The Veterans Advisory Board asked this board to recommend that Veterans Memorial Park be designated a special use park and renamed "Veterans Memorial." Board members learned during the discussion that the adopted master plan already removes the playground, and tabled the item to July 21, asking to see the master plan and the LCPD vandalism reports first. Staff then presented a $28,040,752 FY23 budget.
Kept at length on purpose. Every point raised is listed, in the order the minutes record it.
There was none.
Community Development Director Larry Nichols recognized Veterans Advisory Board members Rod Gajewski, Hubert Gay and James Turner, and said they are bringing a special use designation and naming request for Veterans Memorial Park. He said City Manager Policy 3.3, handed to the board, requires a certain number of items and those requirements have been fulfilled — the proposed name, the reason for the proposal, and accomplishment of two goals for protecting and providing veterans remembrance.
Gajewski said the park is a memorial. He described damage in 2018 when a running group got a permit and ran through and marked up the grass, damage to the helicopter, and plants Granillo had put next to the Purple Heart Monument being stolen within two weeks. Gajewski is a Purple Heart veteran.
He called it a preeminent park with a ladies monument better than the one in Washington, D.C. — which he has visited — and better than the one in Albuquerque, and said the park is a memorial to those who served and those who have fallen.
The park was dedicated in May 1999 by city ordinance. The city's Park Master Plan, adopted in 2019, has a Special Use Park category at Chapter 2, Section 1. The park was constructed by the Las Cruces Home Builders Association. It is a 9-plus acre memorial park with a Garrison Flag Plaza, the Monument Walkway, and 11 veteran monuments; a listing was shown. Requests to add a monument go before the Veterans Advisory Board, which looks at viability and location and votes, trying to keep monuments appropriate to what is representative of the community.
Gajewski said this is about giving the park its proper memorialization, not limiting the neighborhood. Groups hold quinceañeras and put tape on the pergolas; city staff removing the tape peels the paint. The Purple Heart painted the pergolas a couple of years ago and they currently look unpainted because they have been damaged. There is football and soccer in both grass areas, and parking is done haphazardly.
The park is currently 9-plus acres; 5.2 acres next to it were recently acquired, planned for parking upon acquisition of funding — 161 parking spaces. Events there include The Run for the Wall, Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans, and a Memorial Day candle lighting ceremony honoring the 204 southern New Mexicans who have fallen in combat. At large events people park on the street and tend to speed.
The naming criteria are City Manager policy form 3, which has been completed, submittable by an individual or group; in this case a motion last month at the Veterans Advisory Board and a signed petition given to this board make that board the submitting group, along with a written statement of the requested modification, with reasons stated in the packet.
The review process: submit the form to this board for review; staff check for duplication or conflict with existing facility names; the City Manager determines whether the request will be considered by City Council; and City Council by a vote of four or more at a formal meeting grants or denies it.
Gajewski said "Veterans Memorial Park" does not emphasize the significance of a monument or a sacred setting of remembrance, and creates an understanding of mixed use — memorial versus recreation. Primary utilization is veterans events and functions: 23 garrison flag dates per year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Armed Forces Day, Run to the Wall, and Welcome Home Vietnam, done for 10 years now. Secondary utilization is citizen park activity — walking, relaxation, family-sized outdoor activities — which they are not trying to stop.
He said the master plan allows for parking lot expansion, additional restrooms, parking lot landscaping and lighting, and a potential veterans cemetery; the City Manager raised that Utah has done cemeteries, and the lower grass area has that potential. There is currently no veterans cemetery in Las Cruces and a veteran would have to go to Fort Bayard. Further out: monument walkway expansion and additional security cameras. The recently installed cameras and lighting have helped immensely.
Nichols said what is being requested is in the master plan adopted by City Council, and this would be a clarification for the citizenry that that park, along with some other special use parks, is available to them.
