to

[18:15] through this again in the near future?

[18:17] As far as for vandalism and security,

[18:20] they are proposing if the needed to have

[18:22] fencing around the station itself.

[18:24] But with fires and what can happen with that,

[18:26] as far as the destruction of the original station

[18:28] from the Davis Creek Fire,

[18:30] it's something that is active in God,

[18:31] so we don't have that ability to anticipate for it.

[18:34] We could do some vegetation or move around it,

[18:37] but again, it's more of a vandalism

[18:40] by visitation versus being a natural issue.

[18:45] Okay, thank you.

[18:47] Any questions from the commissioners?

[18:50] This is your measure, Drol.

[18:54] So I just from a process standpoint,

[18:57] it sounds like we need,

[18:58] you need states approval.

[19:00] Also, is it typical to go forward this far without?

[19:03] I mean, is there a way to do some sort of cursory review

[19:06] or something with them in the future?

[19:07] So we're not spending staff time in effort

[19:09] and then maybe getting a no.

[19:10] We can't in redid this instance.

[19:12] So from the information that we have,

[19:14] we've had preliminary conversations with them.

[19:17] Without having that full depiction of what it could do

[19:19] to benefit the park, that's something

[19:21] that they're needing to have for evidence to prove

[19:23] that this is a direct benefit.

[19:25] So in essence, for this, we feel that that precipitation

[19:29] and temperature readings that can get

[19:31] could help rangers, essentially understand

[19:33] when they need to do snow removal,

[19:34] or at the health of irrigation management.

[19:36] So there could be a win for how it benefits

[19:38] the park directly, but again that direct benefit would have to be evaluated by the city.

[19:44] Okay.

[19:44] Thank you.

[19:48] Well, this is Commissioner Joel.

[19:50] So I guess I'm just kind of missing and I totally get there.

[19:54] There is a web of bureaucracy involved in many of those state and Nevada grants.

[20:00] But if the station existed at the park before, and this is just a replacement from the fire and

[20:10] relocation, I guess I'm just missing on why the state would deny it when it existed at the park

[20:18] prior.

[20:20] Good question. So, from our records, the original station was installed without the

[20:25] proper approvals. So, we're making sure with this new location and this new proposal that

[20:30] is going through the correct channels.

[20:38] I have a question.

[20:40] May I ask the way that this recommendation reads?

[20:43] It's contingent upon the Land of Water Conservation Fund requirements.

[20:49] So if they were to reject it, perceive that weather is not related to like the recreation

[20:54] park purposes.

[20:56] It sounds to me like if you wanted to move forward, you'd have to come back to this commission

[20:59] with a new proposal outside of that land designated.

[21:02] Is there a way that we can make a recommendation that grandfathers in implementing this

[21:11] whether or not it goes in the like specific designated land or goes outside of it?

[21:16] Like that would still give you the approval moving forward from this board regarding just a weather

[21:20] Like station in general or are we tied only to this and we have to see it come before the commission again?

[21:26] Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

[21:27] Yeah, you're saying that if the state decides to deny this,

[21:30] yeah, I don't know what's to move forward,

[21:32] then it's a different APN that's not impacted by the LWC

[21:35] of the restriction that that, again, would come back to us.

[21:39] I look to the legal to see what we can do for that,

[21:41] as far as I'm ending to the recommendation.

[21:44] I think my concern would be an unknown,

[21:48] and we want to give public proper notice

[21:49] of where this potentially could be,

[21:51] and so that would be my concern about just making it contingent

[21:56] on a potential future location, just from an open meeting law perspective.

[22:06] Let's come to each other day.

[22:09] The location looks very undisturbed right now with where the flag, the survey flag, is located.

[22:16] And I understand there's very little access to it required once it's an operation.

[22:21] But getting in and out of there with a tower and concrete and construction and whatnot, and while it's minimal,

[22:27] Is there any has it been addressed how they're going to go back and repair that after they've ribbon in and out of there a few times

[22:35] Where's all going to be walked in?

[22:37] My understanding is all going to be walked in it wouldn't be driven in further than what's already existing for roads and access in the trails

[22:44] Okay, thank

[22:47] you

[22:48] Commissioner Baker just to follow question

[22:50] So the information collected and the data is that

[22:55] Accessible to the public

[22:57] Yes. Okay. So I feel like you have a pretty good argument with the state if there's actually a public benefit to that data collection.

[23:05] Yes. So that in that the collection of the data itself is for precipitation and temperature and that's related every 15 minutes to turn.

[23:11] But it's also publicly available on the synoptic data viewer.

[23:15] I don't have that link with me, but I can send you that information later.

[23:18] Yeah, that would be great.

[23:20] Thank you.

[23:25] As Commissioner Hill, I move to approve the License Agreement between Washington County and the

[23:30] Trucker of Reflect Management Authority, where the construction and operation maintenance

[23:35] and replacement of weather monitoring station with an portion of Davis Creek Regional Park

[23:40] APN-046-04141-10 contingent upon a determination of the Nevada Division of State Parks

[23:48] that the proposed License Agreement is consistent with the Land and Water Conservation Fund

[23:52] Requirements and does not require a conversion of LWCF protected parkland.

[24:00] This is Commissioner, please.

[24:04] Very well. Motion has been made and seconded to accept this recommendation. Do we have any public

[24:13] comment?

[24:16] I have no public comment chambers. I have no public comment on Zoom.

[24:21] Very well. Do we have any further discussion on the commission board?

[24:27] Hearing none, very well. All those in favor, say goodbye by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries.

[24:49] Moving on to item seven.

[24:51] acknowledgment and recognition of Park Maintenance Worker, Jose de Jesus, Horta.

[25:00] Mata for his five years of continuous service to wash-o-county, and I apologize if I didn't say that

[25:06] name correctly.

[25:08] Please.

[25:16] Mike Furlong, work out of the North District. I work with a supervisor. He's been here five years. He's

[25:24] one of my better employees. He works comes in every day as a great attitude. Does the job

[25:29] he is taken over for another person who's moved out of a one district. He takes care of the

[25:36] and Jose has just been killing it.

[25:39] He's out doing new maps, redoing all the sprinkler heads,

[25:45] and making a map of all that,

[25:46] so we can get in the computer system,

[25:49] and he's accepting his five years pension.

[25:53] Well, thank you very much.

[25:55] Thank you.

[26:02] Well, thank you, Jose.

[26:04] We need maintenance on a lot of projects out there,

[26:08] so thank you for your hard work.

[26:10] Moving on to item 8, presentation and reading of a Proclamation recognizing July as Parks and Recreation Month,

[26:22] celebrating the vital role Parks, Trails, Open Spaces and Recreational Programs play in enhancing the quality of life for our community.

[26:31] This is for information and I will be reading.

[26:36] Proclamation of July as Park and Recreation Month, whereas Parks, Recreation and Open

[26:42] Space, is an integral part of communities throughout this country, including Washow County

[26:48] and whereas Parks and Recreation from most health and wellness, improving the physical and

[26:56] health of people who live near parks and open space and whereas parks and recreation promote

[27:03] time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance

[27:10] and well-being and alleviating illnesses and whereas parks and recreation encourage physical

[27:18] activities by providing space for popular sports hiking trails swimming pools and many other

[27:24] activities designed to promote active lifestyles and whereas parks in a recreation increase

[27:31] a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of local

[27:37] tax base, increase tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction.

[27:45] And whereas parks, recreation and open space are fundamental to the environmental well-being

[27:51] of our community and whereas parks, trails and open space are essential and adaptable infrastructure

[28:00] that makes our communities resilient in the face of natural disasters and climate change

[28:06] and whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our

[28:13] community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors

[28:20] and whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month,

[28:28] and whereas Washow County recognizes the benefits derived from Parks and Recreation

[28:33] Resources. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Open Space and Regional Parks Commission

[28:41] that the month of July 2026 is recognized as Park and Recreation Month in Washow in the County

[28:48] of Washington for claim this day July 29, 2026. Thank you, you're here.

[29:02] Thank you, moving on to

[29:05] item nine, presentation by Navarra Beya and his Eagle Scout project at Davis Creek Regional Park.

[29:16] And once again, if I pronounce your name incorrectly, my apologies.

[29:23] Good afternoon, commissioners,

[29:24] This rings our next door for the record down at Davis Creek Regional Park.

[29:29] It is my pleasure to introduce you to Eagle Scout Candidate, near of Baya, who's completed

[29:38] project has been instrumental in bringing us one step closer to our restoration goals post-davis

[29:46] fire.

[29:47] So without further ado, near of.

[29:51] Hello, everyone.

[29:52] I'm near of Baya and I'm from Chup 15 from South Reno.

