Mozinho here.

Member Nori.

Member Schaefer.

And Member Wiggins.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Next on the agenda, if there's other comments.

For a while.

I'd like to welcome the new member of the board or the commission.

Um, Mr.

Andrew Williams.

William.

Sorry.

No plural.

Well, yeah, plurals.

Thank you.

Um I passed this out because I needed to be refreshed on just what your powers and duties and open space advisory committee.

And I was surprised at some of the powers, and I would like very much for you all to take these very seriously because we're moving into a time when there's opportunity, perhaps uh, through BLM or other things as far as properties and corridors.

Brenda Hunt had uh put in for a position and she had mentioned corridors are very important.

And the more I read about the movements of the birds and their uh travels across the country, this state is very important.

This state is very important.

Now I know where my sister is, it's she has 96 different 95, excuse me, 95 different species that move through her property over her property during their migrations.

Carson City doesn't have that many, but it has quite a few.

And unless we set perimeters on lighting, which is very difficult for birds to navigate through, or have considerations for at least some areas that have resting spaces, water, and some at least foliage that they might be able to graze, or on the insects in those foliages.

We're gonna have a problem.

A lot of places put in cornfields for different species to come over, like ducks.

They set up a position so that they will come so they can hunt them, of course.

But that the thing is that they set aside land for that corn so that those geese or ducks come over, they have ample supply to carry them on in their migration.

Otherwise, I watched the chair children's am I out of time already?

No.

I guess it's going down to the seconds now.

Is that second?

I've never seen that before.

Well, that's rather distracting.

But the main thing is I watched a child's program 3:30 this morning, and it talked about the hazards of having uh additions or what you call improvements in open space.

Those open space improvements actually diminish the environment that it's intended to have people enjoy and animals to exist in.

And I would really like you to deal with that.

Also, the sky now has its own ecosystem coordination, just like the sea and land.

It is so full of things that you would just not want to know, right?

I just don't want to breathe.

But the deal is that we have to be very conscientious in this valley because we're not saving places between these new housings, and we haven't really taken migration into consideration of insects as well as birds.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, is that what it was?

I thought it was annoying earthquakes or something.

Moving past really drive underneath your desk.

So under public comment, I'm gonna introduce our newest member to the board or committee.

Sorry.

Blake, can I I thought it was Bill Anderson I read on there.

So my legal name's William.

Also it's uh, but everyone goes white from their middle of my library.

So I'd like you to spend a few minutes and say how excited you are, and so your family can see how great this is.

He brought his family.

That's a new requirement now.

Hi guys, I'm very excited.

Um, you know, I I spoke in my interview.

It's uh we're avid users of our open space, and it's very important to me and my like parenting methodology to like teach my children about like the world around them and protecting and like preserving the resources are are super important to us and to me.

Um as they've gotten older now, is a good time to get like back involved in the community, and this just seemed like real natural, natural place.

Um very excited, super eager to learn.

Uh I imagine there's gonna be a lot to absorb, and I'm uh I'm looking forward to it.

Great.

Well, tonight you couldn't have picked a better open space meeting to come to for education of what this is all about.

Staff spent a whole year putting all this stuff together.

So uh uh I'm glad you were able to do it through all of what was going on and scheduling, but it all worked out.

Yeah, it was close.

We just got back into town and made a word.

Uh good.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Welcome.

And away we go, huh?

Next is approval of the minutes.

Is there any changes or do I have a motion?

All the uh make the motion.

But I did notice my name was missing on the list of committee members.

I told you, and I attended that meeting.

I attended that meeting.

I want credit.

I know that.

That's a bummer that that happened.

So that's a mistake that I'm glad to.

With that, unless anyone else has any, I'll make a motion to approve the draft meeting minutes.

I have a motion to have a second.

I'll second Sam second.

Any more discussion?

Seeing none, call for the question.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Nays, and abstentions.

Abstention.

Mike will do an episode.

We didn't have a meeting last meeting.

Yeah, we didn't have a meeting last year.

We're approving the minutes, like this was a joint meeting.

Yeah.

It's okay.

Okay, meeting items.

5A for possible action discussion, possible action regarding election of chair and vice chair of open space committee.

And we do it every spring, but our spring is clean into fall.

I mean summer almost.

The meeting we had.

That and nobody knew where it came from.

That accordingly I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination for the committee for another term as your president.

So I announced that, but that was four months ago.

Now that was when President Linda James.

Yeah.

When he who took Kennedy's place, actually.

So the plan was not to be here as chair again, because I think it's very healthy to change leadership on the groups like this.

And if there's people willing to do that, um, I thought I had a vice chair.

That person left.

So it kind of reduced and makes me think about how it's going to work.

So I'm trying to keep it as smooth as possible.

So I always like to see people like Jay for Sam that's been on the committee for a long time to think about it because you've been on for a while and feel comfortable.

But I did talk to Mary, and she's willing to be vice chair.

So I was going to do vice chair first.

So the process is if there's somebody else that wants to be vice chair, or you want to nominate somebody for vice chair.

This is your chance to do that.

Before I need a nomination for Mary, I can't do it sitting.

I'll nominate Mary.

Okay, and I have a second.

I I stumble with this every time.

It's not easy to do that.

I think for the nominations, you can it's for the nominations, it's more or less up to you.

Um if you want a second, you can have it seconded.

If not, I think just one nomination is fine.

Um but for the actual vote to vote them in, you need to have a a a uh uh a motion and then a second for that part.

Yeah, that that's that I expect to do.

So now we're at the chairman.

So is it if anybody has an interest to carry that or would like to be a part of that?

Now's your chance to nominate somebody.

I I've done it before, so I can do it.

But if someone else wants the experience and do it, go for it.

I did you just nominate yourself?

I nominate him.

Him Jay.

Okay, we have willingness, which is good.

Who else are we missing?

Can we Mary?

So Mary's.

Yeah, Mary's, and that's the perfect time to nominate them because they're not here to defend themselves.

So but I do have an email that says she would be willing to do that.

So anybody else?

Speaker forever.

Hold your pace in this.

So we have a nomination for chair and a nomination for vice chair.

So the way it's written in here is an action item.

What were the words?

So did Jay nominate himself, or did Chuck do that?

No, I didn't.

Oh, okay.

I hear you.

He was up nominated he was doing this at first.

Yeah, I just think he said you know.

He made it more formal.

Sam, are you sure?

I came on at the same time.

I I remember that day.

We came on together.

Um there's no increase in salary whatsoever.

I know.

If I didn't have a five-month-year-old daughter, I I would love to have to contribute, but uh, I would have to bow out for this one.

Well we do have a babysitting service.

Yeah, that might convince me, yeah.

Not a diverse change.

Yeah, you said that at the beginning.

Well, that's that's fine to have that motion and two willing parties.

And so let's uh it says in here, I need to see the motion on your staff report.

Can somebody make the motion?

My motion.

Oh, well, here's the wording.

I move to electric wings for chair and Mary Bird or my chair.

We're open space advisory committee for the 2026 calendar year.

Do I have a second?

Second the motion.

Second Keith.

Any more discussion?

Hearing none, call for the question.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

None.

Yet another chance.

Congratulations.

You don't have to recluse yourself from that one.

So that means that you have the meeting, Jay.

What?

Step right up.

Do you want to take this one or you want me to I would I don't know how that works once you're elected chairs.

To have a substitute.

You can arrange it how you please among yourselves.

Gentlemen agreed.

Mark, if if you would like to uh Jay and Mark, if you if you would like Mark to finish the meeting, you're more than welcome to.

Uh Jay, if you would like to take over, you're also more than welcome to.

As a point of discussion, can the chair, you know, invite another member to conduct the meeting periodically, or does the chair have to conduct?

Well, you have a vice chair, so if you have advice, that would be right.

But yeah.

We could probably share that.

So if if you're really relinquishing, I'm 50 bucks an hour now, so I don't mind doing this meeting because it's a tough shot.

Come in and see also if you're running the leading.

I mean, I actually uh read everything, so I'm prepared to do it.

I hope so.

It's up to you.

Go ahead, Mark.

All right.

And one those seats and make results.

My last yeah.

Okay.

Now back to the agenda.

Okay.

Why do we do quick?

Okay, next on the agenda.

That went smoothly.

Thank you.

And I want to think in the comment here is that you know life you can go through sitting in the bleachers and saying all you want, but you guys came out of the bleachers and you're out doing stuff, and I think everybody I have a lot of respect for people who do that and come out and be a part of this process.

And it's really important that this happens, and you guys are willing to do that, and I think that's great.

And then taking leadership role, thank you, Jay.

Thank you, Mary.

To see this run smoothly because that's it's important.

I remember seeing the board of supervisors, the mayor giving a speech, and I think a third of the speech was about open space.

I mean, that's an exaggeration, but that's how important it is this community that for their annual statement.

It was a part of the program.

So thank you for that.

Then I'll move on to 5B discussionable discussion and possible action regarding the 2025 annual report of activities of the open space advisory committee to be presented to the supervisors.

When are you going to give to the supervisors?

Just curiosity.

Lindsay Boyer, Open Space Manager for the record.

Um, so as noted, the previous meeting was canceled due to uh snowstorm, and so we shuffled all of those normal February items to this meeting.

Um so after we present this to you today, I'm planning on bringing this before the board on May 7th.

So soon.

Cool.

Yes, will it be an abridged one or it will be the one?

I mean, we we typically give kind of a high-level overview of the whole report.

So we we want to show off and celebrate everything we've done.

So I'll let you all know, and you're welcome to attend.

Yeah, all right, it's in your lap.

Okay, so um activities for 2025, and I have my esteemed team here to walk through all the amazing things that we did last year.

Um, just want to highlight our staff.

So we have seven full-time staff and two part-time staff to manage over 7,000 acres, which works out to be um some crazy amount of acres per person, which is amazing.

So I always say that we have a very um small but mighty team, and I'm very um proud and impressed of the team that we have.

So um, in addition to myself, we have Greg Bergren as our trail screen coordinator, we have Marina Lovejoy as our senior natural resource specialist, Aaron Larson, our volunteer coordinator, Bob Tonseth, who's our open space maintenance foreman, and his two maintenance workers, Joe Steele and Kyle Vonderworth, and then we have um our part-timers.

Um, so Nancy McMillan is our trailhead caretaker, and then Travis Navarro has been our intern throughout this year.

So we've got a great mix of folks, and I am just so proud of them.

So I did provide just a history of open space in here, um, especially when we bring this before the board and for the public.

Uh it's just important to highlight how open space came to be.

So um uh reminder and education for our newest member, the open space division was created out of the Quality of Life Initiative, which was passed in 1996, which increased sales tax by one quarter of one percent, and those funds go towards parks, trails, and open space.

And those funds go towards parks, trails, and open space.

Our very first ever open space property we acquired was Moffitt Open Space, which is located just off Fairview near our office.

And then the most recent acquisition that we did was in 2025.

It was a very, very small parcel along the Carson River.

We acquired it through like a tax delinquency situation.

So anytime there's something on the river, we will snatch it up, and we got that for free, which was great.

So you can see our graph here shows those acquisitions over time.

That huge increase right around 2015 is when we completed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, where we received about half of our acres from the BLM and from the Forest Service.

So that was a significant acquisition.

And then since then have definitely been shifting gears from acquisition to management, but of course, there are always properties that we keep our eye on.

And I always like to highlight that the open space program is incredibly unique.

You all know that.

That is an incredible accomplishment.