Gajewski shared pictures on his cell phone with the board; Nichols said they will get the pictures shared with the board, and Gajewski said the pictures have all been shared with the City Manager.
Gajewski said people are supposed to get a permit for taping on the pergola, and that doing so required ladders over 8 feet, so Parks and Rec staff are having trouble removing it.
Board Member Schuller asked for clarification on a regular park versus a special use park, and how Veterans is established with the parties and practices.
Granillo said the difference is that Veterans is basically a memorial — a destination park for people who want military-related functions. Young Park and Apodaca Park are heavily used but have no memorials; they are first come, first served, though major events require permits and insurance. At Veterans they do some of the same events, but as Gajewski said, banners and fliers go up on the pergola and his staff is not allowed to go higher than eight feet, based on discussions with the union and other departments — the Facilities Department has lifts and ladders to go higher.
Granillo said Veterans Park is a public park used just like Young and Apodaca; the difference is the memorials and the intended use. One issue is that at this time of year the athletic fields are being used for league play, not practice, and all the sanctioned fields are fenced and in use, so athletic groups look for open space anywhere — parks, the university, rented fields. There are daily practices at Veterans Park on the west-end field: soccer, baseball, rugby. Groups do not confine themselves to the lower area, moving onto the top turf area where the wall is, and some kids climb on the wall.
Granillo said it has been discussed that if the park changed its use there could be a veterans ambassador taking children through the park to explain what the memorials are for and who served when.
Gajewski said 13 organizations are represented by the Veterans Advisory Board, and if one of the groups is in the park they are well versed in what goes on and why things are there. He described Johnny's Cactus: John Risner planted a sprig of cactus in his front yard and told his sister they would transplant it when he got home, but he never came home alive; over 100 communities nationwide now have sprigs of that cactus.
Gajewski said athletes who come park head in and block all the spaces, disabled and otherwise, seeming not to care, and that they are trying to get a reverence to the park.
Schuller asked how monitoring would work under this proposal, since the Veterans Board seems to want to keep the park open to neighborhood communities for recreational use. Gajewski said additional signage, and that when the word gets out people will start to adhere, but agreed there will be a significant challenge.
Chair McClure said she had heard the same question from constituents — how respect gets shown when it is also a recreational space — and that her concern is that the change will not create an understanding of mixed use. She suggested an expansion upon the name rather than a shortening, such as "Veterans Memorial Park and Public Park," to make the delineation very clear, saying it would be hard to stave off Gajewski's concerns with a shortening of the name. She noted the board was not aware of the special use category and would need to consider it.
McClure asked whether there had been a public hearing. Gajewski said there had not been and it has not been a requirement, and that going before City Council would entail one. He said there are eighty-some-hundred veterans in Doña Ana County who will be in force to state their position, that the Civilian Based Outpatient Clinic on Del Rey has grown greatly and is already expanding, and that the veteran community is growing here. He said people ride bicycles across the front grass area, and there are small signs on the wall saying no roller skating that people ignore.
McClure said the master plan expansion will help the delineation — one side much more focused on the memorial, the five acres a bit more recreational or parking — and mentioned walking areas that will pull away some of the disturbances. She said there might be discussion about moving barbecues and similar into that other portion, though that is not determined until it is created, and suggested it might be a good faith effort to hold a public meeting before the name change to get input from people who use the space, noting family members might be aware of who is doing the graffiti.
McClure asked whether the damage is being reported to LCPD and whether those reports could be acquired for the record. Gajewski said they are and had been provided to the City Manager. He said prosecution for the damage to the helicopter was dropped, but the veterans saved the city money by going to the boneyard at White Sands Missile Range for parts — the helicopter would have cost $30,000 to fix, with donated labor from White Sands. The City Manager has the District Attorney's file on the helicopter damage, pictures of the 2018 grass damage, and the current taping issue. Gajewski said there is currently not enough signage, and it needs to be more prominent.