[29:55] I wanted to start off by talking about what my project is in September.

[30:00] Order of 2024, our troop was supposed to be doing a family camp out at Davis Creek Regional Park, but

[30:05] that's the same weekend, a drastic fire hit. And that fire took out many pieces of infrastructure,

[30:12] including one of the main ways that Davis Creek Regional Park gains its funds to continue

[30:17] operating due to the selling of firewood. My project is a firewood shed with a side table attached

[30:24] where volunteers can cut wood, bundle it,

[30:27] and store it into the shed to protect it from rain.

[30:32] So during the construction process,

[30:35] we decided to build it in the same location as the old shed.

[30:38] As you can see here, here is my troop digging out

[30:41] the old posts.

[30:42] We dug out a lot of old concrete and we ended up

[30:47] cementing the posts in and we did a stronger post

[30:50] so it would be more wind resistant.

[30:56] We then moved on to the side walls as you can see.

[30:58] Um, we decided to use, um, another Eagle Scout decided to make a firewood shed for the community to be able to buy firewood from mines more on the back inside.

[31:11] Um, so we decided to mimic the design of that firewood shed.

[31:15] So it looked, you know, the anonymous and we decided to use, um, this rigid, uh, I don't know how to

[31:22] point with sighting on the side.

[31:27] This is more building, you can see on the left image that we started constructing the table.

[31:34] This is when we started building the roof.

[31:37] It's a triangle trust roof on top, allows rain and snow to not stay on top.

[31:46] And this is more construction of the roof, and as you can see, the table is really showing

[31:50] that we're able to hold an adult on it.

[31:54] And then we ended up painting it a nice shade of brown and tan to make it look the same as the other Eagle Scout.

[32:04] And this is the final product.

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:08] Thank you very much.

[32:08] Any questions?

[32:11] Well, my goodness.

[32:13] Thank you, Narod.

[32:14] That's absolutely fantastic.

[32:16] I think this is going to do a lot of good at Davis Creek and people's firewood is going to be safe and dry.

[32:24] And thank you.

[32:25] Excellent job.

[32:26] Thank you very much.

[32:32] I would also like to thank Chucky Tahoe Lumber and the Home Depot on Neil Road for the

[32:37] generous donation of materials for this project.

[32:40] Well, thank you.

[32:40] Very good.

[32:41] Thank you very much.

[32:46] Presentation by Megan Velikwez and Bonner Eagle Scout Project at the Swan Lake in Nature

[32:54] and Study Area.

[32:56] And once again, I apologize if I didn't pronounce your name correctly.

[33:00] Hi

[33:08] there, I'm Celia Walker, I'm Park Ranger, and P-Vine District, and the North Parks.

[33:14] It was a pleasure working with Megan Flaskas,

[33:20] very proud of her.

[33:22] And her commanding presence was awesome with her troop.

[33:27] It's one like really benefited from this.

[33:30] I'll turn it over to Megan.

[33:39] Okay, thank you so much and it's really great to meet every single one of you, good afternoon.

[33:44] My name is Megan Velasquez, I'm a graduate from Coral Academy of Science and Eval Scout from true 55G.

[33:52] So I'm here to talk about my fun Eval Project, this one like beautification project.

[33:57] And this has taken me almost 18 years to achieve,

[34:03] because it takes your entire scouting career

[34:05] to turn this award,

[34:07] is the highest award in scouting America.

[34:09] And my career started when I was only eight months old,

[34:12] in that crazy,

[34:13] because my brother is also in Eagle Scout himself.

[34:16] So my project took place,

[34:20] there we go.

[34:21] That's one leg.

[34:22] So this was before we met in early November of 2025,

[34:26] And we took some pictures around the area.

[34:28] There was so much vegetation, a lot of invasive plants.

[34:31] It wasn't looking so hot.

[34:33] So this is where I come in.

[34:36] Where I wanted to get together,

[34:38] 30 volunteers to just beautify the area

[34:41] to install eight of these wonderful leopold benches.

[34:45] They are bird-watching benches.

[34:47] And on the back of three of them,

[34:50] you will find this logo that,

[34:52] oh, don't look at that.

[34:53] You will find this logo that I design having the scouting emblem. It does not have my name on them

[35:00] But Eagle Scout Project 25, true 55, you'll find them out there. It's super cool to find. So, but first before we could install the benches, obviously, we stayed every single one of these planes in my backyard. It was very fun.

[35:16] Also with the project, we also cleared trails and we removed a trash.

[35:21] Here's the day of service, people holding up things, building the benches.

[35:27] We moved all the planks on site and we assembled it.

[35:32] And all of that would that you see here, including the wood on this bench, was entirely

[35:36] donated.

[35:37] Thanks to MasterCraft and Lowe's that was almost about $2,000 of lumber.

[35:43] So shout out to them, they're super cool people.

[35:47] And now here's the beautiful after, after long dedicated hours, which came to about 167

[35:54] hours in total, from each of my volunteers, we were there for about eight hours, it looks

[36:01] so beautiful now.

[36:02] Wow, and now people can walk through and they can appreciate the park and they can go on

[36:07] what is now called the bench trail, and it's amazing.

[36:13] Okay, oh, and then the bench is just so that way, Swan Lake is known to flood, we drilled a hole in the leg of one of the legs and then we attached it with some chain to a cement bucket with an eye hook in it and we dug it into the ground and we put the bucket in the ground and we attached the chain with a lock to that eye hook.

[36:35] about, let's see, what month are we, nine months in,

[36:40] none of them have moved at all, as far as I know.

[36:45] And they're super easy to put just back in the ground,

[36:47] super awesome.

[36:51] So, that's my presentation.

[36:52] Thank you so much.

[36:53] This was also endorsed by the Nevada National Guard.

[36:55] And every single thing was donated,

[36:58] including lunch and snacks and materials and supplies,

[37:01] everything not a penny was spent.

[37:04] Thank you.

[37:04] Any questions?

[37:06] Thank you, Megan.

[37:09] Fantastic.

[37:10] You hit a great job.

[37:13] And very pleased that they haven't walked away either.

[37:18] So that's a very good thing.

[37:19] Thank you very, very much.

[37:21] Great job.

[37:22] Yeah.

[37:28] All right.

[37:29] Moving on.

[37:30] Item 11, update on the pros consulting work to develop a service plan for the

[37:34] possible creation of a park district.

[37:37] Director Crump.

[37:46] Thank you for the record.

[37:47] there, Washington East Community Services Department.

[37:50] So, not a lot of update on this, so staff from the City of Reno City

[37:54] Sparks, and obviously our Park Staff have been working with the consultant over

[37:58] the past several months.

[38:00] They're wrapping up what will be the draft feasibility plan and service plan, along

[38:05] with recommendations for next steps.

[38:08] We're still on track to have that in our hands in September.

[38:13] We talk between City of Reno and City Sparks and ourselves about another

[38:17] joint-part commission meeting, probably looking at October for the sole purpose of reviewing

[38:24] that feasibility study service plan and recommendations.

[38:28] So, more to come, but we're on track to have something here in September and October.

[38:33] Any questions?

[38:35] Very good.

[38:36] Thank you, Director Crone.

[38:37] Any questions from the board?

[38:42] Hearing none.

[38:44] Moving on.

[38:44] to item 12 information presentation for recent few reduction projects on Washo County Park Properties.

[38:55] This was an item from a public comment just to give everybody a little up to speed some

[39:04] months back and looking forward to this join.

[39:14] Okay, my name is Joanne Laudon, natural resource planner coordinator for the record.

[39:18] I'm going to be talking a little bit about some of our recent fuel reduction projects that have happened on Parkland.

[39:26] So I want to start off by kind of talking about the fact that we have no dedicated parts funding to support fields reduction or any kind of post fire restoration and recovery.

[39:36] So we're relying completely on our partners to fund and actually complete this work for us.

[39:41] And so right now we're working pretty heavily with talking metals fired and rescue, also with an

[39:46] amount of vision of forestry and of course the forest service.

[39:52] So before I talk about the

[39:53] fields projects that we've actually completed, I want to give you guys a little background about

[39:56] how these projects come about and how sites are selected.

[40:00] And really what some of these field treatments entail. So first off, we do have a state plan. It's called the Nevada Forest Range and Watershed Action Plan. This was last updated in 2020.

[40:10] So this plan, of course, addresses landscape management priorities for the whole state of Nevada. It provides a framework and analysis to establish priority landscapes.

[40:19] And of course, it focuses on investment and natural resource and well done fire management projects. So this is kind of a baseline plan for the entire state.

[40:29] And then building on this, we also have what are called community wildfire protection plans.