Protecting the floodplain and protecting the river corridor has been one of our main priorities.

By protecting the river, we're able to keep it in a natural state, keep development out of the river.

So when we do have floods, which we know that we do have periodic flooding, we don't have the significant damage that we see in other communities where their floodplain is developed.

Preserving ranching history has been a big priority for us for us as well, Silver Saddle Ranch and Buzzy's Ranch, and then just our hillsides and our view sheds.

So those are kind of the three categories of properties that we seek to preserve and protect, and there's some pockets of things all in between there as well.

So I always just love to highlight that you know we're truly lucky that the voters 30 years ago had the foresight in mind to protect this landscape and essentially tax themselves to increase our quality of life.

And it is the 30th anniversary of quality of life this year.

We're very excited about that.

So there's going to be a celebration in the fall and just some other kind of things throughout the year to highlight that accomplishment.

So then going into land acquisitions, you know, as I mentioned, um, we have definitely been slowing down on acquisitions through the years.

As of the end of last year, we had just under 7,400 acres.

Um quality of life funds that has come to a cost of about 11 million dollars, and then we used another $8 million in grant funds to purchase all those properties.

So that is an enormous amount of money.

It averages out to about 2,600 per acre that that we've purchased over the years, which is some really cool numbers.

Um, I did want to highlight the Buzes Ranch Water Rights Acquisition Project because that was a significant acquisition over the last uh many years.

That's been one of the main projects that I've been working on.

Um we completed our two uh most recent acquisitions just into 2026, so I'll be telling you guys about that later.

But the bulk of the work to get there was completed in 2025.

The appraisals, all the back and forth, the agreements.

Um we really spent a lot of time in 2025 making that happen and getting water rights that are needed for Buzzies Ranch, which is amazing.

Moving on from acquisitions, um, I did just want to highlight all of the grant funds that we have.

Um, you know, you all know that staff uh take grants very seriously.

We try to go after as much grant funding as humanly possible.

So in 2025, we had 10 individual grants that totaled nearly $7 million just for the open space division.

Um, and you can see all of those laid out here, um, a lot of them for trail projects and uh trailhead renovation as well as noxious weeds and restoration, hazardous fuels, all kinds of things.

So anytime we can stretch out our Q18 funds further by applying and receiving grant funds, we do it, and I think we're pretty good at it.

Jumping into capital improvement projects.

So wanted to highlight the project for the Seahill Flag.

So you all have probably noticed that the flag is been missing for a while, which is interesting lack of something on our landscape.

So in partnership with the Seahill Flag Foundation, that was a project that we worked on.

Um also the Parks and Recreation Foundation have been involved.

Also the Parks and Recreation Foundation have been involved.

So the flag was in much need of some TLC.

So we had a work day last fall, removed all of the panels.

Now there's going to be work to kind of fix the foundation and then ultimately put new panels back on.

And I think they're aiming for July 4th as like an unveiling for the new flag.

So there will be brand new flag panels coming back.

And we're excited for that and thankful for that partnership.

As far as the Prison Hill West project is concerned, that was a very exciting project.

$2.4 million from Sniplema, the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act.

The main components of that project were renovation of the Coons Lane Trailhead.

If you all have not been there yet, it's fantastic.

We got all new facilities, new parking, vault toilet, ADA parking, picnic shelter.

And then the other part of that was construction of a 2.5 mile accessible trail along the west side of Prison Hill.

So that is another portion of our Prison Hill Loop Trail, which is very exciting.

We also added some kind of crosswalk and flashing beach beacons to allow people to safely access from those neighborhoods.

We also put in some interpretive panels.

So we finished this project in May.

We had a wonderful grand opening, and it's just been so exciting to see how many people have been using that space.

Other capital improvement projects at the Prison Hill OHB area.

We received some recreational trails funding to put in a vault toilet, which was much needed down there.

The portable restroom that we had before was constantly vandalized.

So having a vault toilet there is much better.

We also were able to put in some inter panels and just really celebrate some of the unique natural history that we have down there.

So definitely some work that was put into the OHB area.

Another exciting capital improvement project that was finished recently, the Mexican Dam Portage.

So if you guys have taken a walk south of the dam, um, we have installed uh essentially a boater takeout.

So if uh folks are floating the aquatic trail, they can safely exit the river before they get to the dam and then portage their boats around the dam and then put back on below the dam, which is fantastic.

This was in partnership um with CWSD and and RTP.

We just did a ribbon cutting for this um just the other day.

Uh we had a bunch of VIPs out, did a demonstration float.

So that was very um very exciting, and we're we're happy to get this project under our belt because ultimately this now allows for the aquatic trail to be extended into Douglas County in the future.

And then uh last capital improvement project I'll mention before I pass it on to Greg is the uh Riverview Trailhead project.

So this is another sniplima funded project to renovate the trailhead um at Riverview uh Park at the end of Fifth Street.

Um this and the Korean War Memorial.

Um, this is an area that is our most popular trailhead and in desperate need of a makeover.

There's very aged infrastructure there.

Um so it's gonna be a full redesign with new parking, new restroom facilities, um, new um picnic tables, benches, the whole nine.

So um we're very excited for that project.

Um we're current currently finalizing plans.

So looking forward to that in the coming year.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Greg to tell us about our trail accomplishments.

Thank you, Lindsay.

So for the record, Greg Bergren, Trails Coordinator.

Um, in addition to the projects that Lindsay just mentioned, uh we had uh several other projects, um including the Carson River Trail.

You have um you have a sticker that you received tonight for with the uh with the new logo we have for the Carson River Trail.

So we effectively rebranded a uh several segments, well, six segments of existing trail along Carson along the Carson River to create the Carson River Trail, and that's the Empire Ranch segment, Eagle Creek, Riverview, Buzys Ranch, Silver Saddle Ranch, and the Mexican Ditch.

And um the Buzzy's Ranch segment has been included in in the Audubon's birdability website, which is committed to making birding community and the outdoors accessible, safe, welcoming, and inclusive for everybody and everybody.

And so, in addition to uh like the Carson, the um Prison Hill Trail that that um Lindsay talked about, we uh we made this trail, which is also accessible, and we're trying to we're trying to make as many trails accessible to uh the population within Carson Cities of McCann so that they're so that everybody of of any size, shape um, or ability can uh can enjoy our open space areas.

Um we're working on Seahill Trail Realignment, and that's a volunteer project on behalf of Muscle Powered.

It's there's two components to that.

Uh the first component is a McKay Drive trailhead to Lincoln Bypass Connector, which is almost finished, and that will allow uh a person to ride a mountain bike from the McKay Drive Trailhead and Seahill all the way around to the Lincoln Bypass and to the um to Capitaho and to the Tahoe Rim Trail.

And the second part of that, which we haven't started yet, will be uh redeveloping or rerouting the existing trail that goes to the sea, because that is probably one of the worst trails we have in Carson City.

Uh it's just user-built trails over the years.

And so our plan with that is uh is not to make it mountain bike friendly, rather make it just pedestrian friendly.

What we want to avoid is creating a scar across Seahill that's visible from throughout the community.

So we want to try to keep it a fairly steep alignment.

We'll try to utilize some portions of the existing trail where we can and where we can't, we'll realign them, make it sustainable, make it easier to use, but um, but we also want to keep it um uh as not visible as we can for the for the for our viewscape.

And um other single track projects on uh prison hill, muscle powered again, working on the uh the popular Odyssey Trail.

They're making quite a bit of progress on that.

When that's completed, that'll uh that'll be a five-mile loop that'll wind its way through the canyons and ridges of prison hill.

And they last year they completed a realignment of the upper portion of Dead Truck Canyon.

If you haven't been on that, that's a that's a really really nice uh realignment that um that's being used now with the uh Escape from Prison Hill run.

And oh, I love the this the photo um right below there on the in the in the uh right, kind of in the middle right hand with the uh the gals on the bikes.

That's the Odyssey Trail.

And that photo was taken by Christy Chamberlain when she was out uh as part of our uh trails challenge project.

That was that photo was submitted as part of the trails challenge.

So I love that photo.

And um Seahill FEMA trail repair.

So the uh the big wide trail that was constructed as a uh as a fire break on Seahill.

We we did some repair on that.

That's a very, very popular hiking trail.

RMAC Construction, who adopted that trail, um did the work for us after we supplied 70 tons of road base.

So you can see the before and after photos, and we did uh quite a bit of work on that.

We produced a new trail map for Prison Hill this year, and that is available at all the trailheads on Prison Hill, and it's also available on Carson City.gov slash trails.

You can download it and print it out for your use.

And um, an update on the Ash Canyon Trailhead.

So that is a part of a federal land access program grant that's being led by public works, but it will eventually complete a new trailhead, badly needed trailhead in uh in the Ash Canyon area, just below the water tanks.

And uh that is scheduled to go out for bid for construction in the fall of 27.

So really looking forward to that.

And then last year, uh muscle powered put in hundreds of hours of trail maintenance on the west side of town, and our open space staff joined them for what we thought was going to be a really nice fun day in May.

And you can see as you can see from the photo, um we in we we wound up in uh being in a snowstorm and we had to come down early.

It was uh we couldn't even see the trail we were working on.

It was uh one of those late season storms, though.

But it was fun.

Um Centennial Regional Trails Project.

So that is uh is a big project that was originally proposed by Muscle Powered back in 2015, and it would be it's intended to be a series of trails connecting the Centennial Park in Carson City to uh Washow Lake State Park, to McClellan Peak, to other points in Washoe County, and uh maybe eventually even into Virginia City.

So in 2020, Muscle Powered some uh submitted a formal plan for a 22-mile uh system of trails.

And uh in 2023, BLM conducted public scoping for the project, which included partners, uh muscle powered Carson City, Washoe County, and Nevada State Parks.

And um in 2025, the Centennial Regional Trails Project was adopted into the Truckee Meadows Trails Plan, and BLM began working on the NEPA and cultural clearances for that project, which they have now completed.

Carson City applied for a recreational trails program grant to complete a phase one, which will connect Centennial Park to Goni Road, and then using existing roads and trails will make a essentially a connection to Washow Lake State Park.

And so we have the funding and we'll be moving forward with that project in the coming months.

And with that, I will turn it over to our senior natural resource specialist, Marina Lovejoy.

Hi everyone, for the record, Marina Lovejoy, Senior Natural Resource Specialist.

So I'll start by talking about the sheep project.

2025 was year 19.

I'll talk about year 20, 2026 towards the end of the meeting.

But year 19 was a great year as always, about 2,500 sheep grazing the hillsides west of town.

And for those of you that aren't familiar, this sheep grazing project started in response to the waterfall fire in 2004.

Burned about 8,000 acres on the west side of town.

And so each year we get sheep from Borderland and Sheep Company Company to reduce the fuel loads and hopefully prevent a catastrophic wildfire from happening again out there.

That partnership with Borderland and Sheep has been going on for the entirety of this project, and we're so thankful to them that they want to keep doing this project with us.

So I'll have a letter from Ted Borda that I'll read at uh towards the end of the meeting.

Um thanking you all for that OSAC award that he received that his company received.

Um, let's see.

Oh, another great thing about the sheep uh program last year was that we received almost $90,000 in grant funding from the Nevada Division of Forestry.

We have not received grant funding or sought grant funding for this project up until last year.

Um, and that was um really instrumental in helping us pay the fire department.

They go out daily multiple times a day to give water to the sheep.

Um and then we were also able to pay for some fencing around the quill past year that I'll talk about a little bit later as well.

