Parks & Rec recommends funding

A $181,000 recommendation for three small Question 18 project outlays was included Tuesday in action by Carson City’s Parks and Recreation Commission.

The trio goes on to the Board of Supervisors for a final determination later.

A $106,000 infusion is to help finish the seat replacement project in the Community Center’s Bob Boldrick Theater. It was the largest amount earmarked from Quality of Life Question 18 funds. Question 18 funding was authorized by Carson City voters during the 1990s. Financing for the trio was part of more than $6 million, but the rest is already committed for previously authorized projects.

More than $75,000 was earmarked to match with a grant to do Americans with Disabilities Act upgrades at Centennial Park and $10,000 would go as seed money for a disc golf course either on property near Flint Drive east of town or, should the opportunity arise, at the Empire Ranch Golf Course complex.

Disc golf was discussed by the commission as a possibility at Empire Ranch if city government buys the regular golf course land because the private owner took it into bankruptcy. Commission members were told the purchase might prove necessary because city wastewater effluent is distributed there. They were told the city can’t afford to lose that site should someone else buy the land and decline the effluent.

Commissioners also voted to recommend general fund capital improvement spending projects totaling more than $1.8 million, most of it for deferred maintenance or safety/security projects, but learned the recommendation may prove futile yet again next fiscal year.

Roger Moellendorf, Parks and Recreation Department director, said city Finance Director Nick Providenti again expects no capital improvement funding will be available.

That prompted some discussion of whether and when the commission may wind up discussing cutbacks because of lack of maintenance financing, which Commissioner Brett Long branded a downer.

“That’s kind of depressing,” he said.

Long earlier had been selected by fellow commission members to serve as 2014 vice chairman after Sean Lehmann was re-elected chairman of the advisory panel.