[40:34] These plans are a little more site-specific, so these are going to identify and prioritize areas where

[40:39] hazardous fuel reduction is needed. They're going to recommend appropriate treatment methods,

[40:44] so they're going to decide, you know, does this site need thinning? Does it need prescribed fire,

[40:47] massification or some other type of vegetation management? These plans also focus on protecting

[40:53] live homes, critical infrastructure, and other community assets.

[40:57] These plans also include recommendations for reducing the ignitability homes and communities

[41:01] through defense space and other mitigation measures, and of course having these plans

[41:05] in place is really critical.

[41:07] It helps communities compete for state and federal wildfire mitigation funding.

[41:10] So it's really tough to get great funding to support these projects if you don't have a plan.

[41:18] So some of the factors that are considered as we're prioritizing selecting treatment sites

[41:22] And of course, it supplies to our park and open space sites.

[41:25] We're looking at what's the existing wildfire hazard

[41:27] and fuel loading present on the site.

[41:30] What's the proximity of the site to communities

[41:32] in the wildland urban interface?

[41:34] So the wooe, what type of critical infrastructure

[41:37] is present, evacuation routes, firefighter and public safety.

[41:42] And then, of course, we always look at ecological conditions

[41:44] and forest or range of land health.

[41:46] So could that site benefit from thinning

[41:47] or some other vegetation treatment

[41:49] to actually improve the quality of habitat

[41:50] that's present.

[41:53] For us, we're also always looking for opportunities to coordinate treatments across ownership

[41:56] boundaries.

[41:57] So, for example, if for service is planning something adjacent to a park site, it's often

[42:01] very beneficial for us to partner and treat everything as a whole.

[42:05] Of course, we're always looking at available funding and partnerships for these projects.

[42:13] So if you're not familiar with field treatments, there's a lot of different things that

[42:17] can be done.

[42:18] Probably one of the most common is either mechanical thinning or hand thinning.

[42:21] Obviously mechanical thinning is done with machinery on site where hand thinning tends to be

[42:26] cruise with chainsaws.

[42:27] They're actually going in and hand-filling trees.

[42:29] And of course, once you do the thinning, you have to do something with the vegetation,

[42:33] you know, that's created as you're removing it.

[42:35] So that's usually either done through massification with equipment or chipping.

[42:39] And then we often do pile burning, so they will take all that material, they'll create piles

[42:43] on site.

[42:44] And then they'll come back at a later time when conditions are appropriate, usually in the winter

[42:49] time and they'll burn those piles. Another goal when we're developing these treatments

[42:54] we're looking at creating defensible space and buffers, especially around critical infrastructure

[42:58] and we're also looking at creating community fuel breaks where they make sense.

[43:06] So there's two primary funding sources that both Trucking Metals Fire and Nevada Division

[43:11] of Forestry typically go after to help support these projects. The first one is the hazard mitigation

[43:15] grant program. This is a federal grant, this is administered through FEMA. And then the other one,

[43:21] there is the Nevada shared stewardship group.

[43:23] We are part of the Sierra Front Priority Landscape.

[43:26] So there is a whole group that gets together

[43:28] and evaluates these types of projects

[43:30] to decide which ones get funded.

[43:32] And the funding for these is provided through the Forest Service

[43:35] wildbar crisis strategy funding.

[43:41] OK, so I have this slide up here,

[43:43] because I want to just touch on NEPA briefly.

[43:46] For those of you who don't know what this is,

[43:47] this is basically a requirement for any type of federal funding

[43:51] or any projects that would occur on federal land, there's a requirement that they consider

[43:57] impacts due natural and cultural resources.

[44:00] So there's a lot of background planning that goes into these projects.

[44:04] Typically, Turkey-Mittals Fire goes after those hazard mitigation grants that I was mentioned

[44:08] earlier.

[44:09] So they have a requirement to actually go out and survey for cultural resources, for sensitive

[44:13] species.

[44:15] They have a requirement to reach out to Shippo, a requirement to reach out to an event

[44:20] our Heritage Program and Dow to get input on what potential resources are concerned at that site

[44:27] and also to get recommendations on any type of mitigation or design feature to reduce those impacts.

[44:37] So here's some examples of the types of project design features and mitigation that you might see come

[44:42] out of a neat process. And again, these are very site-specific. So they're really going to look at it

[44:46] site-by-site and determine, you know, what are the resources of concern here, what can we do to

[44:51] and those impacts, and there are certainly times when resource might not be present, so they don't need to have any type of mitigation for that.

[44:58] So here's some examples wildlife.

[45:00] Protection. They could be a seasonal operating restriction. They could require nest or habitat surveys prior to the project starting.

[45:08] They could require protective buffers around, for example, a known nest site for sensitive species.

[45:14] And there's a whole list here.

[45:21] So you might be wondering, well, what happens if it's not on federal land or it's not federally funded?

[45:26] So basically, our partners, each have their own sort of separate process for dealing with local projects that aren't federally funded.

[45:33] So with trucking motors fire and rescue, their standard is they do pre-inspection of their

[45:37] work site and they look for any natural or cultural resource concerns, if anything's found,

[45:42] they will flag in a void, and then of course they always coordinate with park staff ahead of time on

[45:47] all the project work to see if we have any additional concerns or any additional restrictions or things

[45:52] that we want them to implement for that site. And then Nevada Division of Forestry, they handled

[45:57] there's a little bit differently. They actually consult with NDAO, they consult with Nevada Division

[46:02] natural heritage, they consult with Shippo, and they let those agencies identify any potential

[46:08] site concerns, and then they would follow any recommended mitigation measures from those

[46:13] agencies. And again, NDF is really good about coordinating with park staff, making sure that

[46:18] there aren't any additional resource concerns, or things that we would like them to implement

[46:21] as part of the project.

[46:27] So now that I gave you some background, I just want to highlight some

[46:29] of the more recent projects that we've completed. So, Chuck E. Meadows Fire, they completed the

[46:34] Silver Knowles Park Treatment, this began in 2024, and it ended in 2025.

[46:41] This was funded through the Long Valley Hazard Mitigation Grant.

[46:45] This project, they did mosaic fuels reduction work.

[46:48] They created some fuel breaks along the park boundaries with residential areas.

[46:52] They removed quite a bit of dead material,

[46:55] and they reduced our brush component again mosaic treatment.

[46:58] So the intensity of treatment varies depending on the part of the site you're in.

[47:02] So it's not just a blanket treatment across the entire site.

[47:04] So they're kind of varying how much of education they're taking out of each area.

[47:09] And again, these treatments were conducted using hand tools.

[47:12] They also had some mechanical methods, including chipping amastication of the material.

[47:20] So this is another trucking metaspire project.

[47:23] This was funded through the Jasper Hazard Mitigation Grant.

[47:26] This one included Sun Valley Regional Park.

[47:29] They began these treatments in 2024, and they just completed early 2026 with the loss of their pile burning.

[47:35] Again, this was pretty much the same treatments I just described.

[47:39] They did music, those they fuels reduction work, fuel breaks along park boundaries, with

[47:44] residential areas, they removed dead material, and then here they did some selective

[47:49] tree removal in areas of heavy juniper, and of course they finished up all their pile burning

[47:54] this winter.

[48:00] So, moving on to some projects we did with Nevada Division of Forestry.

[48:04] First one I'm going to highlight is Galina Creek Regional Park.

[48:06] This was a really big one. This was funded through the Nevada Shared Stewardship Program.

[48:12] This one began in 2024 and they're mostly done with all of their feeding work,

[48:16] but they still have some pile burning to do over the next couple of years.

[48:20] This one cost them $520,000 and they treated 185 acres.

[48:26] As part of this project, they actually were removing some of the timber

[48:30] to the Tahoe Force product sawmill to support their production.

[48:34] And then that also helps support the cost of the project to do this feels reduction.

[48:39] They did quite a bit of hand thinning. They also had quite a lot of mechanical thinning and

[48:42] medication. And again, like I mentioned, they created a lot of piles and they'll be burning those over the next few years.

[48:51] And so here's some good pictures. Just showing you the work in progress. On the left, you can see some piles burning.

[48:57] On the right, you see some mechanical equipment.

[49:04] And here's some photos showing the logics.

[49:07] and a truck getting loaded up, take the logs to the mill site.

[49:14] And here's a good before and after, just showing you kind of what it looked like before they

[49:18] thinned it and then what it looked like after thinning.

[49:28] And then here's some after photos showing you what the site looked like after they

[49:31] were done with the thinning.

[49:40] So Nevada Division of Forestry also has helped this substantially

[49:44] with the Davis Creek Regional Park Post Fire Recovery.

[49:47] They have done quite a bit of work in there for us.

[49:49] They've invested about $131,000 in treated 75 acres for us.