Um lots of revegetation and restoration projects took place last year at the Empire Ranch Trail.

Um I received some funding from Carson Water Subconservancy District to purchase about 1,000 plants to put in the ground along sections of that trail.

I'm doing kind of a kind of a study looking at different soil types, different uh weed treatments, different plant pallets in different areas to see if there's kind of a winning combination to help restore the areas that are really inundated with noxious weeds.

So I'll be presenting probably a more in-depth report on that later in the year.

Um every time I go out there, there's lots of plants that are still alive, which is really good because we're not giving them supplemental water.

Um but anyways, we we had a uh a large staff work day that's pictured here.

We had a lot of staff and some of our inmate crew helping us put those plants in the ground, um, and it was a good bonding experience for everyone.

Riverview Park, I'm sure if you've been out there, you've wondered where all the dead sagebrush went.

Um the fire department masticated about 17 acres of sagebrush.

You can see in the map, it's those areas in red.

Um we knew that there's a large presence of noxious weeds that was underneath the sagebrush.

It's coming up again.

That's not surprising.

Um, but to try and um lessen that response.

Uh, we had staff and volunteers out there um broadcasting native seeds.

Uh I have a little bit more of an update that I'll talk about later on as well.

Um more um seeding took place this time at uh the Koontz Parcel near Prison Hill Um West Trailhead.

Lots of decommissioning that our staff did, and then we had volunteers out there uh broadcasting seeds.

Um next, I'll talk about all of the monitoring that I do.

Um we do annual bird surveys along the Buzzies Ranch Trail and through Riverview to kind of compare if there's any changes in the bird, migratory bird populations that are coming through the area pre-construction of Buzzies Ranch Trail and post-construction.

Um long story short, there's not been a noticeable difference, which is which is good.

Uh lots of monitoring in the prison hill burn scar.

Um the pictures on page 13 show uh the differences from um you know the year following the fire and last year, and there's notable differences on different aspects, different um different uh facing slopes.

Um it's very very typical on north-facing slopes to see um a better native plant response, and that's what we're seeing.

South facing slopes that are hotter, um drier have more sun exposure.

That's where we typically see invasive invasive plants dominating, and that's the case here.

Um but the north-facing slopes are looking pretty good.

Um we did a really exciting uh trial study last fall, um had lots of amazing partners from Corteva AgriScience, Nutrient Ag, Agricultural Resource Service, Ag Drone Service, Carson Valley Weed Control, and Plant Healthcare.

Um they um, you know, really um rallied behind this idea that I had to try and see if drone drone herbicide application will work in this setting.

Um it's it's not uncommon to see helicopters go out and spray herbicides, but drones are kind of a new thing.

They can be much closer to the vegetation canopy, um, supposedly you know force herbicide down to the ground a little bit better than helicopters.

Um I have four test plots up on prison hill, and I've been looking at the results of that just recently.

Um and we're seeing some interesting things, some good things, yeah.

So um I'll I'll report on that more later in the year.

But it was a great learning opportunity too.

We had maybe 30 or 40 um other professionals in the area come out when that drone was flying and and and put an herbicide out.

So it was really cool opportunity for other professionals in the area.

Um Seahill fire that was uh in July of last year.

Um this is a great picture showing trails as resilient infrastructure.

Um this is just a really narrow single track, but you can very clearly see where the fire stopped burning.

I also would like to say this is where the sheep graze.

Um, and we can't say definitively, but I definitely think that this fire could have been much bigger if we didn't have sheep grazing that area for the last 19 years.

So we'll keep an eye out on on Seahill.

Um cottonwood inventorying.

Lindsay mentioned that we have an intern, Travis Navarro.

Um, he has spent countless hours inventoring our cottonwood trees by the river.

He's looking at things like um is there beaver damage to these trees?

Is there any wire wrapping that's that needs to be fixed?

Do we need to do more of it out there?

Um, are the trees posing any hazards to um hikers in the area?

All that sort of thing.

Um I have a little bit more of an update on that later, but he's just been having a blast out there in the field and and great um early career experience.

Um, and now I think I will pass it back to Lindsay.

Thank you, Marina.

Uh Lindsay Boyer, Open Space Manager for the record.

So I added this into the report this year because I wanted to highlight all the amazing things that our maintenance staff do as well.

So for all of those 7400 acres, we really only have three uh full-time maintenance staff who are responsible for really kind of the boots on the ground implementation of projects and maintenance out there.

So they are a really small but mighty team, um, but they are amazing.

So I wanted to highlight some of the projects they worked on this past year.

This photo here is our maintenance crew along with um someone from FIRE and our city manager, Glenn Martell up on Seahill, that we were doing some work up there to widen the trail to make it easier for the Seahill Flag Project to be done.

So that was great getting our city manager up on the trails.

Um one big thing that they spend a lot of time doing throughout the year is just fuels reduction.

Um, an interesting fact we have almost 11 miles that the open space open space program manages at the wildland urban interface, so where our open space meets neighborhoods and places where people are, and so that's where we focus a lot of our fuel reduction, you know, doing mastication and things like that to try to reduce wildfire risk right there where we have property and humans.

Um so a lot of time spent working on defensible space in this past year.

Some of the big areas include like Lakeview, Gonai, the Mexican Ditch, um, Lone Mountain, along prison hill.

So they're kind of all over the place working on fuel reduction.

Um, another big uh area that they spent a lot of time noxious and nuisance weed treatment, so along our trails, and then also just inner spaces throughout open space.

Um, some of our noxious weeds like perennial pepperweed, hoary crest, poison hemlock, canada thistle, those are ones that we're constantly battling.

Um we also have a lot of nuisance weeds that just start to encroach on the trail.

So they spend a lot of time both doing herbicide treatments where those noxious weeds kind of necessitate it, but we also do mowing and things like that to reduce our reliance on herbicide.

So that keeps them very busy.

The OHV area they spend a lot of time in.

For those who aren't aware, our maintenance staff go out to the OHB area once a week, and they're driving around and they're fixing signs and they're um you know, trying to erase new trails that are being created, and they're working on erosion control and vertical mulching and all kinds of things.

So we're very proud that we can kind of carve them out and have them spend that time at the OHB area because as the few areas where we have motorized recreation, it does require a little bit more TLC.

So in addition to that, they are often doing uh tree trimming and removal, like this example out of Silver Saddle.

We had a hazard tree, one of our cottonwoods reached its end of its life and had some pretty big branches come down, and then ultimately was deemed that the whole thing just needed to come out.

So we borrowed this giant bucket truck, and Bob Tonseth, our open space maintenance foreman who's also certified arborist, was able to get in the truck and take this giant tree down, which is just amazing.

Um we're also working on things like Russian olive removal along the river.

So definitely a lot of tree activity in open space.

Um the Mexican ditch does require significant maintenance to make sure that the irrigation water can be conveyed to Silver Saddle and Buzzies and other ranches in Carson.

So removing willows to try to keep the flow, getting in there when it's dry, removing debris and trash and that kind of thing.

Sometimes dredging is required to clean out excess sediment accumulation, and then we do have Eurasian water mill foil, which is a class A noxious weed, and so we do herbicide treatment for that.

We'll we'll shut the ditch off, dry it out, spray, let it kind of settle in, and then we'll turn the ditch back on.

And that all just keeps the ditch flowing because we um need to ensure that those irrigation waters can reach the aglands.

And then in addition to all of those things, they're also working on just kind of our access roads and our parking areas and making sure they're free of potholes and maintaining those throughout the year.

Ash Canyon Road, Kings Canyon Road, um, those are all roads that we uh manage.

So the maintenance staff is very busy year-round.

In terms of activities and events, I wanted to highlight the Pollinator Palooza.

Um, this was a very exciting event that we had held last year.

You guys are probably aware of the annual pollinator parade that we have every year.

Well, last year we took it up a notch and we had a Palooza.

Um so we partnered with the Nevada State Museum, and we had this um giant education day at the museum.

So there was tons and tons of vendors.

They were selling honey, they were selling native plants, they were educating people about native plants, they were doing kids' crafts, um, making bees.

We gave away little bee antenna.

We had over a hundred people join the parade this year, which is the most we've ever had by far.

We had a chalk art contest, um, we had food trucks, so it was just an amazing day.

It was a great partnership with the museum.

Then, if that wasn't enough, we did a whole other thing at the Carson Mall, um, and we had a magician and there was chocolate and honey sales.

We did a flash mob bee waggle dance, which are not words that I ever expected to use in combination with one another.

But um, for those who don't know, a waggle dance with bees is how they communicate where the honey is.

So we had the children do uh a little waggle dance to educate them about how bees communicate.

So it was very successful day.

We had tons of local businesses participate.

It was a great partnership, and um the event's coming back in 2026.

Uh the Carson River Master Plan.

This was another big project that we spent a lot of time on in the past year.

The original master plan was written in 1996, so it's due for an update.

Um, so we have been working on that for several years now, and 2025 was a year spent doing tons of um outreach.

So we had meetings with our stakeholders, we had workshops with stakeholders, we had a Carson River um day, so a public outreach event for the community.

So all of those events were geared at gathering feedback from both our technical experts that we invited to participate in the process as well as the public.

Um we did a survey, so there was a lot of outreach that was done to help inform that process.

Now we are in the writing stage of the plan, so taking all of that feedback that we got and incorporating it into the plan.

Um, and then ultimately in the future, we will be bringing that to final plan before you guys for review.

Um, another exciting thing we did as part of that was uh afloat.

So all the stakeholders who had spent so much time and effort helping us and giving us feedback, um, we took them on a float down the Carson River as well.

So last year was very busy with the Carson River and and outreach to help inform that process.

Um, another really exciting kind of outreach event, the Carson City to Canada quest.

So we had two hikers who ultimately completed a 1600 mile journey from the states of the steps of the Capitol all the way to Canada using uh the Capital to Tahoe, the Tahoe Rim Trail, and then ultimately jumping on the Pacific Crest Trail.

So this was in partnership with Visit Carson City.

It was this awesome marketing strategy.

Ultimately ended up getting Carson City and the Captaho Trail in all kinds of news and media outlets, all radios and tons of news stories.

So it was just an amazing way to get Carson City on the map and really highlight this amazing trail and this amazing opportunity where you can literally hike from Carson City to Canada.

And two people did that, and they were successful, and they each received $5,000 as part of their journey.

So we were very proud and excited to follow along with that effort.

Greg had mentioned the Trails Challenge.

So last year was our second annual of the Trails Challenge.

And then we're doing it again this year.

Each year it just gets bigger and bigger.

This is a great way to get the community aware of all the amazing trails that we have in Carson and kind of incentivize them to get out on the trail and send us pictures of their experiences.

So in 2025, we had almost 400 people sign up for the challenge, and they submitted photos of their amazing times on the trail.

And then ultimately they were put into a big raffle, and we had all kinds of local businesses donate amazing prizes, and then we gave them away to folks at the end of the trails challenge.

So if anyone is interested in jumping on that for 2026, that is an option.

We had all kinds of representation from Board of Supervisors.

We had folks from the BLM state office there.

We had Stewart Indian School staff, all the folks who helped us build the project, folks from Endor.

We had April Wolf with Reno Adaptive come, and she had brought all kinds of adaptive mountain bikes for people to do a demonstration and try those out since this is an accessible trail.

So we were just very excited last year to celebrate the completion of that project.

Greg and I do it every year.

It's a great time.

NICA, the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, had a mountain bike competition.

We have a series of running races that are done throughout the year in addition to the escape.

The Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Run, the Statina Pay Dirt Gravel Race, which is a bike competition.

We had the Sacto Pit Trials Competition, which was at the OHV area, and the Bronco Magazine Guided Tour of the OHV areas as well.

So tons of trail events, tons of different ways to different people, different modes of transportation, getting out on the trail.

So we're so thankful that we can offer these amazing spaces to folks to have these events.

We gave an award to Borderland and Sheep Company, as Marina mentioned.

We also gave an award to resource concepts for all of their amazing work that we have partnered with over the years, and then two individuals, Ward Nows, NOS, and Eric Ingbar, and they were both recognized for their support of trail development in Carson City and also help with the original Carson River Master Plan.

So we're excited to be able to do these awards.

We'll keep doing them every year.

It's a great way to recognize important people in the community.

And Greg and I had done some presentations.

We presented to the Nevada Advisory Board on Outdoor Recreation last year, as well as the Carson City Rotary Club, just celebrating trails and the open space program.

And then Marina and I both gave talks at the North American Invasive Species Management Association conference.

So that's a weeds conference.

We talked about Carson River Master Plan.

We gave a field tour, Silver Saddle.

So it's just great.

That was a national conference, more Carson City exposure nationally.

So with that, I'm going to turn it back to Marina to talk about some of our outreach and education.

Marina Lovejoy, Senior Natural Resource Specialist for the Record.

So I'm going to share some really incredible outreach and education that we've done.

Huge kudos goes to Erin Larson, our volunteer coordinator.

She has really taken taken the cake with how much outreach and education that she has done.

We partner with River Wranglers, which is a nonprofit that with the goal of getting kids out to the river.

We do a number of events with them every year.

For instance, Trout in the Classroom, where we do trout releases along the Carson River or at Bailey's Pond, for instance.

We have a number of students, hundreds of students every year that participate in that.

We also have gotten involved with some of uh like parents' nights at the local schools to try and encourage parents to get their kiddos outside involved with like our ranger programs, stuff like that.

Um let's see.

Um really incredible.

Um Erin uh kind of led the effort for getting the Carson City Community Cleanup trailer rewrapped.

Um if you had seen that before, it was very faded, um, didn't have the right number.

Um so now it's it has a fresh design, it's very beautiful, highlights our great program and encourages people to help us with all of our volunteer efforts.

Uh Aaron put together some really amazing stats from last year.

Um the the volunteer um hour is worth uh just under $35 an hour.

And so if you think about all of the hours that volunteers have spent on our programs, uh that totals to 143,000 in volunteer labor in 2025.

Um that's incredible.

Um there's a number of of events, uh, volunteer events that we have here in this report.

Um, some of those I've mentioned already, like the seating that was done on the prison hill west, the prison hill west area to uh decommission those um social trails that we no longer wanted.

Um Folter Canyon gets uh a couple of cleanups per year.

There's lots of um trash dumping that that occurs out there, unfortunately.

Um but volunteers are always eager to get out there and help us uh clean up after that space.

Um Friends of Silver Saddle Ranch, they had a work day near the Red House, if you're familiar, uh, to kind of um seed some native grass and wildflower species there to kind of create a nice uh a nice lawn area.

We partnered with the Boys and Girls Club to put some pollinator plants in at Fullstone Wetlands.

Um they also uh go out there routinely to pick up trash as they've adopted uh that park or that open space rather.

Um we did some willow planting at Riverview Park with Eagle Valley Middle School students.

Um just lots of opportunities that we've um taken advantage of to get uh kids from our local schools out to our open spaces and get and getting involved with our volunteer projects.

Um we had a number of park ambassadors last year, 20 in total, um which is incredible.

I think before Aaron started, we maybe had one or two park ambassadors.

Um, and so basically that's uh someone that's dedicated to a particular park or open space, and they visit that site maybe a few times a week and just uh they pick up trash and dog poop and um kind of report back things to us that they see um out on the trails.

Um so that's a phenomenal program.

Um really, really happy that we have volunteers that are interested in that.

Um on page 24 and on to 25 is a humongous table detailing every single event, all of the uh people and hours.

Um, and so please take your time looking through that because it's just incredible.

Um and again, huge kudos to Aaron Larson for for making this program um just so amazing.

Thank you, Marina.

So um, as you can see, we were not busy at all last year, and we're um you know, twiddling our thumbs a lot.

So um I just wanted to close by just thanking the amazing staff that we have here tonight, but also our entire staff.

I um chose a photo for each of them to represent them here and just um to show how much they're appreciated by myself, but also the community and all the hard work that they do, and um they are all amazing individuals.

So um I think with that we will take any questions.

You guys have clones or something?

I don't know.

It's a wonderful report.

Yeah, it took an hour.

That's um that's okay.

I'm every year I always say say the same thing.

That report is very important.

I hope you never regret having spent the time that you guys have to to put something together like that because it's I think it's really important for the community and yourselves and this board understand fully all the work you guys do.

So um that's how you presented that you're shot right there.

So it's great.

You did a wonderful job.

You got the pictures as much as the writing, which I like that too.

I'm on I only look at the pictures and flip the page.

So we'll we'll start with some comments down with Jay's side.

Do you got any questions, comments?

Oh, you covered it.

I think that's which we're having as many pictures as well.

The reason I'm on this committee is because I've been using the trails all around the city without any regard whatsoever to who maintains them and how they cut there.

So I'm guilt tripped into this position and I'm happy to be.

Excellent.

Dan.

Yeah, uh obviously echoing everyone else's uh statements.

You guys do an amazing job, and uh I'm proud to listen to to all the hard work that you put in year over year.

But I did have a couple questions.

Um for the prison hill uh drone service, dropping the uh herbicide.

That drone service, do they specialize in just like dropping herbicide, or is that something that you have to put two things together and you know have them uh do you know what I'm saying?

I'm like, how do they do that?

Um sure, I'll I'll take a stab at the question.

Marina Lovejoy for the record.

Um so yeah, so it's a um an actual company, yeah.

Gentleman, it's his company, it's his business to do that.

Um, and so um he'll spray um herbicide.

Um he also does mosquito abatement, spraying, you know, insecticide for the mosquitoes.

Um you can also put seeds in the in the little, I don't know, drone containers, I guess, and you can use a drone to broadcast seeds.

Um, so it's kind of a new um really interesting industry.

Um those drones are pretty powerful, and you can really customize um the herbicide mixes, you can really customize to the area um and be pretty specific with where you want that drone to go.

Um so so yeah, so um yeah, he was uh most professional, took safety into consideration.

Um I felt very comfortable with with that treatment.

Um and I'm really glad that it turned into an educational opportunity, and I'm excited to to keep looking at the plants out there and seeing the results of that treatment um and report that for not only you all uh but other um professionals in this in this area who may be interested in doing something similar.

Yeah, did that answer your question?

Definitely I was just curious, and it it I mean, obviously there's not much innovation, you know, attached to uh I think to the work that that you guys do.

Um but hearing that kind of caught my my interest, and yeah, I'm curious to see the the effects, you know, and and hopefully all positive outcomes, you know, maybe in the next meeting, the meeting after that.

Um and then one more question, you know, with the size of the maintenance staff, how do you or how does your manager prioritize her work?

Do you have some projects that you create on a weekly or monthly basis um for their work for different areas, or can you walk me through that process a bit?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So um it's kind of a mixture.

So I meet with our maintenance foreman once a week and we talk about kind of his priorities he's identified.

We have a lot of routine stuff, things that we're doing either seasonally or weekly.

We have it like a trash route, for example, where we go through and we're um collecting all the trash from trailhead.

So that's a weekly activity.

Um then there's like kind of the seasonal aspect with our noxious weed abatement.

They'll spend like months just doing that kind of during the spring.

Um, and then we kind of shift gears to more unique projects, like during the fall.

Marina is helping to guide a lot of our restoration projects, and they assisted with a lot of those.

Um there are, like I said, certain roads um that we're responsible for managing, like Ash Canyon Road, King's Canyon Road.

So those are typically done in the summer.

So um I would say it's kind of a mix between things that we know that um we we need to do, kind of on a uh weekly to monthly basis, and then there's things that come up, like we'll have vandalism somewhere, a fence will be down, um, there'll be some kind of issue that needs to go and and and get fixed, and so then they'll kind of shift priorities around to be able to go and like address that right away and then be able to kind of pivot back to their regular activities.

Um we do a lot of fuel reduction along the Mexican ditch, like I mentioned, removing those willows so that we can have access to the ditch and keep it flowing.

That's like a year-round.

We can always be working on that.

Willows grow so fast, it's kind of like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, like you you finish and then start all over again kind of thing.

So um, we also have a lot of projects that we're just always chipping away at as well.

So they're busy.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No sitting in their trucks all day.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Great report.

Thank you very much, and thanks for all of your hard work.

Um I've got lots of questions, but I can I'm gonna come bug you at your office and just ask it.

But um that that takeout at Mexican Dam.

Where do you put in if you want to take out there?

It's a trail, right?

Is that a trail?

That's a trail.

So I'll take it.

For the record, Greg Berger and Trails Coordinator.

So the Carson River Aquatic Trail right now, it begins right below the dam and it goes 14 miles down to Santa Maria Ranch in Dayton.

So it's a by-county um trail.

Our hope is that we can someday uh partner with Douglas County and have put ins that would be uh above the dam.

And so there are people that put in above the dam now.

And and one of the one of the great places to put in is the uh the River Fork Ranch near Genoa, which is uh nature conservancy center.

They have a there's a little there's a there's a place you can put in the river there.

Uh you can also put in at the bridge across 395.

Um for our demonstration float, uh we actually put in about 300 feet above the yeah the the takeout.

So um just so we could uh demonstrate how it works.

But uh yeah, so there's there's various places in Douglas County that could be used for for putting locations and you could we hope to really be able to enlarge the size of the aquatic trail in the future.

But we don't have excuse me, we don't have a put in like over by the OHV at the end of Golden Eagle Lane.

There's no access down to the river from Carson City site.

No, we do not work on that because of uh because of private property and um I mean the the land the land adjacent to the river along there is is not ours.

And so yeah, we don't have it a put in right there.

Follow up on that one specifically.

Um you had recently had a a ribbon cutting.

Did we did we miss that or I mean did I miss it?

Just like do we get noticed as board members when there's gonna be things like that?

I selfishly, I think there's some folks in our office that worked on that and did a great job, and I'm sure Jill probably knew about it.

Was she there?

Uh from RCI.

I I I just didn't hear anything about that.

Because I've I've ridden by it.

I passed Greg one time on a bike going down to see it, and but I just didn't know we had a ribbon cutting on that one.

Yeah, I could Lindsay Boyer for the record.

As I was saying that, I thought, hmm, did I send an email to you guys about that?

So that that might have been an oversight on our part.

It was something where we had aimed for May, and then because of the uh current river conditions, we had to expedite everything.

And so um we kind of threw through it together.

And so I apologize that you guys were were not included.

But yes, typically we would be inviting you to our ribbon cutting.

So I'm sorry you were not able to.

Oh, I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss it and been like, oh, he doesn't care.

So no, that's that's great.

We'll catch we'll get you next time.

And I've got others, I get so I would I would love to have gone to to see the canoe sink before it got to the Was it a canoe?

RAFs are gonna have a tough time dragging that down that thing.

So I was takeout.

Yeah, the takeout there to the dams pretty tight in there in some spots.

So uh we mostly had kayaks, but we did have a raft.

