House work, a mural and signs are coming to local parks

The graffiti is gone from the Wungnema House and new sheetrock has been put up inside the long-vacant stone house at the east end of Mills Park.

Next comes the sidewalk and fencing.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors today will consider adding $27,608 to the $141,000 contract to renovate the 1950s Wungnema House.

The Carson City Parks and Recreation Commission on Tuesday recommended the outside work at the Wungnema House as well as having a mural painted at Ross Gold Park and installing interpretive signs along the Linear Park trail.

Wungnema House work started in June and the structure should be ready for public use late this year or early next year, said park planner Vern Krahn.

"We gutted the inside and new sheetrock was put up," Krahn said. "All the graffiti is off and the stone walls were repointed."

The offices for the Foundation for the Betterment of Parks and Recreation move into the upstairs rooms, and downstairs the Wungnema House will be rented for small meetings and traveling exhibits could be displayed there, Krahn said.

Work on the building was budgeted at $141,000, but the supervisors will be asked to add $4,694 to pay for unknown interior conditions discovered during recent work. The remaining $22,914 in the funding request would pay for sidewalks, fencing and concrete mow strips that would lay under the fencing to keep weeds from growing near the fence.

The Ross Gold Park and Linear Park projects both involve partnerships with the Parks and Recreation Department and the Brewery Arts Center.

The parks commission on Tuesday chose one of three designs for a mural that will go up on the south wall of the pump house at Ross Gold. The six students from the Carson City Mural 2000 Project class at the BAC will start preparatory work on the wall on Saturday.

The mural, designed by the 14- to 16-year-old students, will offer a view of Carson City and the Sierra in the perspective of a globe with an astronaut in space above the city and mountains, Krahn said.

The mural would be the second at a Carson City park. The mural at Mills Park proved to be so successful the parks commission wanted to put one up at another park.

The Parks Department enlisted the Brewery Arts Center, which assigned its eight-week mural class to design and paint the mural. The class consists of youths provided by Job Opportunities In Nevada.

The class, taught by Dianne Aguirre, visits the wall in the fifth week with a finished mural expected by Sept. 16, said Joe McCarthy, executive director at the BAC.

"We're looking at this as another example of partnership," McCarthy said.

At the same time, a BAC/parks partnership is planning for interpretive signs for a one-mile stretch of Linear Park near Fremont Elementary School.

The signs will be produced and installed next summer but it has not been decided how many signs or on precisely which stretch of Linear Park they will be placed, McCarthy said.

The BAC received a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the U.S. Forest Service to build an interpretive trail. The city already has the trail and the BAC will provide the signage.

The signs would deal with subjects such as mining, agriculture, Native Americans and environmental education, Krahn said.

The Brewery will hire an artist to design the sign along with a photographer to provide material for the signs and an interpretive specialist to write the text.

McCarthy intends to bring in children to help prepare and install the signs. The children could come from the Boys & Girls Club of Western Nevada, local schools or scouting programs.

If you go

What: Carson City supervisors

When: 8:30 a.m. today

Where: Sierra Room at the Carson City Community Center, 851 E. William St.