[49:54] This was mostly focused on dead down and hazard tree removal on site and again

[50:00] Part of that, they transported in 20,490 board feet to the Tahoe Forest Products sawmill. They also,

[50:07] they applied some pre-emergent herbicide for us last year, and there's a photo there showing the

[50:11] aerial drone that was used to apply that pre-emergent herbicide. And that was done to help us

[50:17] control annual grasses so that we could get vegetation recovery on the site, pose fire. And they are

[50:22] planning a drill seeding for this fall.

[50:31] And another recent project with an out of vision of forestry,

[50:36] This one actually started early this spring, 2026, and they're planning to wrap up with

[50:41] pile burning, probably by 2029.

[50:43] They invested about $54,000 in this project and treated 18 acres.

[50:48] This was a partnership project with the Forest Service, so they also treated 22 acres of

[50:52] Forest Service property that was adjacent to the Forest Mansion.

[50:57] One of the big things they focused on was creating a 500 foot fuel break behind the fire station.

[51:01] This was identified as a priority area for a fuel break.

[51:05] They also did quite a bit of thinning, both through hand crews and mechanical.

[51:09] They did piles and, of course, the biggest goals for this site were forced health,

[51:14] riparian functionality, and defenseable space around structures.

[51:17] Bauer's mansion has quite a few historic structures that are pretty much irreplaceable,

[51:21] so really doing fields reduction in this area was a high priority.

[51:30] So here's some photos of the Bauer's Mansion Treatment.

[51:37] We've got a couple more and she sees some piles there on the left

[51:43] and then finally my personal favorite we've been partnering with the four service since 2013

[51:49] It's part of their arrow-hawk sheep grazing project

[51:53] This project covers about 1500 acres totally or annually and it runs from Thomas Creek up through the white-screak watersheds and

[52:04] Basically, they have the borderland as sheep company bringing it about 900 sheep and they grace them through that entire area over about three months worth of time.

[52:13] So what this does is this reduces hazardous fuels,

[52:16] creates fuel breaks and helps slow fire spread in that area. And again, these treatments have been ongoing since 2013 and they do them every year.

[52:24] And of course this includes the Wash County Air Creek open space parcels. So that's part of the area that the sheep come through every year.

[52:34] And that's it. Any questions?

[52:36] Well, thank you, Joanne. There's a ton of information here, and speaking as a former U.S.

[52:45] Forest Service Smoke Chaser, it looks like fuel's mitigation has become a lot more sophisticated.

[52:52] But thank you. I have no questions. Board members?

[52:57] Yeah. Commissioner Dave, question about the sheep grazing. Does that require the same level of permitting

[53:03] is some of the more effort driven, the cutting, and mass decating, and so forth.

[53:10] There's it pretty easy to just get out and get it done.

[53:13] Yeah.

[53:14] So that's a great question.

[53:15] Since most of that is occurring on Forest Service Land, and that is a Forest Service

[53:18] project, that was subject to the same deeper requirements that I was mentioning.

[53:22] And there is actually an existing environmental assessment out there.

[53:26] It's called the Arrow.

[53:26] I can't really exactly air hawk fields reduction, and it encompasses a whole range

[53:30] of projects, not just the sheep grazing, but it is included within that.

[53:33] and then follow up to that, is there a typical timeline for the permitting process once

[53:39] areas identified and a plan made and you start all this process, is it a multi-year sort

[53:47] of thing or is there a typical?

[53:49] Yeah, I would say no, because it really is going to depend on the level of NEPA analysis that's

[53:53] required or if one even is required and a lot of times these things are very based on funding

[53:58] availability too.

[53:59] And then it's also going to depend.

[54:01] So without getting two in the weeds on the need for process, it depends on who the lead agency is

[54:05] and kind of what their timelines look like.

[54:07] So you know, your timing going through a process with FEMA might be different if the force

[54:12] service went on their own into their own need for process.

[54:14] So the timing on those is going to be slightly different.

[54:17] Okay.

[54:17] Thank you.

[54:20] Commissioner.

[54:20] Oh, am I on?

[54:22] Okay.

[54:23] Commissioner Blangas.

[54:24] I have a question.

[54:26] I was unfamiliar and maybe you can clarify it, should this shared stewardship agreement?

[54:30] Do you use the does that submit a plan to the state that creates a budget for fuel mitigation every year? Is that what I'm understanding?

[54:37] Um, you know, I would have to look into how they function a little bit more.

[54:41] But from what I know about it, there's a group that's formed.

[54:45] Yes, specific agreements and and we'll use things in place.

[54:47] And then they get a pot of money through that wildfire mitigation funds that I mentioned.

[54:52] And then as a group, they get to basically evaluate projects that are submitted by the members.

[54:58] and then they decide where that funding pop.

[55:00] All right, thank you for that year's going to go.

[55:01] Okay, because I know there are renewals coming up in October.

[55:05] So, it's, you know, very timely.

[55:06] But I was just super curious about how their funding comes down to the state and then is allocated out to local jurisdictions.

[55:13] Also, in this, I kind of have a question.

[55:15] Nevada division of forestry seems to be doing a lot of field reduction.

[55:18] Is there any of it sounded like there was funds for wildfire recovery?

[55:22] Is that true? Did I understand that correctly or no?

[55:24] In this kind of combination?

[55:25] Yeah, no, I mean those the funds for Davis Creek. Yes, typically from

[55:29] India. Okay. Oh, yeah. Also just point of personal privilege. I took a little field trip out

[55:36] to Davis Creek and I got to go with Park Ranger Nick. And I saw where they had done

[55:41] the herbicide treatments. And the difference in vegetation was huge. It has a huge impact.

[55:46] So anyway, shout out to like the whole park scene, but it was very cool to see in person.

[55:55] Commissioner Garcia for the record. Thank you for the thorough presentation. It was very

[55:59] formative, it's you're having a rely on outside agencies because we don't have the dedicated

[56:03] funding as a real challenge and it's obviously something that we get phone calls a lot at

[56:08] the county. So I have a positive comment from a constituent and then two questions from constituents

[56:13] that I was hoping that if you can answer. So the positive comment I recently received was in regard

[56:19] to the Jasper grants. It was a senior citizen who lives just right outside of my districts and

[56:24] He was just so appreciative, and I'll pass this on to

[56:27] trekking me to his fire protection district.

[56:29] But so appreciative that his area,

[56:32] he and his neighbors had been selected for this grant.

[56:34] He says, I'm 90 years old, I've lived in this home,

[56:38] you know, 50 plus years, and it's just really scary for him

[56:42] to know that things are getting bigger

[56:44] and the chances of wildfire just growing by the day.

[56:47] And there's a lot of already fire activities.

[56:49] So he was just very grateful.

[56:52] So thank you for helping coordinate

[56:54] all that. The second question I got was I had posted a video on social media about the goats,

[57:02] the city of Sparks had hired, and we're working some different areas, and this is by the

[57:07] Wild Creek Open Space area. Many constituents reached out to me to say or ask if there are companies

[57:14] in the region that allow the goats to be rented out for private residences. Do you know the answer

[57:21] to that or where we could refer people to learn more about the goat grazing?

[57:25] Yeah. So we actually have used a company here locally in the past. We've done some goat

[57:31] grazing out at Swan Lake and also at our curcione property, although it is a bit

[57:36] cost prohibited for us right now. So I could look up the contact information and send that over to you.

[57:42] That'd be great. And then the last question from a constituent,

[57:45] outside of my district but they were affected by the gold ranch fire. What was that two years ago?

[57:51] I can't I'm starting with this track with all of our fires. The state came in and receded the area,

[57:56] but it did not take. Is there somebody that they could reach out to that I mean I think they were

[58:03] just kind of like sorry you didn't work but is there anything that you know that could help this

[58:06] constituent? Honestly I would probably have them reach out to an about a vision of forestry and see

[58:10] if they could assist and I can also send you that contact. Okay that would be great. Thank you.

[58:16] Commissioner Hill, great overview of projects. Just curious, I didn't see any controlled burning,

[58:22] understory burning, I saw it a pile burning. What's the state of control burning with these

[58:28] agencies? Are we doing it? Who is taking lead on those projects? That sort of thing.

[58:32] Right, so as far as I know, Washow County does not allow the understory burning and it is a risk management

[58:39] issue, but we do allow pile burning. I mean, I would love for us to be able to do some of that

[58:44] story burning, because certainly the force service doesn't adjacent to our properties, but

[58:48] to date, I'm not aware that we've got any permission to do that. Again, it's a risk issue.

[58:53] Thank you.

[58:56] Very well. Any further questions? Yeah, come on. Excuse me, Commissioner Baker.

[59:01] Just a follow-up question also on the grazing. Most of the items have costs associated.

[59:07] I think you kind of alluded to the fact that the grazing, I think, is a little bit cost prohibitive.