Oh and we uh the the people that were in that rap put the raft up above our heads and carried it and um yeah, it wasn't too bad.

Cool.

Blink, being the new guy on the block.

Uh I really appreciated the report.

Uh very excited to learn um more and more about the volunteer programs.

Um how uh I mean, there's obviously an immense value there, and it seems like it's grown just from the information that I've received.

How are you continuing to engage the community to try and uh continue to build those volunteer opportunities?

Uh that's a great question, Marina Lovedray for the record.

So I'm speaking on behalf of our volunteer coordinator Aaron Larson.

Um I'll uh definitely encourage her to reach out to you and explain more.

But um, but Aaron does a great job of reaching out to businesses directly, and then to be quite honest, Word has just kind of gotten out.

I think a lot of businesses have um maybe not a requirement, but it's definitely encouraged for businesses to kind of get involved with their community.

And so a lot of businesses have reached it reached out to Aaron, um, whether they want to adopt a trail or um just have kind of a you know a yearly uh volunteer day with their staff.

So that's been one way.

Um, but also um Aaron puts together a really fabulous monthly newsletter, and that reaches um probably a few thousand people.

Because anyone that's participated in any of our recreation programs, whether it be like the kayak trips that the recreation team takes folks out on, or um maybe even like our recreation sports programs, all those folks are in our system and they get our newsletter.

Um so that's a great avenue.

Um Erin also updates our our social media on a regular basis.

She's so clever and funny, and I think she makes posts that um really get people excited about the work that we do.

Um, and so that's a great way.

Um yeah, I I think like I said, word of word of mouth is a big thing.

Um I even had my mom text me and say, My friends live in Carson and they want to get involved with the volunteer program.

And so I sent my mom a number of links and Erin's contact.

And um, so it just works like that.

Yeah.

But anyone that's interested, any of your friends, there is never um a shortage of of volunteer projects.

Um, we would love any anyone that's interested to come and volunteer with us.

Um, and and even if someone has an idea of, hey, I hike on this trail all the time, and I see that there's this need here, um, we we definitely accept those um those comments and that feedback.

So yeah, thank you for the question.

That is okay.

So cup just when you when I talked about the canoe sinking, it happened with the board of supervisor when they were back in the 90s.

They toured the river and they there's a diversion there by Buzzy's Ranch.

And I can't remember which supervisors in there, but they went swimming.

That's what I was going back to that you didn't know that though, because you were still in grade school in the 90s, maybe.

So uh what how big's that drone?

Um, you know, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head how much it weighs.

Um I mean, is it like this is smaller than a pickup, the bed of a pickup truck?

Yeah.

So it has prop wash underneath it, and I would assume um, yes.

And it's a noise.

That would be such a cool thing to see and be.

I would have paid money to come to that, so you think it was free.

Uh that's that's totally cool.

So you guys do such a good job in your report that part of what there's this back, like your um what do you do?

Your mission and your vision is connecting the public to your resource, and you guys do a really good job with it.

You just don't manage it and take care of it and clean it.

You're out working with the public to engage them in every aspect of your job.

That's really good.

You guys do a great job.

You should be so proud of that report.

Um so I just keep reflecting that for you guys.

Then I the cottonwood tree that had to come down.

I had just taken a picture two days before they took it down because it framed the pasture there.

It was really nice picture.

And you cut it down.

But I knew it was sick.

So is that part of the young man's work?

Because you know, the worst place you can be on a really windy day is in this cottonwood grove.

Especially as mature as some of those guys are getting out there, which people don't understand that sometimes.

But is he is he gauging some stuff with that too?

Um, yes, for the record, Brina Lovejoy, yeah.

So Travis Tavaro, our intern who's been doing all the cottonwood surveying, that is a question in the survey that he's that he's looking at is does this tree pose a hazard to the public?

Um, and so if it's a cottonwood tree that's out in the middle of nowhere, you know, very far away from a trail, we might be inclined to leave that bee and kind of let nature do its thing.

But if it's right adjacent to a trail or there's a branch overhanging the trail, then that would warrant you know a safety hazard, and then we would alert our team, our maintenance team, to go and take care of that.

Well, you created habitat with one of the trees that was cut years ago with the goose nest that sits up on behind the red house there that squawks when you go by.

I assume it's sitting on an egg because it's sitting there all the time.

Uh that's very cool.

Thank you for that.

And uh if there's no more comments, I'll call for public comment because it's an action item.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and also thank you for bringing up the cottonwood.

One of my concerns is that we don't always respect the fact that those down trees provide a continuous habitatal type situation and actually help encourage new trees in the area because of that fallout from the decaying tree.

My my also, I just want to appreciate everybody that worked on this.

It's a very nice report.

I would like to see um added to this, um, because it was brought up the olive tree.

I'd like to have known where those olive trees that are being considered to take out, because the ones at uh Fuji Park are very much well adapted to the area and are providing wonderful habitat situations for specific birds, in fact.

So I'd hate just have because they have the title Russian and that they're not an original tree here, but more importantly, because those are a parks where other trees have been brought in that are not native, but out in the sticks where you want to go with as much or as many native trees.

I can see some consideration, but I don't want you to forget the importance of their existence as they are.

If they're full grown, mature, they're well climatized, they do provide good habitat, and and they don't drop limbs like your cottonwood do, as far as my understanding of them.

And uh the cottonwood, thank you for bringing it up.

They if you can even take the branches out if you have to, but then leave the limbs in a non-uh traveled area that's not gonna disturb, but it might block off areas you don't want public walking or public created trails.

So I just don't want that material just hauled off to a dump.

It's really much more valuable where it lays, unless it's diseased or has some sort of beetle that would then inhabit another things like several of the oaks that you can find.

They really make it hard.

So this is really nice.

I would have liked to have been able to see it on one of these beautiful screens, but I did use the one that was here to look through.

It's just not numbered the same way that you would mention the material.

So it made it a little harder for me to follow, but beautiful pictures.

I would like to also be a little concerned about using a drone on the hills.

Um, and also all the traffic.

I haven't heard a whole lot about the species uh report.

I'd like to see that in the new master plan considerations so that we can compare what was on the hill a couple years ago, the last one that was done to surveys, told you what kind of plants, what kind of species were up there, and um and make and seems very that they're very conscientious about their spray times and their trim times and such to go with uh seasonal moving of the critters, so just more on the critters.

I see a lot about wonderful volunteers and people and trail making, but I would really like to have more of an emphasis on it's a habitat up there, and some places we really shouldn't be letting people in.

I'm all for inclusivity and ex you know, getting things around, but I want that to be the bugs, that inclusivity and their ability to move properly without disturbance or without blockage.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I forgot I had one more question that um for Greg probably I maybe I'm over looking at the all that OHV money.

Have you been able to grab some of that for that?

I'm sure you have.

Well, the um the project that we just completed this year uh for the uh vault toilet and the um signage the interpretive signs that was uh that was from the uh rec trails OHV portion.

And um with that project, yeah, there is a there is money available, they actually gave us um more than we asked for for that particular project.

And then when we were initially when we were doing the um uh our projects down there to kind of clean that area up when it came to open space, uh like back in uh 2019, 2020, we got funding, we got a couple of grants from Nevada OHV and from Rec Trails.

Oh so you have been active with that group.

I didn't maybe I thought maybe there's some problems with government getting it versus private or something, but no, good.

That's a perfect place for them to put that money actually.

So close to 10.

All right, so I'm sorry, Mark.

Can I just bring up one other thing?

Sure, one more yeah.

Before we make a motion to do this, I did have a question about how and maybe it's too soon this year to determine, but in the report, maybe the board would want to hear how the trees in the city are doing compared to the problem that we had last year.

Has there been any follow-up on that?

Determine you know what caused the die-off, and seems like things are pretty healthy now and they're going.

Is there anything to report on that or is it just too soon?

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So um, I wish Jennifer Budge was here tonight.

She is at a conference, and because much of the die-off that happened was on parks properties, and so um while we were kind of involved, I don't want to misspeak about kind of what the results of that um analysis was.

I know that we have um done removal where we needed to, we're doing replanting where we can.

So it's it is an ongoing project.

Um I don't know if we would include it as part of the open space annual report, but um it is certainly something that the board has been tracking and has been um wanting information about.

So I'll make a note for Jen, and then maybe at the joint meeting at least we can kind of bring that up.

Yeah.

Where's Dan?

I think he's in Paris.

So yeah.

So you said you're ready to make a motion.

Is that what you're like?

You bet.

I move to approve the 2025 annual report of activities of the open space advisory committee to be presented to the board of supervisors.

And the main second.

Sam.

Any more discussion?

See none.

Call for the question.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Unanimous.

Good job.

On run.

Okay, next on the agenda.

Is it 5C?

Yes, 5C for possible action.

Discussion and possible action regarding the open space work plan for fiscal year 2027.

Lindsay, you need a glass of water before I was thinking I should have brought some water.

No, it this is a gonna be a heavy meeting.

So I hope you guys all had your your dinner before you got here.

Um Lindsay Boyer for the record, open space manager.

So now that we kind of celebrated everything we did in 2025, um, we're gonna kind of transition into talking about the next fiscal year.

So um talking about the work plan for fiscal year 27, um, and then that'll couple well with the budget discussion that we'll have after that.

Um, and so just uh maybe for our newest member, our fiscal year is July 1 to June 30.

Um so this will be for um activities starting after July 1 of this year and then continuing to June 30 of next year.

Um so a lot of the uh work plan document that you have in your packet, um, a lot of this is kind of status quo, a lot of the projects that we just discussed, or some of those routine maintenance activities that I mentioned.

Um I won't go through every single item, but I will highlight kind of some unusual things or some new things, and then of course, if you have questions about any of it, just let me know.

So starting off with our capital improvement projects, um, I mentioned the Buzes Ranch water rights acquisition project.

So in early 2026, we did complete two acquisitions that completed just about, I think I calculated it's about 69% of the what the total water that's needed for Buzzi's ranch.

Um, but there is a remaining portion that we're still going after in order to have enough water rights to to fully support the ranch.

Um Blake, for your uh edification, the Buzes Ranch open space.

When we first purchased that property, we did not have enough money at the time to purchase water rights to support the historically irrigated aglands.

Um so we've been able to irrigate it over the years with uh an ongoing relationship with the person who sold us the land.

So as long as they owned water rights and applied them to the land, they were able to continue their agricultural operations.

But of course, the city knew that we needed to have uh a more permanent city-owned applied water so that we can make sure those lands were protected in perpetuity because if you remove irrigation off of lands that have been irrigated for over a hundred years, um chaos will ensue.

So we were very proud to complete two of those acquisitions.

We did purchase water um the the Anderson family, so they were the ones who had sold us the land.

So that was one portion of the water that we purchased, the other portion came from Vidler Water Company.

Um, and then I mentioned there's there's uh a small portion that's to still remaining to be purchased, and that's earmarked um through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act.

So we have another grant from them to fund acquisition of kind of the remaining water rights that are needed.

We know that there is some possibility that they will not fund the entire um remaining amount that we need.

So there may be a small amount, about 42 acre feet that we may have to pick up outside of the Sniplema grant.

Um, and the reason being is that they'll only um give us enough money to support um the the wetland and ducks unlimited and um kind of bird specific um habitat out there, and so there are portions that are more upland that that don't necessarily support those migratory birds.

That's kind of how the whole application was written was was towards um supporting those migratory bird habitats.

