Columnist Susan Snyder: Pueblo Park presents messy issues

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 8:24 a.m.

Teresa Ackman strolled into Summerlin's Pueblo Park with her black Labrador retriever Lily at her side.

The sky was blue, the sun brilliant and the air snapped with the cold of desert winter. Ackman's been making this daily trek for three years. But lately, something is amiss.

Or rather, a mess.

"It used to be beautiful. Now it's just dead," Ackman said. "It seems like such a waste of money."

When it opened in 1993, Pueblo Park set a new standard for city parks. It's a meandering, linear landscape built around an arroyo that carries floodwater a couple of times a year. A trail popular with walkers, runners and slower bicyclists winds among the mesquite trees and desert almond shrubs.

There are workout stations, picnic pavilions and visits from cottontail rabbits and an occasional coyote. But the place has seen better days.

Many plants lay dead and decaying. Sprinkler heads poke from areas barren of vegetation. Mesquite trees are brown and scraggly for lack of care. They stand in stark contrast to those maintained by Summerlin in a mini-park 50 yards away, which are full and green, even in January.

"Coming in from the area maintained by Summerlin is pretty dramatic," Sonoma Homeowners Association President Tony Fortwengler said. "It's gone. It's all dead."

Fortwengler says he and his neighbors paid an extra $10,000 when they bought their homes to cover the park's development costs.

The park was turned over to the city of Las Vegas for maintenance under an ordinance that allows developers of master-planned communities to build parks on their own in lieu of paying fees that are used to build parks. The parks are then turned over to the city.

It allows the city to increase its per capita park acreage without the capital outlay. In this case, it also gave all residents a chance to enjoy a type of urban park experience the city probably couldn't afford to build.

Problem is, the city can't afford to maintain such a landscape either.

Fortwengler and other residents would like Summerlin to take back Pueblo Park for restoration and maintenance. The homeowners association president says he has received dozens of calls about the ongoing decay.

"I could hold a cheese party to go with the whining," Fortwengler said. "I've tried to work within the system for the past year, and it's not working."

It's working, but maybe not as fast as some would hope, Las Vegas City Councilman Larry Brown said.

"The neighborhood residents have been on-point with their requests," Brown said. "It's not as well-maintained as when the park was built. No one argues with that. We just have to decide to what standard we are going to maintain that area."

Pueblo Park has uneven borders and terrain, and its vegetation requires more than a standard mow and clip, Deputy City Manager Steve Houchens said.

"It takes quite a bit of maintenance," Houchens said. "We have been negotiating with Howard Hughes Properties for at least a year. We're looking at what's a reasonable expectation for the city to maintain and is there some level above that that Howard Hughes would be willing to augment.

"We're trying to come to a happy resolution for all of us," he said.