[59:11] go cheaper otherwise can you kind of ballpark that and I mean I think that's

[59:16] probably why we don't do that more often and then obviously the vegetation has to

[59:21] be probably pretty specific and the topography probably has to be pretty specific but

[59:25] can you expand on how sites are selected and why and where for go grazing

[59:30] specifically just grazing in general yeah so I mean I can speak to cost a little

[59:35] bit and again the sheep are a little bit different than the goats so as far as I

[59:39] the Board of Land Company actually donates the value of that sheep grazing, they don't

[59:43] actually charge for service for that. But for the goat grazing, I want to say a couple

[59:48] years ago, we were paying around $30,000 for about 10 acres worth of grazing. So I'm sure it's

[59:54] still probably right around on that ballpark. And then as far as site selection for park specific.

[1:00:00] We're looking at sites where we aren't going to have conflicts with recreation. So it's pretty tough to do this type of fields reduction in developed

[1:00:09] park sites, or where you're going to have a lot of conflicts with the public during park hours. So sites like Swan Lake are really good for this.

[1:00:17] Some of our open space properties where we don't have a lot of infrastructure are good for this type of grazing.

[1:00:22] But there's a lot of places like we wouldn't want to have them in Rancho, for example, because there would be way too many conflicts.

[1:00:27] you know, we've got police dogs there, you know, we've got tons of use, we've got mountain

[1:00:30] bikes, so I just wouldn't work at that site, so that really helps us kind of narrow down

[1:00:34] where we're going to use that type of grazing.

[1:00:40] Any further questions? Hearing none, Joanne,

[1:00:44] thank you very much. I was an excellent presentation. Thank you.

[1:00:52] Moving on, 13 presentation and

[1:00:56] discussion on community services department budget related to parks and open space, including

[1:01:02] but not limited to operating budgets, staffing, organizational, and financial structure.

[1:01:10] That also was a mouthful. That was an ADRC operation superintendent for parks.

[1:01:16] So we're going to go through just a really high level budget discussion today. We could talk

[1:01:22] all afternoon about budget, but I really want, especially new commissioners who haven't been

[1:01:27] this presentation yet to have an idea of how we're structured and how we're funded.

[1:01:34] Okay, so first I want to go back because I got a little quick copy.

[1:01:39] First I want to talk about the Washoe County budget as a whole. The county adopts an annual budget

[1:01:46] on our fiscal year is July 1st, soon 30th. So it came a little confusing. We are currently just entered

[1:01:53] FY27. So fiscal year 27. It's not 27 yet, but that's the fiscal year that we are in.

[1:01:59] The numbers that I present you today will represent fiscal year 25, which is the most complete budget

[1:02:05] information that we have. We're still closing out 26. I would love to give you as the most up-to-date

[1:02:12] information is possible, but I want to make sure that I'm giving you accurate information.

[1:02:17] So, the county develops its budget, it's a very long process, and then goes into effect on July 1st.

[1:02:28] So, budgets are created with strategic planning.

[1:02:31] In mind, the Board of County Commissioners has a clear vision and is actively updating the strategic plan.

[1:02:37] With their long-term goals and their short-term initiatives that help determine how budgeting is created,

[1:02:44] There was a public, public, public budget workshop in January of 26, and then there were three

[1:02:50] additional strategic planning workshops that fed into this information as well.

[1:02:55] And well, there were three strategic focus areas, mental health, senior services, and

[1:03:00] infrastructure, and then we, as a county, are continuing the goals of maintaining the service

[1:03:05] levels that we currently offer, making a commitment and continuing the commitment to our employees

[1:03:11] to keep our employees working and then making sure we're using our reserves wisely.

[1:03:19] So here are some highlights from the FY-27 budget at a county level.

[1:03:24] I really do just want to draw some attention to the first couple budget points or a

[1:03:29] bullet points I apologize that there were no net new positions in any funds that were created.

[1:03:36] Also, there is a 3% salary savings that was budgeted, a approximate 3% budget for across

[1:03:43] the funds.

[1:03:46] Basically where we're at budget-wise is we're in a structural deficit where revenue

[1:03:53] is coming in at a slower rate than expenditures are going up. And that is very common

[1:03:59] right now in not just Washington, but across the jurisdictions. So we're having to make some

[1:04:06] decisions based on that data. So the budget this year will be flat. We are not, we're not cutting

[1:04:14] we're maintaining services, but we're not increasing either.

[1:04:18] So I'd like to go through our structure, so you have an idea of how we're set up in our

[1:04:24] parks department. So the regional parks and open space, that's us. We are part of CSD operations.

[1:04:31] So within the department of community services, in operations, parks exist next to roads, equipment

[1:04:38] services and facilities. Within our parks division, we have parks administration, parks

[1:04:46] operations where the majority of our budget is focused, golf course enterprise, the May

[1:04:52] and capital.

[1:05:00] I apologize, this is a little tiny, but I will do my best. If you don't have it in front of you, I will, I'll yell the numbers out.

[1:05:07] But this is our budget revenue side for fiscal 25. So two sides to every budget. There's revenue in there's expenditures.

[1:05:18] As we like to say, the budget is just a plan, right? It's an educated guess for what we expect to happen.

[1:05:24] So, if you take a look at this chart for FY-25, our revenue is budgeted in the blue.

[1:05:34] So what we expect is to happen is in blue and the orange is our actual, so what actually

[1:05:38] happened?

[1:05:39] So we are happy to report that our revenue did come in a bit higher than we were expecting.

[1:05:45] So our total revenue was a bit higher as well.

[1:05:48] The biggest kind of delta is actually in reimbursements, which I'll go through what that

[1:05:52] later, but that's where the biggest delta is and what we can point to other than that our

[1:05:59] charges for services revenue coming in is pretty spot on. I'm pretty proud of the fact that we're

[1:06:05] pretty darn close to what we expected.

[1:06:12] So I'll go ahead and kind of break down what our

[1:06:14] parks revenue sources are what that looks like. It's about 12% of our overall parks budget charges

[1:06:20] for services include things like recreation charges, what it costs to get into the swimming

[1:06:26] or the water parks reservation, so when you rent out a building for a wedding or a corporate

[1:06:34] retreat or a celebration of life, that also goes into charges for services, field groups,

[1:06:41] our athletic groups who rent those or who utilize those fields, can't reach me rentals

[1:06:47] any other building, pavilion rentals all go into that charges for services bucket.

[1:06:53] Revenue also includes reimbursement, so for the E-shore trail, we maintain this parking

[1:06:59] loss, which has an office or has an expenditure, and then we are reimbursed for that.

[1:07:05] So that's kind of where that delta is in the last chart.

[1:07:08] Is the reimbursement, we're slightly larger than we expected them to be.

[1:07:12] We are also reimbursed by food systems for their water and utility reimbursements from

[1:07:19] league so their light feeds go into that bucket as well. We've got some other miscellaneous revenue.

[1:07:25] We have some pasture leases that we manage. We have rafting permits, so companies who

[1:07:32] be rafting tours have permits that allow them to enter and exit river from our parks. We have a

[1:07:39] billboard out south out at South Valley and then there's an HLE agreement out at Gleana Country

[1:07:43] States to manage that park out there as well. So that falls into them miscellaneous revenue bucket.

[1:07:49] We also are very lucky to have the support from our friends and neighbors in our community

[1:07:55] in terms of donations.

[1:07:57] So there's monetary donations and also in-kind services that we consider revenue as well.

[1:08:03] And then if we're looking at revenue, we would be remiss to not talk about Davis Creek revenue.

[1:08:10] If we look at FY204, we were up near $200,000 in revenue for that park.

[1:08:18] And then obviously you see FY26 that's zero.

[1:08:21] So that it's a very important part of the conversation

[1:08:25] when we talk about getting that back up and running.

[1:08:32] With the, sorry, this commissioner held just a quick question.

[1:08:34] With the Davis Creek revenue that would fall

[1:08:37] within charges for services.

[1:08:39] Correct.

[1:08:40] So you beat budget with missing a 200,000 dollar line

[1:08:44] out of that year.

[1:08:45] It looks like fiscal 25.

[1:08:47] Nice.

[1:08:50] Okay. Our recreation team is very small. We've got three employees who work on our recreation team that if they have a heavy lift as far as the revenue coming in.

[1:09:01] Under recreation we've got Aquatics, which we've talked a little bit about in past meetings, but we have Bowers pool.

[1:09:07] the Emilio Gospari Svash Park and all the North Valley Svash Park, all of those are seasonal activities,

[1:09:14] seasonal facilities and we try to the very best of our ability to be open in Memorial Day through

[1:09:20] Labor Day in some fashion. We also have athletic fields and youth sports are our bigger than ever

[1:09:29] and so we try and utilize those to the best of our ability with the leagues as well and then we also

[1:09:36] the Robertsy Hawkins amphitheater as well.