McClure said the board has been invested in Veterans Memorial Park, that they are looking to expand what they honor there, and that how to balance the respectful nature with what the veterans died for has been under consideration for a while — there is an educational opportunity to bring children there and talk about the history.
The playground was brought up. Gajewski said that in the master plan, it is out; there is an information building to be there and additional restrooms. He said it would be hard to explain to the citizens who use that playground, but it is a special use park.
On the War Dog memorial brought before the Veterans Advisory Board by Ms. Zahler: Gajewski said their monuments are appropriate to a significant number of veterans who participated in those items, that there are only four people in New Mexico who trained and did groundwork as War Dogs and only one is alive here in Las Cruces — and he does not want a War Dogs monument.
Gajewski said the last five monuments installed were raised by community efforts led by Richard Lewis, who recently passed, and his group. He said there are quite a number of specialties and they could overdo it, but they don't.
McClure asked what he would tell neighborhood residents who use the playground. Gajewski said the master plan states that would go away. He added that if you entered or left the service as a resident of Doña Ana County you present your DD214 to the wall committee and can be on the wall, and that Sgt. First Class Ray Rodriguez was the 204th resident killed, in Afghanistan.
Vice-Chair Engle asked about the open space on the west in the master plan. Gajewski said that would be cut out from practices and items like that, and the concept is that it could be a cemetery. He mentioned that on Mondays the trash cans at the park can be overflowing with trash around the areas.
Nichols said the park should be designated a special use park, where activities would be restricted to one or two uses, which differs from a general use park; once people have the idea of a memorial park in mind the usage becomes more to the purpose of the special use. He said the two goals before the board are a recommendation to the City Manager that the grounds be recognized for the purpose of veterans remembrance, and that the Veterans Advisory Board's duty and authority is to recommend facility improvement to the City Manager and City Council to maintain the facility — which he believes would go a long way to governing the different usage of the park by different people.
Schuller asked whether, if facility improvement shifts to the City Manager and City Council, that shifts responsibility away from Parks and Recreation maintaining the facility, and what comments have been made and what resources are available. Nichols said it is brought to this board for a recommendation to the City Manager, and does not mean the maintenance of the park would move.
Chair McClure said there needs to be clarity on that, as the language says "maintain the facility."
Granillo said that if it is going to be a special use facility going to veterans use only, then maintenance will have to be looked at, as Parks and Recreation would not be able to maintain it as it should be in that situation. He said he believes it would be best to treat it as a private area to be contracted, or maintenance turned over to others.
Granillo said the memorial walkway on the west side would be extended down west on the left-hand side of the field that is there now, and that there are utilities under the field that could be used to light and water the extension.
Gajewski said each of the 13 veterans organizations has a month in which they do limited park maintenance. Granillo said they have a good partnership with the veterans groups, but he feels it should be dedicated maintenance daily for the level the park requires and its use — it is currently on a system where staff see it once or twice a week only instead of daily, and they count on the veterans groups to let the city know when something is out of place.
It was asked whether the city maintains other cemeteries. There are cemeteries under city property but not under the Parks and Recreation maintenance schedule.
Vice-Chair Engle said he recognizes the deep significance of the location to the veterans, but the worry is the loss of open space for community members in the area, and he wants to be able to consider it more carefully.
Board Member Schuller said she would like to revisit the master plan for this park to be sure it is in line with removal of the playground equipment and with the long-term vision of the park. Her other concern is vandalism, and that the cameras have helped reduce it. She also wants to discuss additional signage in the short term.
Chair McClure said there should be consideration about expanding rather than truncating the name, especially if enforcement is needed that could be enabled by a clear delineation between a veterans memorial and a public park. She said truncating it will add to anybody's mind that it isn't a park, and with the parking lot expansion and car shows there will be similar problems; signage will help. Looking at the master plan again will help the board say which aspects are needed and have the veterans consider them as well before moving forward with a name change in the future.