So we know that there's gonna be some small portion that we'll pick up separately, but ultimately the goal is to purchase the total amount of water rights needed so that the ranch will be totally irrigated through Carson City owned um water rights and protected in perpetuity.

So that is um a project I've been working on for many years, and we'll continue working on it for another um several years.

Other kind of capital improvement or grant projects that we have.

Marina mentioned that she's got a variety of noxious weed abatement funding for Riverview and Empire Ranch.

So we'll be working through that.

We do get 15,000 every year from CWSD for Noxious Wheat Abatement.

So that keeps us with plenty of funding to support treatment along the Carson River Corridor.

I had mentioned that Riverview Trailhead project.

So we anticipate in 2026 to 2027 that we'll be finalizing the design and that it will be going out to bid for construction, which is very exciting.

As far as Silver Saddle Ranch is concerned, there are several repairs that have been kind of deferred over the years.

We've been working on getting the programmatic agreement updated with the State Historic Preservation Office.

That's taken several years.

Once we have that agreement in place, we'll have better procedural infrastructure to be able to pursue some of these repairs, like there's some needs at the Red House to look at the roofs there.

The siding on the Red House is starting to get pretty bad.

And we want to do a full plumbing evaluation of the house too.

So there will be some evaluations and some improvements made to the Red House.

Marina mentioned the sheep project and the funding that we got to support that through the year 2029.

So that will keep us busy.

Moving into land acquisitions, we've got Buzes mentioned in multiple locations here because it kind of falls under several categories.

One new and exciting project I wanted to make you all aware of.

So there is an 80-acre property in Ash Canyon.

Some of you are probably very familiar with it.

It's like one of the most beloved trails in Carson City.

This is a property we've had our eye on for several years.

We've tried pursuing acquisition in the past.

It is a backup for potential acquisition.

We had to move super fast on this.

We couldn't even get it to OSAC.

We had to go straight to the board to ask for authorization to submit a grant.

So I submitted a grant to the Conserve Nevada program.

This type of acquisition falls squarely into their mission.

I think it is going to be very highly competitive.

We're still waiting to hear if we got that grant or not.

I applied for about one 1.6 million for acquisition of that property.

It does require a 10% match, which would which would come from the Q18 Quality of Life Funds.

But we're crossing all of our fingers, all of our toes.

We're really hoping that we can finally acquire this parcel because, like I said, it's been on our eye for a very long time.

In addition to the Creek Trail, which is of course important for recreation, it's also amazing wildlife habitat with the creek running through it and aspen groves and there's some springs on the property and all kinds of things.

So it's it's highly coveted for a variety of reasons.

So that project made it to our work plan.

Some of you are familiar with the Oldwoods Ranch Conservation Easement Project.

That's been a long-term project that we have been working on.

This is in coordination with Nevada Land Trust.

Unlike some of our other straight acquisitions projects, this would be a conservation easement, which is a unique kind of property acquisition tool where we don't acquire the property, but we acquire the development rights for the property and it remains under private ownership.

So it allows us to ensure that property is protected while also not having to take full uh you know maintenance responsibility of the of the project and of the parcel.

So that, like many acquisition projects, um, does move slow.

A lot of these things are they don't move super quick, and so we're hoping in 2026 to 2072 that we're we bring the final conservation easement to the board for final approval.

Uh moving on to kind of management activities, we've got all kinds of things.

Um there is some bank erosion at Buzzy's Ranch Trail.

We've been monitoring that.

We've brought that before the board.

Um we are kind of always in the process of trying to figure out different methods that we can implement there for stabilization.

Um luckily things have slowed down.

We we were having some pretty dramatic erosion for a while with the high flows, but um we have since had you know less high flows, and so things have stabilized a bit, but there is gonna be a need in the future to do something there, and um, we're still kind of trying to weigh our options and talk with experts and figure out what the right combination of um techniques is there.

A new one that I wanted to highlight is the Nevada Starry Sky certification.

So dark skies are something that is really important.

We heard that tonight in public comment, you know, having these areas with uh low or no lights is important for wildlife as well as just for you know beautification of our community.

So we have been working with the Nevada Department of Outdoor Recreation.

They have a Nevada Starry Skies certification application.

Um we've met with them on site.

We're looking at applying for both Silver Saddle Ranch and Prison Hill.

Prison Hill has no lights, that's easy.

Silver Saddle has just a couple lights that could be easily retrofitted to meet that Starry Sky certification.

So we're going to be looking at applying for that in this coming fiscal year.

Um some other projects that I'd like to highlight.

Um, the Mexican ditch.

So now that Carson City is a majority water right holder in this community, um, that does increase some of our maintenance responsibilities along the ditch.

There is a Mexican Dam and Ditch Company, which all the ditch users are a part of and everyone pays into.

Um, but because so much of the ditch falls on Carson City property, and we have the majority water rights.

There are some some new tasks that we're going to be doing, and and luckily that those tasks and that work completed will go towards the dues that Carson City has to pay.

But we'll definitely be more involved in the dredging of the Mexican ditch.

Um, the Eurasian water mill foil treatment we were already doing.

Um, we'll definitely play a heavy role in continuing that fuel reduction and debris removal.

And then there are some headgates, um, so actual irrigation infrastructure that needs to be replaced.

We'll do that in conjunction with the Mexican Dam and Ditch Company.

So we are going to have a bit of a uh a larger responsibility as it relates to the Mexican ditch moving forward.

Um moving on to some other things.

So the Prison Hill Master Plan that was approved in 2023.

We had both short-term and long-term projects identified in there.

Um, there are a few projects that we would like to look at in the coming year.

Um, the Koontz Lane parcel.

We want to kind of continue monitoring the success of closing those areas off, um, how some of the reveg is doing.

We may need to make adjustments, add fencing, uh, make sure that that effort was really successful.

Um, the OHV area, as I mentioned, we're out there once a week.

That continues to be a place where we spend our time putting in fencing and signage where needed, just to really try to control travel where we don't want it and make sure we're preserving and protecting our resources.

Um we'll be looking at the Golden Eagle open space, which is kind of part of Prison Hill.

Um, there's some rehabilitation needs out there, so there's definitely some Prison Hill projects identified.

Um, marina's got quite a few uh restoration and revegetation projects identified.

She talked about that mastication at Riverview and the subsequent noxious weed treatments.

Um, Prison Hill East is an area we will turn our attention to.

Um there's a need to kind of do some more seeding and planting in that area, try to get some more vegetation established.

Um, Seahill, um there's some areas that we've got our eye on, and then she mentioned those jump drone trials.

So busy with reveg.

We have all kinds of routine maintenance activities identified here, everything from mosquito abatement and coordination with health and and stormwater to our trailhead maintenance, erosion control, fuel reduction, road repair, all those kind of things I highlighted in the annual report.

Um I mentioned Silver Saddle Ranch.

So, in addition to looking at some of those structures and the Red House specifically and seeing kind of some improvements that it needs.

Um, there's also tons of fencing out there that's in need of repair, a lot of um barbed wire that needs to be replaced.

There's lots of um willow removal I mentioned, um ongoing weed management, and um just kind of taking a closer look at those buildings and implementing priority repairs on them, like painting, things like that.

Um definitely some robust volunteer um priorities in the next year.

As far as planning activities are concerned, I mentioned it was the 30th anniversary of quality of life.

Um, so we are gonna have a celebration at Silver Saddle Ranch.

I think the date is October 24th.

So mark your calendars, but also be sending more formal information out from there.

We want to do some videos and highlight in our newsletter and just really celebrate the fact that it's been 30 years.

We um are had some stickers made.

Um, so just really trying to celebrate that amazing accomplishment.

Um, as far as Buzzies Ranch is concerned, now that we have the water rights, there's gonna be some more work that needs to be done.

We have a management plan.

We brought it before OSAC several years ago.

Um, we brought it to the board as well.

We did not finalize it at the time because there was still so much that was unknown regarding water rights.

Now that we have a lot of that more finalized, we're gonna be finalizing the management plan.

Ultimately, that's gonna be a tool for working with our um grazing operators to say that you know, these are the roles and responsibilities that they're doing versus what we're doing.

Um, just kind of spelling a lot of that out more in depth and and having um some better documents, guiding documents.

Same thing for Silver Saddle.

So both um need basically pasture agreements that spells out how those lands should be managed.

So we'll be getting those in place now that we have the water.

Um I mentioned the Carson River Master Plan.

We're in the writing phase.

We are gonna be um finalizing that and bringing that um sometime in the next year as well.

All kinds of mapping.

Uh Marina is uh an amazing ArcGIS user.

She's able to make beautiful maps.

We have all kinds of um uh mapping priorities over the next year.

Um, the open space master plan, this is a new one I wanted to highlight.

So similar to all of our other master plans, the open space master plan was written in 2000.

We pretty much accomplished everything we set out to accomplish in that plan.

Um, just as we finish updating the Carson River Master Plan, it kind of highlights the need to update the open space master plan.

Um, you know, we've we've really transitioned from acquisition to now uh maintenance and management.

I think the plan needs to highlight that.

We also have some pretty outdated maps that identify those remaining acquisitions.

We would want to really update those maps and take a close look at what is remaining out there that if something comes up, we would want to jump on.

Um so there is a need to take a look at that map uh that master plan and make sure it's really meeting the needs of today and and celebrate everything that we've accomplished from the original uh original plan.

Um I mentioned the programmatic agreement a lot.

Some of you guys might know that, some of you might not.

So the programmatic agreement is a document we have with the State Historic Preservation Office, which oversees cultural resources in the state of Nevada.

Um the original programmatic agreement was very limiting in the kind of routine maintenance activities that we could do on open space.

They basically all required some form of cultural resource review, which is very timely and costly.

And so we've been working with um SHIPO for the last several years.

Ultimately, the goal is we're gonna have a list of exempt activities.

So um putting in a new gate, fence repair, um, you know, some fuel reduction in in in areas, um, maintaining trails and roads and trailheads, that kind of thing.

So building in some of those routine activities that really should not have been identified as requiring that cultural review.

So that's been a long project.

You know, anything with these types of agreements does take time.

We are currently on the like 10-yard finish line.

Um, so I may even be finishing that before um the next fiscal year.

But there would be a lot of kind of backlog of work we haven't been able to do.

Once we get that finalized, we'll be kind of unleashed to be able to go and do all kinds of stuff, um, especially out at Silver Saddle.

So very excited for that project.

Um I think with that, that's kind of the most of our projects.

Um, we do have a bunch of trail priorities identified here.

Greg is is sitting here if anyone has trail questions, but ultimately I did want to highlight going back to the mapping.

We we have some um some great mapping efforts that we're pursuing.

We had done a west side trails map.

Um now we're working on an east side trails map.

Um so we're really trying to get maps out so we can educate the community about all of our great trails and how they can access them.

Um we want to update the multi-use routes map.

We want to update the West Side Trails map.

So a lot of kind of getting the word out and um getting information out to the community about trails.

So those are the highlights from the work plan.

Um with that, I will take any uh questions.

And I do also want to just mention for your packet, um, exhibit B has a list of all of our open space properties, exhibit C is a map of all of our open space properties, and then exhibit D is that opportunities map I had mentioned.

So that's all dates all the way back from 2000.

It it identifies all the potential acquisitions that are remaining.

Um, and that is in super need of an update because we have since acquired some of them.

Some of them may no longer kind of meet our priorities, so um, that'll definitely be a high priority as part of the open space master plan update.

So, anyways, that I will take any questions.

Great.

Thank you.

This time we'll start down on the right.

Like comments, questions.