[1:09:43] Okay, so this chart basically shows you how many

[1:09:46] reservations we're managing per quarter. It follows a general kind of pattern quarter two and three

[1:09:55] each year, generally are much higher. Those are our warmer spring summer season.

[1:10:00] And, you know, you see a significant intake are in increase in park reservations in those amphitheater, the pavilions, and then in our buildings in gardens as well.

[1:10:16] This chart goes all the way back to 2019 so you can kind of see the pattern.

[1:10:23] Davis Creek is still our largest reservation, even though we haven't been able to do that for the last couple of years.

[1:10:33] So that just kind of shows how significant those preservation numbers were in the past.

[1:10:42] Okay, and then talking a little bit about donations as well.

[1:10:45] Here's a five year history of our donation revenue.

[1:10:48] If you look back to 2021, at fiscal 2021,

[1:10:53] we had about $7600 in donations.

[1:10:57] And that's forward to FY 2025.

[1:11:00] We had about $80,000 in donations.

[1:11:04] I think that that speaks to the importance of our parks

[1:11:09] to our community and their recognition

[1:11:12] of the support that we need.

[1:11:14] In addition, Park Staff has tried very hard to make it as easy as possible to accept the donations when people come to us wanting to do so.

[1:11:23] And we have also a screen of it later, but we have an online donation mechanism that at our programs where people were attending and then wanted to then donate in the past week can only take cash or check.

[1:11:36] And our online donation mechanism has made it significantly easier to do that.

[1:11:41] So the donations at the programs themselves had gone up significantly last year, we had about 11 and a half thousand dollars in just in that digital donation that we may not have gotten otherwise if we could only take cash.

[1:12:01] And this is very tiny as well. I apologize, but this is a snapshot of the grant awards and utilization we've had over the past several years.

[1:12:08] If you look at the total ingredients awarded, it's over $5 million.

[1:12:15] Juliana, who just did that wonderful presentation,

[1:12:18] manages for the most part, all of these grants.

[1:12:21] It's very busy doing so.

[1:12:23] It does an amazing job identifying those grant opportunities

[1:12:25] and then managing once they get here.

[1:12:28] Once the money arrives, the work doesn't end.

[1:12:30] It actually is just getting started.

[1:12:32] So it's a significant lift to manage these grants,

[1:12:35] but that's what allows us to do.

[1:12:38] above and beyond what our budget would support.

[1:12:46] Okay, so the opposite side of the ledger

[1:12:48] for revenue is expenditures.

[1:12:52] Here, again, blue is budget, so the plan

[1:12:55] and then orange is the actual,

[1:12:57] so what actually happened.

[1:13:01] That's why this is again FY25,

[1:13:03] so the most complete information we have,

[1:13:06] 26 expenditures, you're still posting,

[1:13:09] but this gives you a good idea of kind of where we're at,

[1:13:11] salaries and wages are largest budget expenditure, which makes sense we are a service

[1:13:19] organization and we have a large contingent of employees who are here just specifically

[1:13:27] to serve the public outside of revenue. Benefits are also a large part of that and our

[1:13:34] services and supplies budget is about $3.5 million dollars for the year. If you look at

[1:13:41] The budget versus actual, we're very, very, very, very close on expenditures, which, again,

[1:13:47] we take a lot of pride in being as close to that budget number as we possibly can, and

[1:13:53] that takes a lot of planning, because parks are very under predictable, you know, we could

[1:13:58] have a day where we go in on their 50s, sprinkler heads that are broken, and you can't

[1:14:03] just ignore that.

[1:14:03] You can't let the turf suffer because of it, so we have to be really nimble and adjust

[1:14:09] as those, as the months go on, especially into the growing season.

[1:14:15] Again, sellers and benefits represent the majority of the budget at about 61%.

[1:14:20] We have about 45 full-time or FTEs.

[1:14:24] And right now we currently have two vacant.

[1:14:27] There is a national standard of 8.1 FTEs for every 10,000 residents.

[1:14:33] So, if you think about the population of Washow County and being over 500,000, we are not anywhere close to the National Standard would be around 400 plus employees.

[1:14:44] And so, I think that we're doing a pretty good job with the employees that we have and the resources that we have.

[1:14:51] In the summer, we add significant seasonal help and through lifeguards and in park maintenance and in our park range.

[1:15:01] A cross-the-department, but our permanent staff really hold down the majority of the work over the fiscal year.

[1:15:11] Services and supplies account for about 36% of our park operations budget with park infrastructure preservation.

[1:15:17] So those are any big projects or infrastructure projects under $100,000. That's about 16% of that services and supplies budget.

[1:15:26] So any time a tennis court needs to be resurfaced or we have a fence that comes down or, you know, there's a, a dam that needs to be rebuilt.

[1:15:36] That comes out of our infrastructure preservation budget.

[1:15:41] And then we also have about 3% of our budget allocated for Parks Capital Outlay which can be confused with our capital improvement project budget.

[1:15:49] that is a separate thing, our capital, outlay budget is for medium equipment and vehicle purchases

[1:15:56] and then small construction contracts.

[1:16:05] Okay, we also have a couple special funds.

[1:16:07] I realize I'm throwing a lot of information at ESL, I'll do my best to answer them at the

[1:16:10] end.

[1:16:11] But we have the golf course enterprise funds, so there's three golf courses, Sierra Sage Golf

[1:16:15] Course, Wash-O Golf Course and Wild Creek Golf Course, Sierra Sage and Wash-O Golf Course

[1:16:21] are managed outside of a park's apartment now. We're outside of the golf business but revenue comes

[1:16:29] in via those agreements and wild creek golf course was needed to the first save northern

[1:16:34] Nevada so we no longer maintain or manage that golf course either. We have other restricted funds

[1:16:42] so through the May Center which is the Arboridam and the May Museum and those are restricted outside

[1:16:50] of the general fund, those funds.

[1:16:56] So again, those special parks funds.

[1:16:58] The revenue that comes in from Sierra Sage and Washoe golf course, Sierra Sage revenues

[1:17:02] about 10% of the green fees that they collect, and Washoe golf revenue is a fixed amount per

[1:17:07] contract.

[1:17:08] I believe it's 50,000 per year, and the no revenue is coming from Wild Creek as we did it.

[1:17:14] That property over to Firsty.

[1:17:18] The May Foundation is a restricted revenue source so the will remember May Foundation and

[1:17:24] Wash of County entered into an agreement back in 1983, which provides a set of monetary

[1:17:28] value for those two facilities that the museum and the arboretum museum get supportive

[1:17:35] of about $195,000 a year and arboretum support about $105,000 from that May Foundation.

[1:17:41] There are additional supporters outside of that May Foundation, but that is restricted revenue

[1:17:45] for those properties.

[1:17:52] Also, we'll talk about capital improvement funds.

[1:17:56] So there are two different kinds of capital funds.

[1:17:59] There's 402 projects which come from the general fund

[1:18:02] and grant funds like ARPA or the Pennington Foundation.

[1:18:07] And then there are 404 projects which can come from RCT funds,

[1:18:11] which is residential construction tax.

[1:18:13] I think we've talked about it in this meeting

[1:18:15] before but residential construction tax

[1:18:18] comes in the form of development. It's a thousand dollars per dwelling that is built.

[1:18:25] Goes into a fund that then can help support parks in that district.

[1:18:29] There's also additional grant funds that can be used for four of four projects as well.

[1:18:33] Capital projects are anything over a hundred thousand dollars and they have a different set of rules.

[1:18:39] I cover them. We propose those capital projects.

[1:18:42] yearly, and it goes into a five-year plan, and then there is a committee that decides which projects will be funded, and

[1:18:51] move forward to approval through the BCC.

[1:18:59] Another very small slide, but these are some current capital projects

[1:19:04] in different levels of completeness.

[1:19:08] We are looking forward to

[1:19:12] finishing a couple of playgrounds that are wrapping up

[1:19:15] that we're excited about the Rancho accessible playground was finished at this year.

[1:19:21] We're also looking forward to the new restroom building at the Lemon Valley to open

[1:19:28] at those ball fields as well and then move into the new projects which were excited about.

[1:19:36] These are completed projects over the last five years.

[1:19:40] There is a lot to do and these funds were competing countywide across departments for a

[1:19:47] of this funding. A lot of these projects are also made possible by Gillian's diligent work

[1:19:53] on finding grants to support them as well.

[1:19:59] Okay.

[1:20:00] Okay, and how do we decide which capital projects we go after? We try and use as much data as possible, so that we can be, if there's as much equity in the processes as humanly possible.