After the vote to table, the minutes record: they would like to see the master plan, the LCPD reports of the vandalism, and what Parks and Recreation has done with the cameras and so on to ramp up enforcement in the area.
Management Analyst Joy Ann Lucero presented the Parks and Recreation budget by program, including special revenue funds, state, local and federal grants, legislative appropriations and donations, across 13 programs.
Program figures given: Office of the Director $5.1 million; Special Projects; Construction Maintenance; Keep Las Cruces Beautiful $164,000; Medians and Rights-of-Way; Parks, Sports Fields and Community Forestry $11,600,000; Health and Fitness; Community Recreation $1.5 million; Employee Wellness; Skills Development $579,000; Community Events $606,000; Out of School Time; and Youth Development and Diversion $395,000. Grand total: $28,040,752.
General fund only, by program: Special Projects $407,000; Medians and ROW $1.3 million; Health and Fitness $2.4 million; Employee Wellness $126,000; Community Events $604,000; Out of School Time $1.1 million. General fund total budget for FY23: $18,165,000.
On the annual opportunity to request budget above status quo: with the new 50-meter pool, four full-time positions and operating budget; with East Mesa Public Recreation Complex opening, eight full-time positions and operating budget; one park operations district manager; two park maintenance workers for the south and two for the north; one project manager; and a Parks and Recreation Deputy Director. The top five requests were approved, but the pool request of $749,000 and the East Mesa Complex request of $782,000 were lowered to $562,000 and $524,000. Total additional requests: $1.5 million.
Temp agency use: Out of School Time $7,000 for monitor positions as needed; Construction Maintenance $20,000 for one temp on daily duties; Community Forestry $35,000 for one full-time temp for tree planting and removal and community garden maintenance; Special Projects and Construction Maintenance share $62,000 for one temp assisting with CIP projects and public input meetings; Keep Las Cruces Beautiful $71,000 for two temps on graffiti removal; Medians and ROWs $118,000 for three full-time temps; Health and Fitness $148,000 for a certified pool operator and help with the new pool; Parks $459,000 covering 14 temps who work weekends; Sports Fields $468,000 for 14 temps to prep sports fields and help with nonathletic fields including the dog park, Butterfield shooting range, the archery range and the wetlands. Total temp agency budget: over $1.3 million.
General revenue collected from programs, classes, leagues and all charged activities: $829,000 pre-shutdown, dropping to about $45,000 during the shutdown, now back up to $450,000 — lower than the past due to the after-school program being free since December 2021, which before then brought in $225,000.
Compared with other departments for FY23: Police almost $30 million, Fire $21 million, and Parks second highest in the city at $28 million.
A partial CIP list was shown: skate park improvements, Chandler Tank Phase 1, BMX Track parking lot and ADA improvements, Tortugas trail, Doña Ana Move trail, new skate park plan and design, A. Fielder Memorial Safe Haven renovations, Burn Lake shelters and improvements, park and security lighting, Sonoma Ranch Mile 2, Women's Veterans Monument lighting repairs, and Abuelo Park playground equipment installation — all projects on that slide completed as of FY22.
Other projects not on the CIP: Lions handball wall painting, disc golf course design, Lions handball court surfacing repairs, 257 trees planted and 250 removed, two more benches being installed at Paz Ballfield and Young Park, a slab poured for a Veterans Monument awaiting the monument, an updated media room for teen programming, and the exterior of East Mesa Recreation Center painted.
FY22 community events, a partial list: Music in the Park, Movies in the Park, Family Game Nights, assistance with National Night Out, Pumpkin Palooza, the Candy Drop, Father/Daughter Dance, Mayor's Jazz Fest, Mother's Day Concert, Tree Lighting, Fourth of July, and the Fourth of July Electric Light Parade. Total events held or assisted with in FY22: 72.
