Residents give county a lesson in local history

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001 | 9:29 a.m.

Residents who live near Maslow Park in southeast Las Vegas apparently have more institutional knowledge than employees at the Clark County Parks and Recreation Department.

Clark County recently received a handful of complaints after Commissioner Dario Herrera proposed changing the name of the park from Maslow to Hector Perez Park in memory of the 9-year-old boy who was shot and killed on the playground last month.

Herrera said he was told by county parks officials that Maslow was not a key historic figure in town. Residents disagreed.

The park will remain Maslow, named for Mike Maslow, the developer of the surrounding neighborhood of Desert Hills.

Because of the neighborhood's opposition to changing the name of the park, Herrera said he will propose naming the playground where Perez was shot after the boy.

Doug Bradford, manager of resource development at the Parks and Recreation division, said his department received several phone calls after the Sun reported on the proposed name change.

"Neighbors were concerned because Maslow has been the name of the park for 40 years," Bradford said. "It does have a significance to the community because he built that area."

Maslow was president of Valley Development Corporation and Maslow Construction, which built subdivisions near Nellis Boulevard and Harmon Avenue.

Bradford said when Parks and Recreation Department employees searched for historic significance regarding the Maslow name, they found no records. The park was deeded to the county in 1962, two years before the Parks and Recreation division was created.

"We didn't know what significance it had until community members contacted us," Bradford said.

The county recently invested $785,000 in replacing equipment and refurbishing the 9-acre park on Lana Drive.

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