[1:20:15] We put out a park infrastructure score code, and this is actually done across CSD, but this is ours for this year.

[1:20:26] Our business intelligence team puts it together, and it gives this kind of a general idea of where we're at and where we should focus going into the future.

[1:20:39] If we are looking at the fiscal 27 budget, so the budget that we're currently in, we did submit a few of the base requests.

[1:20:49] We submitted a request to increase the support at the East and West Parks and England Village.

[1:20:55] That was approved, but we also had a couple of the base requests that were not approved.

[1:21:00] We were looking to add an additional staff support for the South Valley's regional park to accommodate the expansion of the park and the two additional softball fields that are about to be built.

[1:21:14] And then we were looking to add additional funding for the fuel reduction work that Joanne spoke about earlier.

[1:21:22] And those were not approved this year, but we will try again.

[1:21:26] In talking about data, again, here are some key performance indicators in metrics in looking at parks.

[1:21:33] Our regional park attendance has grown nearly five times faster than the population has since 2016.

[1:21:40] We've increased about 66% to compare to about 14% population growth, which is significant.

[1:21:46] You know, it says a lot of things people who are moving here are people who enjoy parks, which is wonderful.

[1:21:50] But we have to keep up with that usage.

[1:21:54] Some of our places are, are part of being loved to death.

[1:21:58] So we have to identify where that's happening in,

[1:22:02] shift resources in order to address that.

[1:22:06] As a reminder, service level funding equates to about $21 per

[1:22:09] Washow County resident per year.

[1:22:12] So I took my family a four to the movies the other day

[1:22:16] and spent about $100.

[1:22:17] So for $21 a year, you get to enjoy our beautiful parks all year long.

[1:22:24] Our operational budget still remains about 65% of pre-resession levels, and we have this

[1:22:31] citation authority, which was launched in July of 25, and it schools to help protect and maintain

[1:22:39] that park infrastructure.

[1:22:41] With limited resources, we need to make sure that we're protecting what we do have as much as

[1:22:45] possible and that's been a helpful tool in that tool about.

[1:22:53] More data, so how are we measuring our success?

[1:22:56] That's hard to do sometimes in parts when we're so service oriented.

[1:23:00] We're looking at those workload indicators, you know,

[1:23:03] these are the things that we're taking into consideration when we're deciding

[1:23:05] where to place our resources and then looking at key performance indicators,

[1:23:12] not necessarily as a level of success, but as a snapshot of where we are.

[1:23:16] So, you know, we're looking at documented vandalism and safety issues, we're looking at playground inspections and making sure that we're doing our due diligence to make sure that what we're providing to people is safe and open.

[1:23:31] We will be developing a customer satisfaction score for our reservations group and figuring out how we can do a better job serving the community, volunteer hours are incredibly important to what we provide.

[1:23:46] And indicating how many projects we can get done with additional volunteer hours helps us kind of figure out where to shift our resources otherwise.

[1:23:56] We're looking at rehab and how we're handling the noxious weed treatment.

[1:24:01] We're looking at our park plans and making sure that we're bringing everything up to date.

[1:24:07] Because some of them are pretty old in our community has certainly changed.

[1:24:11] And we're looking at attendance to a lot of our programs.

[1:24:13] Are we offering programs that our community wants and needs?

[1:24:18] And we can do that by checking to make sure the people are attending them.

[1:24:23] So those are all works and progress.

[1:24:26] In addition, we've got some focused goals for 27.

[1:24:30] We're looking at an irrigation asset condition assessment.

[1:24:33] Irrigation is very expensive and we have some very significantly aging infrastructure

[1:24:38] sure that we want to make sure that we know where are the critical failure points and where

[1:24:44] do we need to shift resources if possible? We're currently in the middle of an amenity

[1:24:49] asset condition so every park bench, every picnic table, every drinking fountain, and every

[1:24:55] park that we have is being assessed and given a condition grade so we can focus that.

[1:25:00] Infrastructure Preservation Money and any capital projects focus on what needs to happen as opposed what we think would be pretty or, you know, has less of a critical failure issue.

[1:25:14] We're looking to update our fee schedule. We haven't done so in a few years and we want to make sure that we want to maintain accessibility to the community but also make sure that we're being responsible in our use of taxpayer dollars.

[1:25:30] and charging fair amounts for what we offer.

[1:25:35] We want to develop clear service levels,

[1:25:38] so that we're all working from the same playbook.

[1:25:40] We're working on bringing on our seasonals

[1:25:43] with a standard operating procedure.

[1:25:47] That everyone has the same experience

[1:25:48] when they come into doesn't matter which park you're in

[1:25:51] or which employee you are interacting with.

[1:25:54] It should be the same experience,

[1:25:56] so we'll be working on that.

[1:25:58] working on our trail maintenance plan and our regional trail plan, maintenance condition assessments and then also cleaning up just, you know, our administrative shared drive and needs and love.

[1:26:10] So it's not as exciting, but it's really, really important. So those are the things that we're going to be focusing on for 27 or fiscal year 27.

[1:26:20] And then earlier I talked a little bit about what our digital donation page looks like.

[1:26:25] We have QR codes at all of our programs where people can come to this landing page.

[1:26:32] It's also on our website, where if people want to make donations to the parks, they can do so.

[1:26:39] They can also select from a drop down where they can restrict their money to specific parks that they love or specific projects or just a general trust us to make the best decision we can with the donations that come in.

[1:26:52] So that's what that page looks like.

[1:26:57] And then that's the end of my presentation.

[1:26:59] I would like to thank you for being on this board

[1:27:03] and acting as our ambassadors, not only in your advisory

[1:27:07] role to the Board of County Commissioners,

[1:27:09] but in the community, it's really important for people

[1:27:13] to know what we're actually working with

[1:27:14] and that we can't be all things to all people,

[1:27:16] but we certainly try.

[1:27:18] So with that, I'm happy to try and answer any questions

[1:27:20] that you have.

[1:27:21] Superintendent DRC, that was excellent diving into some complex and difficult areas in budgeting and you did a great job.

[1:27:33] I will open it up. It just seems like we're basically in a holding pattern and we'll have to just deal with that for the time being.

[1:27:47] But I will open it up at any questions.

[1:27:54] Commissioner Flingas, I do have a question.

[1:27:57] This is a wonderful presentation.

[1:27:59] Thank you so much.

[1:28:01] I do have a question.

[1:28:02] I'm just super curious.

[1:28:03] I know you talked about the revenue sources from parks.

[1:28:07] Does it streamline directly into the parks budget?

[1:28:10] So if for whatever reason, you had a really great year.

[1:28:14] Is that like funding pumping up your budget?

[1:28:16] Is it going into the general fund?

[1:28:17] It goes into the general fund.

[1:28:19] Aside from those like the museum, that money goes back into the museum.

[1:28:23] but those special funds, but general revenue goes into the general fund.

[1:28:29] Thank you, of course.

[1:28:36] Commissioner Garcia for the record. I had a question in terms of the different amenities

[1:28:39] that we have. I imagine things like pools and splash pads and certain type of facilities

[1:28:45] are more expensive and we lose a lot more money on those. Can you kind of paint the picture for

[1:28:50] me on what we love to have, but it's difficult to maintain or really expensive to get running

[1:28:57] operationally? Absolutely, so aquatics are absolutely the most expensive.

[1:29:02] And then indeed that we offer, when you look at chemical prices alone they have skyrocketed in the last five years significantly.

[1:29:10] So operations of aquatics on the like logistic side as well like staffing,

[1:29:17] because there are such strict standards for what we offer to the public in that capacity.

[1:29:21] it's a very expensive operation. So we would love to have more aquatic

[1:29:25] facilities in more areas of town. We hear that regularly from the community

[1:29:30] about it being a want-in-eed, but they are incredibly expensive, especially if you

[1:29:36] have, like an indoor facility that runs your round, we would have to, it would not

[1:29:44] be accessible if we raised fees to the point where it would even break even. But we

[1:29:49] recognize how important it is for children to learn to swim and to have that ability to

[1:29:56] recreate in that capacity in the summers. So we are committed.

[1:30:00] And excited to have them and do the very best job that we can with the resources that we have for those.

[1:30:09] Any further questions?

[1:30:13] Hearing none? What's again, thank you, Superintendent de Mercy. That was getting through an awful lot of information, and we just simply have to deal with what we have to deal with.

[1:30:25] And with that, three o'clock, the chair calls for a 10 minute recess. We are in recess.

[1:40:17] The time is now 310, and the Washington County Open Space and Regional Parks Commission

[1:40:25] Board is now back in session.

[1:40:29] Moving on to item 14, park reports.

