Parks & Rec Watch · Subject
Trails and connectivity
Trails, bike routes, wayfinding, and getting between places without a car.
88 items across 37 meetings, 2020 to 2026 · 58 left open · 1 voted on · 25 discussed · 4 raised by the public
Every meeting that touched it
Four members met with no public participation and no vote on Young Park. Staff proposed limiting the August 20 regular meeting to the chair election and holding the promised Young Park work session immediately afterward, with the decision left on September 17. The board also learned the city's park maps are frozen pending web-accessibility rules.
A three-member board heard nearly two hours on a multi-million-dollar master plan for Young Park, then tabled the decision to September. The park sits in District 3, which has no board member.
The board amended its own agenda to strike the Young Park item before taking it up, then deferred board elections to May because too few members were present. Three of seven seats were filled; Districts 1 and 3 are vacant.
Staff asked the board to recommend a name for a trail system running through NMSU and along the Las Cruces Lateral toward the Village of Tortugas. The board postponed the recommendation to March 19 and asked for more names, maps, and the MPO's trail alignments. Staff also briefed the board on the new 0.325% municipal gross receipts tax and asked it to come to March prepared to recommend spending priorities.
With no action items on the agenda, the board heard fall and winter athletics numbers from Meerscheidt and a staff walk-through of ten capital projects, from Apodaca Park's aquatic playground to a three-acre park proposed on the west side of Villa Mora Dam. Public comment concerned missing lights at the Pioneer Women's Park gazebo.
- Young Park's engagement numbers land: 54 surveys, 1,100 data points, a splash pad on topOctober 16, 2025
Staff presented the draft community engagement report for the Young Park master plan, reporting 54 completed surveys, seven focus groups and over 1,100 data points, with a splash pad ranked first overall. Apodaca Park's draft construction design was described as 90% set, with shovels expected in the ground over winter. The agenda carried no action items.
A four-member board heard that the city's park impact fees were rewritten by square footage and took effect July 7, falling 22% for the smallest units and rising 42% for larger homes. Staff reported four playgrounds replaced in the last fiscal year and an East Mesa Pool that lost five weeks of the season to two pipe breaks. The director previewed a City Council work session on bonding against a voter-approved GRT increase totaling $192 million.
- Half the city's playgrounds are past their lifespan — and Council has not agreed to fund the fixApril 17, 2025
Director Steven Bingham told a four-member board the city has 64 playgrounds, 32 of them 20 years or older against a typical life expectancy of 18 to 22 years, and that the recommendation is to replace five per year rather than bond for all 32 at once. Three of this year's five are being installed at East Mesa, Pioneer and Vlachakis; Apodaca and Young Park are in design. City Council has yet to agree to fund and continue that replacement.
Six of seven board members met for a meeting with no action items and no public participation. Director Steven Bingham reported that a light pole at Maag Park that had been scanned and deemed safe fell, which he said brought into question the credibility of any and all of the poles that were deemed safe; the city used emergency purchase powers and closed Ron Galla Park and Apodaca Softball.
Six of seven board members met at City Hall and approved a design concept for a new neighborhood park on the old Villa Mora check-dam site. Staff reported the dog park rules had finished a two-year review, and a member of the public asked the board to raise the pickleball attendance cap at Meerscheidt from 44 to about 50.
Six of seven members endorsed the parks section of Realize Las Cruces, the first update to the City's development code since 2001. It would require developers to build a neighborhood park at their own cost with no reimbursement — a mechanism Las Cruces has never used — and, unlike impact fees, it can raise the level of service rather than just hold it.
Staff brought the board a rewritten set of dog park rules, prompted by what the record calls a lot of dog attacks at Hermosa Park, and said that if 70% or more of the community is against them Parks and Rec would return to the drawing board. The board took no action items, and no one spoke at public participation.
- "The response was not helpful" — a neighborhood asks what the Pioneer Women's Park gazebo costsMay 16, 2024
George Pearson, president of the Alameda Depot Neighborhood Association, told the board his association e-mailed city staff for the status of the gazebo project in Pioneer Women's Park and got an answer only after their meeting, with no specifics beyond construction starting in a month or two. He asked for the budget, the bidding schedule and estimated construction dates. No action items were on the agenda, and neither staff nor board members made any comments at the end.
