Parks to bump up the SPF

Dan Kulin

Thursday, June 22, 2006 | 7:10 a.m.

It's a shady idea, but for Las Vegas City Hall, it's also a bright one.

Concerned that the city's parks do not offer sufficient protection from the sun, the City Council has decided to give dozens of parks a cool makeover, though unfortunately not in time for this year's heat waves.

On Wednesday, the council set aside $3 million for shade-giving canopies and new playground equipment, joining its neighbor to the north in an effort to make most of their parks a little less hot by 2007. North Las Vegas is planning to install canopies at 13 of the city's 30 parks before next spring.

Las Vegas' timeline remains uncertain, but the city has 49 parks with 78 playground areas slated to get the canopies.

Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese, who called for the canopies - a proposal adopted unanimously - had hundreds of reasons for supporting the concept.

Reese said years of working outside when he was growing up led to as many as 500 potential skin cancers that he has had removed as an adult. The city should do what it can to protect residents' health, he said.

"It's a very big deal, and the sun does it," Reese said. "I've been very fortunate. It's never been serious, though."

Councilmen Larry Brown and Lawrence Weekly said the city also should replace metal playground equipment that gets hot enough to burn.

On Wednesday, though, the hot midday sun could not keep 4-year-old Issaiah Abrago off his favorite slides and stairs at Lorenzi Park. The heat, however, did cut into his playtime.

"It's just a little bit too hot," he said. "The sun's too hot."

North Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Director Mike Henley said city leaders noticed its parks were not getting much daytime use during the summer.

"And having four young kids here and going to the park in the middle of the day, I said, 'Jeez, you could cook an egg on these things,' " Henley said.

New parks are required to have canopies for shade over the playgrounds, and now area cities are in the process of retrofitting older parks.

In Henderson, the city has been adding canopies at about three playgrounds a year for roughly the last five years.

Exactly how long it takes for Las Vegas to bring the shade to the rest of its parks could depend on whether the city can piggyback on a Clark County School District canopy project. This spring and summer, about 250 canopies are being installed at elementary and middle schools. The plan is to have three shaded play areas at every school by the end of August.

The canopies are seen as a common-sense and obvious way to make the playgrounds cooler - and safer - by reducing the risks of overheating and sunburns, which increase the likelihood of skin cancer.

Funding for the canopies comes from money that the city saved in building a softball complex at Alexander Road and Hualapai Way. When the bids came in dramatically lower than expected, the city suddenly had $8 million to spend, half of which will be set aside for the renovation of the old downtown post office, proposed to be turned into a mob museum.

The rest of the money will go toward parks, with $3 million earmarked for heat-battling upgrades.