[1:40:44] The reports have been attached to the agenda, but I just want to get a couple of upcoming

[1:40:50] highlights.

[1:40:52] And then I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

[1:40:54] The Lazy Five Master Plan Public Input Phase is still underway.

[1:40:58] We've collected data at events at the Lazy Five Music Series and at a public workshop

[1:41:03] in addition to a few stakeholder interviews.

[1:41:06] The survey was intended to close this week, but has been extended by a few days and is still available on our website.

[1:41:12] So I would encourage anyone who's interested in what the future of lazy five regional park could look like to participate.

[1:41:19] There are a few different options.

[1:41:20] There's a survey, there's some interactive activities, and it's a great way to kind of let us know what you'd like to see in that park.

[1:41:29] Art Town has been successfully bringing very popular shows to both Hawkins, amphitheater and

[1:41:33] Rensha San Rafael Regional Park, all of July, July 31st is the closing night at Rancho

[1:41:38] and there are a couple additional events at Bartley Ranch before the end of the month.

[1:41:43] So I would encourage you to get out there and enjoy Art Town this year before it's over.

[1:41:47] We're almost in August and then just summer programming is still going strong throughout

[1:41:52] all of our parks. I'd encourage everyone to check out our website which is

[1:41:56] Washington County dot goods, facts, dash parks for all our programming options and there is

[1:42:02] something for everyone out there right now, so I'd encourage you to get out there and enjoy.

[1:42:07] And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

[1:42:11] Thank you, Superintendent, DRC. Do we have any

[1:42:14] questions from the board?

[1:42:19] Hearing none, that's it. Thank you.

[1:42:27] And moving on to item 15, the director's report,

[1:42:32] Director Crump.

[1:42:36] Thank you for the right-grade air crump with Wash County's Community Services Department.

[1:42:40] So just a few highlights from the Board of County Commission meeting, some actions

[1:42:44] they took in June.

[1:42:48] We were, are we awarded the bid for the Canada Paratrope and Space Trial Head Site Improvement

[1:42:53] Projects?

[1:42:54] This is pretty exciting.

[1:42:56] This will basically create a formalized Trial Head for our Canada Paratrope, out on the

[1:43:04] on the river, and it will be access road,

[1:43:07] park in area, fencing, trail improvements,

[1:43:09] signage, kiosk, all those kind of standard things

[1:43:12] with the trailhead.

[1:43:14] Another thing, the board approved the license agreement

[1:43:17] with a mass gulf, that's our operator of Sierra Sage.

[1:43:21] This is unique in the sense that they actually

[1:43:24] approved the license agreement.

[1:43:26] It's in essence a 25 year license agreement,

[1:43:29] the initial terms 15 years, and then a 10 year agreement.

[1:43:33] and so that operator has agreed to make some what we're calling capital replenishment payments in the

[1:43:40] form of nearly $16,000 a month over the life of the contract and we'll be able to make about

[1:43:47] three million dollars worth of improvements. So I think it's a great example of a public

[1:43:51] private partnership that is working for that golf course. He's been the operator at service age for

[1:43:56] about 10 years and offers a great product. So we were excited to approve that and then we accepted

[1:44:02] our donation from the Wilbur May Foundation of $300,000 that's an annual donation for the support

[1:44:10] of the Wilbur May Museum and Arboretum. And then I apologize in your package. You do have an item

[1:44:17] in there about the award of bid for the next phase of the South Valley's expansion. That was actually

[1:44:23] pulled during that item, so it was not approved it will be coming back to the Board of Kindred

[1:44:27] Commissioners in August. We just have to work through some bid analysis so we had to

[1:44:32] pull that item, but it will be coming forward in August, and that's exciting, that will be the second phase of

[1:44:39] South valleys, so that was primarily funded through the Penitent Grant that we received, 3.5 million dollars, and will include two new softball fields,

[1:44:48] a concession building, a restroom building, and all the kind of associated infrastructure along with that.

[1:44:54] And then in July,

[1:44:57] we were

[1:45:00] Program grant for $100,000 for improvements to our nature trial at ranches and felt. So, what that? I'd be happy to answer your questions.

[1:45:08] Thank you, Director Crump. Well done. Do we have any questions from the Board?

[1:45:15] Yeah, Director Crump, this commissioner, on the South Valley's regional park. Does this next phase use up all the remaining properties?

[1:45:26] or is it just taking another chunk out of it?

[1:45:29] I don't remember what the, I remember seeing some diagrams,

[1:45:33] but I don't remember how it, yeah.

[1:45:35] So the master plan has, we have roughly,

[1:45:39] both 17 plus acres of undeveloped parkland at South Valley.

[1:45:44] So it's mostly kind of north of the developed park up to,

[1:45:49] out to wedge, back behind the ice rink and up to the mobile home park.

[1:45:54] So it's that section there. This next phase is, this would probably put us at maybe 30% completion of that entire area.

[1:46:04] There'll be additional flat fields, a dog park, you know, picnic areas, that type of thing.

[1:46:10] So this, basically in phase two is done.

[1:46:13] Most of the parking will be done. We are required now. We'll have an entrance and exit out to South Virginia.

[1:46:21] that this new use triggered that requirement. So we'll be doing that, which is great because it sets the stage for a future development.

[1:46:29] Yeah. Thank you. I just I couldn't remember what that would that plan look like.

[1:46:34] Right. Thank you.

[1:46:37] Thank you.

[1:46:37] Very good. Thank you.

[1:46:41] Moving on to item 16 commissioner requests for future agenda items.

[1:46:52] Mr. Hill, this is first staff, I think we got some comments about leshing rules at a

[1:47:00] park, and I was wondering, I just want the constituents to know that that was not

[1:47:05] agendas, so we couldn't actually discuss it today, and was curious if that will go to

[1:47:10] staff or if that does come to this board if you had any clarity on that, that'd be great.

[1:47:21] This is Chancellor the record.

[1:47:24] They can take a note, and if we want to agendas it to have further discussion, we can

[1:47:28] that but they'll take your comments and we can go from there.

[1:47:36] Very well. Thank you. Item 17.

[1:47:42] Public. Public. Commissioner Kurtler. How does our

[1:47:45] controller have his head up? Go ahead, Miles. Hey, thanks. This is not Commissioner

[1:47:50] Kinsler. I do want to agenda is that for next time and I would really like to hear

[1:47:56] staff's recommendation on what they think would be best for that issue, whether it be

[1:48:01] we need to park out is or you know, put in some kind of, you know, a fence area to

[1:48:08] roughly, dogs, yeah, whenever staff would recommend, I'd be interested to hear.

[1:48:21] Very well. Thank you. Any further comments from her agenda items, future agenda items from the

[1:48:29] ward?

[1:48:32] Carry none. Very well. Moving on to public comment. Do we have any public comment?

[1:48:37] We have Jim Stewart and chambers. Jim, we have three minutes. Please state your first

[1:48:41] last day for the record. Thank you.

[1:48:46] Hello, my name is Jim Stewart. Thank you all for being here. I just had a couple

[1:48:51] quick comments. I live a five minute walk away from Rancho Santa fell on their

[1:48:56] every single day. My dog goes to the dog park every day. It's non-negotiable. I ride my mountain

[1:49:01] bike through there to get the P-vine trails and take grandkids there. Anyway, just a lot of events

[1:49:05] And I just wanted to ask this board to really give a formal thank you and recognition to all the

[1:49:11] Rangers and the staff and everybody that works out.

[1:49:14] They just do an incredible job keeping that park up.

[1:49:17] And as I learned today, they're terribly understaffed.

[1:49:20] And I know people complain about everything, but I just wanted to say I have something more formal

[1:49:25] saying that people do notice what a good job they do and re-appreciate what they do.

[1:49:31] And a second comment was there was a time that I think it was the late 90s when

[1:49:35] they had, the equivalent of a neighborhood advisory board for Rancho San Rafael.

[1:49:40] And I was on that board, and then for some reason, it just stopped.

[1:49:44] We didn't get any notice of anything, and I've seen the master plan for the park, and

[1:49:49] it's very exciting and very ambitious, but I'm just thinking that maybe some type of neighborhood

[1:49:54] input from something similar would might help with the planning and the...

[1:50:00] Public perception of what's going to go on there. There's a lot of rumors that go around that here people

[1:50:04] talk about about exits of McCarran and all kinds of things that I don't think are really necessary

[1:50:10] part of the plan, but I think that might ease those concerns. And that's all I have. Thank you very much.

[1:50:16] Thank you. Do we have any more public comment? No further public comment chambers? No public comment on Zoom.

[1:50:24] Very well. The time is 320. The chair calls for adjournment. We are adjourned.

Open Space & Regional Parks - Jul 29th, 2026

Agenda

Transcript