Director Steven Bingham laid out a budget request built on four priorities, including bringing back park rangers as Police Aides to monitor the skate park and higher-crime areas. Staff also presented the near-final Grindline design for the new skate park at the East Mesa Sports Complex and a ten-year wayfinding signage plan that will do ten parks at a time.
- Four months without an activity pool, and 20-30 parks without namesFebruary 15, 2024
The board heard that the Regional Aquatic Center's activity pool had been down since October 8 waiting on a custom-made heat exchange coil that arrived the day before the meeting. Staff also opened a multi-month effort to give official names to parks that have none, most of them in District 5.
- 3,000 kids, four fields, and fifteen years without a new soccer complexSeptember 21, 2023
C. W. Ward of the Las Cruces Youth Soccer Association told the board the league has roughly 3,000 kids and 428 coaches on four fields, has lost fields since a 2012 swap with the school district, and was removed from the joint use agreement around 2014. Board Member Coppedge said he is interested in a committee to further address inequities with youth soccer, and it will be placed on another agenda. Staff also returned with the trail education plan requested in August and reported four locations where trail signage has been removed, but not by staff.
Vice-Chair Engle reported a dirt motorcycle riding from Jason Jiron Park up the berm and onto trails that are supposed to be non-motorized. Staff listed signage, volunteers, barriers and education as the available approaches and said there are no significant funds for enforcement, that the wayfinding plan that would supply the rule signage has no funding to implement, and that bollards do not stop motorcycles. Staff agreed to bring an education plan to next month's meeting.
The board heard a near-final skate park design funded by an $845,000 state appropriation and a completed park and trail wayfinding plan whose grant is nearly spent, with no funding identified for the system it designs. Staff also walked the 2018 and 2022 GO bond programs, including a $6.9 million East Mesa sports complex continuation.
The board approved the 2023-2024 Fees and Charges and Facility Use Policy "with language added regarding bathroom use and field rental process" — language that did not yet exist when the vote was taken. A motion to table the item to May died, and the reason given on the record was that the policy is already in the queue for City Council in May. Public Participation: "There was none."
Two members of the public pressed the board on the Rinconada dog park, built but padlocked because it cannot be accepted separately from the Animal Services Center. Staff walked through an FY24 budget request that includes three new positions and over $750,000 in vehicles and equipment, and a board member asked why new facilities keep coming online without a maintenance component. The parks deputy director answered with the count: 50 full-time staff for roughly 148 park areas, 60 playgrounds, 40 miles of trails and 33 ballfields.
- The recording failed, so the minutes were written from memory — and a commenter asked for verbatim minutesFebruary 16, 2023
The board's own record opens with a note that the transcriptionist's file of the meeting did not process, so the minutes were summarized from memory and the times approximated. In the same meeting Gregory Shervanick recommended that meeting minutes be verbatim. Six discussion items — trails, the hiking program, the outreach survey, the 50-meter pool, skate park renovations and Apodaca Park — are each recorded in a single paragraph.
Staff reported that a 30-year-old light pole delaminated and fell during a softball tournament at Harty Ballfields, missing an umpire and closing the facility pending testing of the remaining 17 poles. The board voted to recommend "The Big Enchilada" as the name of the city's new disc golf course and cancelled its December meeting. Staff outlined a proposed tree ordinance and the roughly $7 million Parks received from the 2022 GO Bond.
- New pool, new prices, and the end of Frenger — the board sets rates for a 50-meter pool that will not pay for itselfSeptember 15, 2022
The board approved fees and operating hours for the Natatorium, the city's new 50-meter pool opening early January 2023, and accepted staff's recommendation to close Frenger pool when it does. Staff presented El Paso's numbers as the benchmark: $70,000 in revenue against operations over a million. The naming of a new disc golf course was tabled to October.
- The board kills the Veterans Park renaming on purpose — tabled indefinitely so no precedent attachesAugust 16, 2022
The Veterans Advisory Board's vice-chair asked for one more delay, then said the group is not so much seeking a name change as a change in the park's usage. The board tabled the item indefinitely, with a member stating on the record that a vote would set a precedent against any future renaming. Staff separately disclosed that the Assistant City Manager had stopped permitting Veterans Memorial Park as of August 12.
- Veterans want a designation, not a playground — and the director tables the name change to go ask them whyJuly 21, 2022
The board tabled the renaming of Veterans Memorial Park to August after the Parks & Recreation director said she had not been part of the earlier conversations and wanted to put questions to the Veterans Advisory Board first. The Veterans Advisory Board's vice-chair told the board the group wants a special-use designation rather than a name change. Three of seven seats were filled.