Did have one question on like maintenance.

Um, there's a lot of thinning at the lakevie uh park.

Who's doing that?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So we work in cooperation with the Carson City Fire Department, especially for anything on the west side because they do have funding to help support those efforts.

And then especially any time we're getting into like Timbered Forested area, we definitely defer to them.

They have the expertise to successfully implement those thinning projects.

But yes, that was a big priority for them to help protect the Lakeview neighborhood.

Yeah, it's a heck of a project.

We're moving a lot.

So thank you.

Great report.

Thanks.

I don't have any questions.

Thank you.

Oh good.

We put Charles Nori Muscle Power Ordinary.

But you're your mic on.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You're okay.

Uh no, we we've been putting out a map for quite a long time.

Now it's pretty well dated.

Our uh trails map, the muscle power trails map.

And everything on there that says proposed now exists.

So there's that, but we still have to make a new map.

So a Greg Berger and Charles coordinator for the record.

Um I think you're referring to the multi-use routes map.

Yes, yes.

So uh we actually have um Endor is partnering with us on that.

They have a GIS specialist that's working on that right now.

We uh our our guy, uh not Britt, but uh Jeremy, uh our our GIS specialist, he's also working on uh a new edition of that map.

My only other comment would be that 88 parcel in Afghanistan.

Uh that is that is important.

And yeah, it's it's amazing how fat like we've been looking at and look all of a sudden it came up.

Uh but I think the downside of not getting it is worse than the upside of getting it.

It's it's really important that that get preserved because that the downside should be uh chaos up there.

Yeah, member member Wiggins for the record on exhibit B, kind of the math one.

I noticed at the bottom right in your grand totals, the cost per acre was off.

It looks like someone did some instead of divide by acreage.

So maybe correct that number.

Um and then on the exhibit with the open space opportunities.

This is a question.

Uh the state of Nevada are is there any risk of them selling properties?

Um are we actively monitoring these type of things?

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

Um thank you for identifying a math error.

Um always appreciate when someone points that out.

So I will get that fixed before we won't be bringing this to the board, I guess, specifically, but I'll make sure it's it's corrected for our records.

As far as state lands is concerned, um, yes, there are several parcels.

Um, you know, going back to really needing to update the open space opportunities map.

There are several um state-owned parcels, especially on Prison Hill, um, in and around Moffitt, um, a few other areas throughout the city that that we definitely have our eye on.

And we do have close communication with the state.

Um, we also have Board of Supervisors members who are also aware and kind of tracking that and also have relationships with the state.

So, you know, if for example, those parcels um on prison hill ever came up for sale, we would want to move on those like uh right away.

Um, and so there are definitely ones that we keep our our eye on and um make that interest known for sure.

Okay, my turn.

A few questions.

Uh that program the agreement.

Stay out of that word.

Uh will it be done before you move on and retire?

I mean, you see it's been years.

Can you without being a problem, explain that a little bit maybe, but you don't need to if it if it's not something you want to say.

Yeah.

Lindsey Boyer for the record.

So yeah, I mentioned anytime you're dealing with agreements, um, it just takes time.

And we we've been working with consultants on this, and they've said they've seen programmatic agreements take like 10 years.

So ours is only taken maybe four years, so we're actually ahead of the curve.

Um, there's just been there's so many partners who are part of it.

I mean, Shippo is a signatory, the Washoe tribe, the BLM, Carson City.

There's been interest from the Historic Resources Commission.

Um a million drafts going back and forth with Shippo.

Um there at one point SHIPO had lost their like director, and then they had to get a new person, and we had to kind of get them up to speed.

So they're just, you know, every kind of thing that could happen has happened.

But um at this point, we have an approved document.

We just have one tiny little thing to finish, and then I hope to bring that to the board.

Um, I hope to bring it in in May.

We may be looking at June or July, but we're we're very close.

So um, yes, definitely before I am of retirement age, we'll have this in place, which is great.

I think it's important you explain that the board understands those agreements are not easy.

So they're weldy, I guess would be somewhere.

Then my next question was can Carson River Corridor be a starry sky place too, or that's probably best one there is, maybe.

Maybe I've never been down there in the middle of the night, though.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we have um we had landed on Silver Saddle first, and then we kind of branched out to Prison Hill because it's right there, and then why we didn't consider the river corridor, I don't know.

We haven't applied yet, so I think we have room to expand that to however it makes sense.

I think the only challenge with the river corridor is you do start getting into adjacent residence, which we don't control.

About the canyon.

Oh, the canyon.

I'm sorry, just the well, yeah, the canyon for sure.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.

I will make sure that we um discuss that with Endor.

Cool.

And then your pasture pasture management.

Um, do you guys work with one any specific um agency that knows more about pasture and cattle than you guys would be expected?

I'm sure you're learning a lot about it, but who who's the partner in that?

Yeah, great question.

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So um we worked with resource concepts, and they've got some great folks over there who understand um grazing and pasture management uh much better than I do.

So they are the ones that did the Buzys Ranch Management Plan and the Silver Saddle Ranch Pasture Agreement.

So we really relied on them and their expertise because they bridge that gap of understanding kind of the grazing side of things while also bringing in the regenerative ag and making sure that things are sustainable, and so kind of getting us to where we need to be on the ranches, you know, managing for the the grasses and the vegetation and then also the landscape health.

So that helps explain to people when you're working in these plans and agreements that there's multiple levels and multiple agencies that get involved more than most people would understand that so and you guys have done a really good chop job with partnerships and talking to the right people to get it done.

So another accolade.

And then um the open space map.

Um is there a piece of paper somewhere that has the points?

So that if you show this piece, it had this score, this piece had this score, so that would set priorities, and we'd understand that the ones that were looking on the map, this is like the highest priority right now for now, but with people understanding priorities change.

Um just a thought um that would help us understand that better, I think.

That is a fantastic suggestion.

We currently do not have that.

So the the open space opportunities map that we have that's in your packet, that was from 2000, and it was basically every single open vacant parcel in Carson was identified as an opportunity, and then how we've been able to kind of um assess like the scoring is when something comes up for potential acquisition, we have an acquisition assessment form, um, which we would continue to do anyways, but it's kind of a deep dive into that particular parcel, and you look at the wildlife habitat, the migration corridors, if there's um you know, wetlands on site, things like that that would make it score higher, and then ultimately that comes out with a kind of a priority.

But given that we are planning on updating the open space master plan, and that there are a lot fewer parcels left.

I think that would actually be a great element to add to that map of a quick visual of like highest priority to you know, medium to lower.

So I love that suggestion.

Thank you.

I'm gonna run with that.

Did I get a star on my chart then?

Yes, gold star.

And then uh on that list of properties.

Is there any donated land?

Because I didn't see it on the piece of paper.

Maybe I missed it that it said donated, but I didn't remember seeing that.

So are but are there any properties that have been given to open space?

Yes.

So if you look at um exhibit B under the column that says Carson City question 18, there are a few in there that say donation instead of a value.

Um, and so yes, there were several properties that that had been donated to us over the years.

Um I mentioned Moffitt, that was one of our first ones.

Um there's one called the PHKC Preserve, which is over um on the west side.

Let's see, Vidler Open Space, we named specifically because Vidler Water Company donated that property to us.

The Washoe wetlands, which some people may know as the Lampa wetlands, that was a donation.

So that's kind of how that's highlighted.

Maybe in the future I could call that out in bold or something, just so we can really highlight it.

But the font size probably had me very much.

Size two fonts to the state lands uh in the past, there was a opportunity.

Well, there was tried to be an opportunity.

A huge piece of property with up near Timberline.

I can't remember the name of that canyon is where the trails go up on the left.

Huh?

Vicey Canyon.

Is that it?

I think it might be Vicey Canyon.

It's just a big hole right now with all the DG that's gone down the mountain.

But state lands was trying to sell that.

And uh there was some it didn't work out with the planning commission, I would say, I guess, about what the plans were in the future.

So and then there's laws about the state lands that are in their trust funds, and there's these rules, just like we you've been talking about, all these different levels of responsibility.

So the VT trail right away.

I didn't see it on the list, Greg, but that was part of that was state lands too that we were working towards.

And I thought you got that piece from Nevada State Lands.

Greg Bergen for the record.

Uh yes, the part of it that state lands, we have a license for that.

That's what it is.

Segment of trail.

We're still um, there's still a couple of other privately owned parcels along that, like you um where the where the trail is and um so we're just waiting for opportunities.

So I didn't see it on the list, all those tons of trail projects.

Well, it's just because it's it's not it's not a specific trail project because we don't have an easement or ownership, but it's always it's always on our list for an easement when the opportunity arises.

You heard it here, folks.

Thank you.

That was enough questions, I think.

Um great report as usual and lightning that you guys uh carry lots of hats or wear a lot of hats.

We don't care, I mean we wear them.

Okay, so is there any other comments from or questions from here before I call for public comment?

Just one quick comment.

Um, I definitely agree with the Ash Canyon acquisition.

Please always jump on these things without waiting for a meeting when there's opportunity, and that's it.

That's a good point to be made.

Okay.

Uh calling public comment.

So it's an action item, Danny.

You're up.

No.

Oh, great.

Okay.

I don't mean great, I just meant thank you.

All right, five D.

Discussion of possible action regarding a recommendation of the Board of Supervisors in the fiscal year 2027 open space budget.

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So now that we just talked about all the stuff we're gonna do, now we're gonna talk about kind of the money side of that.

Um, just some quick education reminders for you guys.

So the open space program, as I mentioned, is funded from the quality of life um funding.

We have acquired like 76 million dollars since 1996 from that fund and is divvied up um throughout our department.

So uh open space receives 40% of that annual revenue.

40% of that goes towards parks capital projects, and 20% of that goes towards parks maintenance.

Um and so of that 40% that that we receive every year, um, it's about 1.6, 1.7-ish in um sales tax revenue, um, fiscal year 25, which is the the last year that we can have like a a completed known number.

It was um just under 1.7 for fiscal year 26, which is what we're in now, we're anticipating it'll be about um the same.

You know, obviously this is dependent on um sales tax and the economy and how much people are are buying, but um we do tend to have kind of a slow growth um in the amount of revenue that we're receiving each year, and then ultimately that ends up being kind of the the annual budget that we can work with.

Um we don't receive any funds from the general fund, so the general fund uh supports uh portions of parks, uh, fire Carson City Sheriff, treasurer's all you know, all the other functions of the city.

Um we are solely funded just from the quality of life initiative.

And um one thing that is unique about our um budget is that it's not a use it or lose it situation.

So any monies that are unspent um roll over into what we call an undesignated account, and then that ends up being kind of our rainy day account that we can use for grant match or land acquisitions as they arise.

And then that ends up being kind of our rainy day account that we can use for grant match or land acquisitions as they arise.

So that's kind of our budget situation.

I have a million budget documents in here for your guys' edification.

I'll start with exhibit A.

This is kind of just a high-level snapshot of the open space budget.

Here you can see starting out with like our salaries and benefits for all of our staff.

I want to note that you know it's not just the open space staff that we support.

We're supporting portions of other people in the department because we are all one department and we all help each other.

So for example, we we get support from our department director, from our business manager, from our office specialists, you know, all these other staff that are helping to support the functions of our division.

So we do pay a portion of their salary.

Um that also works in other directions.

So for example, part of Greg's salary is from the general fund.

So only 75% comes from open space because he does work on projects citywide.

So we try to make sure that those funds are kind of fairly spread out based on how people are functioning throughout the department.