FY22 reservations and registrations, including free programs: gymnastics; land and water fitness classes; 23,000 to the weight room; adult sports 148 teams enrolled; recreational sports over 4,000; open swim over 30,000; therapeutics over 10,000; park and trail reservations 725. Grand total: 119,334.
Full-time positions: 122 this year; with the newly approved 17 positions, FY23 starts with 139.
Comparison cities by population and budget, not accounting for population density: Las Cruces population around 102,000 with a $28 million budget; Yuma, Arizona 97,000 and $19 million; Allen, Texas 106,000 and $16 million; Boulder, Colorado 108,000 and $28 million. Las Cruces has a budget 40% more than Yuma, 69% more than Allen, and only a 1% difference from Boulder.
Vice-Chair Engle asked about the requests funded below what was asked and how that will affect things. Lucero said the pool and East Mesa requests were for a full year, but since they will not open until after December the approved numbers reflect half a year; the following fiscal year they will ask for enough for a full year.
Board Member Schuller asked why temps are used instead of hiring. Lucero said staff has discussed that with administration for several years: a full-time park maintenance worker including benefits was less than $5,000 more than a temp, would be a city employee, stay longer and receive benefits — but with the new administration they are geared more toward temp agencies.
Robert Nunez said temp services are used for the transition of hiring contract part-time staff, since it can take 6-10 weeks to get people hired, so the service fills gaps with vacancies. Granillo said they had part-time staff 8-9 years ago, but by state law part-time-only staff have to sit out 90 days so they don't receive benefits; losing those staff for 90 days restarts the hiring process, and he cannot have ballfields, trails and areas go without maintenance for 90 days. Temps are trained and have the same equipment, so they are a step ahead for becoming hired.
Chair McClure said that in comparing to other cities, Boulder seems to have a lot of focus on outdoor recreation too, and she wishes there were more consideration of how quality of life factors in — quality of life here versus Allen, Texas — suggesting population is not necessarily the end all.
Items 7.2 Gallagher Park Renovations Update and 7.3 Parks & Recreation Project Update, both from Landscape Architect Catherine Mathews, were removed at agenda approval and moved to the July 21, 2022 meeting. The minutes carry only the line "MOVED TO PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD MEETING OF JULY 21, 2022" under each.
Robert Nunez said out-of-school-time programs are in full swing, that it is a very short summer with four weeks until school returns, and that there are a lot of field trips, swimming and outdoor activities, with very active K-5 programs. Teen programs are doing a lot of partnerships with NMSU and Friends of the Organ Mountains, including rappelling last week, with positive stories about teenagers who have difficulty trusting adults getting involved with the contractor and city staff. Participation is up from the COVID year but not where it should be.
The Keep Las Cruces Beautiful final report is due July 5th, also showing an increase from the COVID year and slowly climbing back to regular numbers. Team Up to Clean Up is in District 5 this Saturday, on Thurman and Sonoma Ranch, plus Holman Road and Bataan Memorial West.
Board Member Schuller asked whether not charging for out-of-school programs was a one-time deal or permanent. Nunez said it was presented to City Council and approved as a transition through and out of COVID, looking for at least one fiscal year of providing services to families. Traditionally they charged $400 a semester for the after-school program and $200 a month for summer programs, and they are looking to do that beginning in the fall, presenting to Council sometime in the fall for further direction.
Franco Granillo said on RecTrac they are looking at getting registration online for the July 9th event, testing two different tasks. If they cannot get it online within their guidelines or restrictions, it will give Phil time to alter his setup for in-person registration so nobody is standing around.
Vice-Chair Engle said it is nice to see Parks and Rec up there in the budget, nice to be able to spend that kind of money on the community, and expressed appreciation for the department's hard work.
Chair McClure said it was interesting to see 72 events. She said she went to the Capital Improvements Advisory Committee meeting earlier and suggests an update on Apodaca — Frank Carril spoke to them as well and had issues in terms of the master plan and whatnot — and to get that story out there with use and trust, as it is a great story.