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.
A former board member told the board that disabled veterans cannot use the Apodaca pickleball courts because there is no restroom and an 8.1% grade, that he would file a discrimination complaint the following week, and that the city wastes roughly a third of its GO Bond money by issuing RFPs instead of bidding work. The board then approved a $8,000 crosswalk-art project whose preparations had already begun and whose press release had already gone out.
- "It sounds like this meeting is in violation" — a board re-elects its chair twice and questions its own legalityJuly 15, 2021
The board elected Cassie McClure chair, recorded the motion as carried unanimously, then recorded that the same motion had died for lack of a second and voted it again. Staff reported the Young Park pond lost more fish on June 28 and that replacement aerators arrived the day of the meeting, costing about $6,600. A board member said the meeting itself appeared to be in violation of the in-person requirement that returned when the state's emergency orders ceased on July 1.
- "It should be called The Nevada Chicane Corridor" — a project closeout, failed pond aerators, and elections postponedJune 17, 2021
Public Works Director David Sedillo presented the closing of the Nevada Avenue Cool Corridor and was told by a member of the public that the project increases heat and should not carry the name. Staff reported that the Young Park pond aerators were removed in May as irreparable and a replacement system is on order. The board tabled its Chair and Vice Chair elections to July, saying it wanted a full complement first.
- The board un-approves its own minutes, then hears Young Park is losing water and a pavilionApril 15, 2021
Held via Zoom webinar. The board moved to retract its previously approved February 18 minutes for corrections, corrected them, and approved them again. A member of the public objected that Young Park's pond is being refilled twice a week with approximately 27,000 gallons and that the park's community pavilion was demolished and is being replaced with a smaller structure. Staff attributed the pond incident to staff error and said Public Works would answer the pavilion questions at the next meeting.
Held via Zoom webinar. A resident objected that a City Council resolution to buy land and build a park in District 5 bypassed the board's normal process, and the board spent most of the meeting on what that precedent would cost. Staff said park impact fees are the only backup funding source and cannot be used for maintenance at all. No action items were on the agenda.
- A resident asks where $2.2 million went, and the board gets the whole budget — an $18 million department with closed facilitiesNovember 19, 2020
Meeting by Zoom with all Parks & Recreation facilities closed under the Public Health Order, the board heard a resident question the accounting on the Nevada Cool Corridor and got the Public Works director's answer on the record. Staff then walked the board through the entire FY21 budget — $11 million in general fund, a little over $18 million in total. The board approved two youth-painted murals and cancelled its own December meeting.
- Trails routed onto surface streets, forwarded to Council over the cyclists' objectionOctober 15, 2020
The board voted unanimously to send the $2.7 million GO bond trails presentation to City Council, after cyclists, a pedestrian advocate, a Safe Routes to School coordinator and an adjacent property owner all objected to routing the Armijo Lateral trail onto McClure Road and other surface streets. The board then tabled all three discussion items to November 19 on a 4-1 vote.
This is the city's ten-page filing of the August 20, 2020 board meeting — the minutes with no attachments. It records that the Chair read all emails submitted about the pickle ball and tennis scheduling change, that the board took no action on the policy, and that the Director committed to answering every writer within 48 hours. The emails themselves are in the other filing of the same meeting.
- Two dozen players write in against the 45-minute court rule — and the board takes no actionAugust 20, 2020
The board met on Zoom with no action items on its agenda while a court reservation policy taking effect four days later drew about two dozen emailed public comments, printed in full across pages 11 to 49 of this document. The Chair read the emails aloud; the board took no vote on the policy, and the Director committed to answering every writer individually within 48 hours.
Meeting by Zoom, the board elected Cassie McClure chair and Stan Engle vice-chair, then approved the Unidad Park playground rehabilitation and splash pad to go forward to City Council. Its first act of the night was to table the FY21 budget presentation to August 20. Staff said the splash pad will discharge to the sewer rather than recirculate, with conversion planned for the future, and could not say what it costs to run.
A four-member board accepted the final concept design for the new community pool, with ASA Architects reporting that three of the five comments from the August 2019 public input meetings fit inside the project budget and two did not. The board also approved a revised fees and facility-use policy and a Youth Board logo, and tabled its own work session and meeting-location questions to February 20.