Um change this year, we propose that 5% of my salary come from parks capital.

Um that's because I do support some parks grants.

So for example, the Mills Park grant, I help to write that.

I'm I'm helping to manage portions of it.

So to make sure that that's fair and it's not coming out of open spaces budget.

We've allocated a small portion of my salary to help support some of those efforts because I have the experience to manage the grants and can do that for our department.

Um, one really exciting thing that I want to highlight, uh the volunteer coordinator that we've been singing her praises this evening, Erin Larson.

We did propose to reclass her position to community outreach coordinator.

So, in addition to all the amazing volunteer efforts, she's also been kind of our de facto like marketing person for the department.

She's working on social media, she's updating our website, she's getting the word out.

Um, she's starting to get into like press releases and all kinds of things.

So her duties because she's a communications major and she's so successful and capable, her duties started to kind of expand just beyond volunteer management.

And we also saw that that was a uh a big need for our department.

So we're reclassing her position to be kind of more broad.

She'll still have the volunteer component, but then she'll bring in all of those other kind of marketing and outreach components that the department needs as well.

So that's another example.

So 79% of her salary will continue to come from open space because so many of those volunteer projects are in open space, but then um her salary will be diversified from other funding sources throughout the department because she's working department-wide.

Um, some other changes this year.

So we have our two seasonals.

Um we we had a really high budget in there, but we were really never coming close to that based on how many hours our seasonals can work per year.

And we only have plans to have two right now.

We don't have plans to have any more.

So I just corrected that to be a little bit more reflective of what the annual cost is going to be.

Um, as far as machinery and equipment is concerned, um, we are um looking to purchase a masticator attachment for our mini excavator that will help with all the mowing and willow removal and and fuel reduction we do along the ditch.

So that's a piece of equipment we're proposing to purchase this year.

And then this document just kind of walks you through some of our biggest uh line items.

So, for example, professional services.

This is basically the account we use for all of our ongoing contractual services, whether it be portable restroom rentals, um, restroom cleaning services, our cultural resource review, water rights consultation, other consulting and contracting services, um, trail building, equipment rentals, um 50,000 of this fund came to support the Carson River Master Plan amendment.

Um, and then we've also allocated 75,000 for the future open space master plan amendment.

So that's a big uh line item for us.

The next biggest one, maintenance management.

This is basically the catch all for like 99% of the things that we do in open space.

So that's buying project supplies, whether it's native plants, herbicide, um, if we're buying signage, tools, small equipment, materials, fencing, signposts, all of those kinds of things.

That's all coming out of our maintenance management accounts.

Um that, like I said, that's kind of a catch-all for a lot of the activities we do.

Um, operating supplies.

This is one where we capture our volunteer program expenses like volunteer swag and other volunteer appreciation.

We also share all the park ranger expenses, 50-50 with parks.

So whether that's their uniforms or their safety equipment, anything to kind of support that park ranger program because they're working department wide.

So they come out of that account.

We have a pretty decent travel and training budget.

I always support staff attending professional development opportunities where they can, especially conferences.

So we had staff go to a lot of conferences this year.

So we we definitely keep those in the budget.

We never know when those are going to arise or where they might be.

So we keep some money in the pot for that.

Same thing, park rangers, we split those travel training costs 50%.

There are a few line items within the budget that kind of multiple departments are paying into, one of them being fire suppression.

So we are just one of several that pay into that pot that basically when and if there's a fire, there are funds to support that effort.

So that's one line item that can't be adjusted by the committee.

It just kind of is a set amount.

The Horse Creek Ranch stewardship management account.

There was a $50,000 endowment that came along with that conservation easement when we acquired that.

We've spent uh like just under 3,000 of that.

So we have about 47,000 remaining.

This is another one that can't be adjusted by the committee.

It's a pot that we keep in case there are something that comes up at Horse Creek Ranch that we would want to support.

As far as inmate payroll is concerned, we don't utilize inmate labor that often, but we do sometimes, especially for larger projects.

So we do earmark a little bit of funding for that.

Um the ISC general fund, another one where everyone's paying into a pot.

That line item can't be adjusted by the committee.

It's basically all the other departments that help support our function, like finance, IT, city manager, that kind of thing.

Um fleet management, same thing, managing our fleet, that's another set item.

And then just the the two last ones, capital improvements.

So this is anytime we have a grant project, um, we kind of put those, we earmark those grant fundings in the capital improvement, so we know that that's where those monies are going to come out of.

I do have one correction here from when we um from when I wrote this.

Um I had written that we had two recreational trail grants.

Um, we were only awarded one of them for centennial.

So it's actually going to be closer to 20,000 in match, not um 44,000.

Um, but this is really where we earmark a lot of our our matching funds, and then just the funds that we'll use for those grant projects.

I mentioned that there's going to be some water rights that we'll have to pick up out of this grant, the Ash Canyon Flap uh project that that Greg was talking about.

We do have some match allocated to that project.

So very kind of grant and match focused in that line item.

And then I mentioned that undesignated account again.

Anytime we don't spend any of those line items or any of the ones I haven't mentioned goes into this pot, the pot just continues to grow, and we use it as our rainy day fund.

Um so as of right now, the kind of current estimate of what's remaining in there after our 2026 water right acquisitions is about two million.

So that's kind of high level.

Um, some of the other exhibits I included in your packet are all just kind of more for your edification.

So uh exhibit B, for example, this is a snapshot of the budget, um, all the different line items that we have, um, kind of what is actually spent versus like what we anticipate expending.

So I want to just highlight the fiscal year 2025 actuals and the fiscal year 24 actuals.

Um, if you're curious about like what we actually spend in a year, those would be the columns to look at.

Um, it kind of just gives you a sense of of actually what's being spent each year on salaries as well as kind of all these miscellaneous line items.

Exhibit C just kind of shows you our five-year CIP plan.

So these are a lot of the projects that we have in the queue, maybe not for next year, but for future years.

Um, so we just kind of keep this as a running list so we can kind of prioritize when and how we're gonna fund some of these projects and make sure that they are on our radar for the future.

Um attached to that same thing.

We have our open space equipment fleet.

So as things start to reach their useful life, we're identifying when they need to be replaced.

Um, and then just an example of the capital improvement projects that were approved for the current fiscal year that we're in right now, which included water rights, um, a piece of equipment called a dingo, which is gonna be a really versatile tool that we'll be able to use throughout open space, and then some asphalt repair at Morgan Mill.

Um, I included an org chart in here so you can see that community outreach coordinator and where she'll fit in shifting things around a little bit.

She's going to be reporting directly to Jen.

The idea is that because of those marketing and outreach duties, um, bringing in kind of the department wide lens that Jen can bring.

She'll still be working with Marina very closely on the volunteer side of things, but um making sure that she has kind of a department-wide um lens to look through.

And then the final exhibit is just an overall quality of life fund snapshot.

So if you're just curious about um kind of the other funds, the parks capital, the parks maintenance, you can see all of the funds that are coming in, um, how that interest revenue works versus our expenses.

Um Boys and Girls Club, for example, does receive a portion from parks maintenance every year.

So you can just kind of see how the overall fund is divvied up.

So I recognize that that is a lot of information I threw at you.

But uh with that, I will take any questions.

Okay.

Is it are we going to be tested at the end of the evening?

Jay, we're starting with you this time.

Good.

Sam.

Are some of these reclassifications for staff like title and is it to justify a raise in their salary and to keep them on board?

Do we need to do that?

Um, or is and and independent of the individual, is the position that is there, is it consistent where if we were to lose Aaron, for example, not to use the distribution as an example.

That position is still gonna be consistent with our operation and and that need.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um I would say the answer to both of those questions is yes.

So part of the reason for doing a reclass is um often when someone's position starts to creep and they start to have more duties, and we recognize that they're doing things that might not have been originally identified, but because of their skill set, you know, they're able to do that.

So on one hand, it is correcting that, but on the other hand, those duties started to creep because they were a need within the department.

And so, yes, even if Aaron were to go away, the position would still remain because we recognize that we need to have kind of someone who is in charge of overall marketing and outreach for the department, along with kind of the community engagement volunteer side of things.

So it's I think it's a natural progression of how our department has kind of developed over time that we have kind of such an amazing presence in the community now that we kind of need someone to be in charge of all of that and getting the word out about all the great things we're doing.

Thank you.

So, this is the hard work I think that we need to be doing.

And my opinion is that we should support this.

But if we were to look at this over a 10 or 20 year window from now, how much bigger does the open space operation of Carson City get?

And is the budget gonna be able to support that?

Um, I mean, are we are we staying within the bounds of what was thought about in 1996?

Um are we creeping?

You know, are we are we are we doing the right thing there with regard to to budget and cost control, those kinds of things?

Yeah, excellent question.

Um couple things.

So we have about 1.7-ish coming in every year.

We are never spending that.

Right.

So we always have three to 400,000 that we're socking away in that undesignated every year.

It's how we've been able to grow that undesignated account to have that rainy day.

So that's one piece that as of you know, as of right now, we are still having an annual savings.

Um, another thing to mention, you know, this year we we started really looking at positions and figuring out, you know, if they are operating in a more global way, how can we make sure that they're being compensated from other parts so that open space is not carrying the burden of that?

Um so, like with the community outreach reclass, for example, we we were paying 91% of Aaron's salary.

Now we're only paying 79 because parts of that are being picked up through the general fund um through parks capital through other project uh project funds that aren't open space.

Um but then uh as far as kind of just open space growth is concerned.

Um I feel like right now we've finally gotten to a point where we're pretty fully staffed.

Um, you know, getting the the maintenance staff that we have, getting some kind of part-time intern help, all of those have been kind of goals over the years that have finally come to fruition.

I feel like for the next few years, I want to be stable.

Um I want to just kind of see how that is working, um, make sure that you know, heading into any sort of uh uh uh uh economic uncertainty that we're kind of just remaining status quo.

There could be in the future a need for other maintenance staff, but right now our our maintenance team feels pretty good and comfortable with what they've got.

Um we've looked at the need maybe in the future for more natural resource staff to help Marina because as you guys saw, she's got 99 projects going on.

So there are these things that are in the back of our mind.

Um, but right now we just want to kind of s remain where we're at and and see how that works and get some of these big projects like water rights under our belt and done so that we can just kind of focus on more of the the status quo.

I so if if our revenue is static, roughly right around the 1.7 salaries aren't static.

We have a we have baked in some cost of living increases.

I mean, that's got to be a significant thing on your plate as a manager.

Um is there room for that in in these analysis, or you feel like we're we haven't like I I see that in every year's budget we've spent less than in every case.

I'm I just know what it's like to make payroll.

I know what cost of living increases need to look like, and are we able to keep people and um just making sure that that's worked into this budget when it when it's no longer when it's more than 1.7 um I I guess that it won't ever be more than that, or incrementally, how does it what how does it increase?

Yeah, so it's one quarter one percent of sales tax, so it's all coming from sales tax revenue of stuff purchased in Carson City, so that's why everyone should buy their cars here.

Oh, yes, any big you know, purchase, buy your groceries, get your gas, all those things, you know, um should I always say people should come to Carson to buy them.

They're also often cheaper, but um, so yeah, it it does grow um incrementally over time.

Like I think a few years ago we were sitting at like 1.5, 1.6.

And so it is growing each year, but I also recognize that um the economy can change and and people's spending habits can change.

And so um there is a possibility that that can fluctuate over time.

I think as far as the cost of living and the salary increases are concerned, that's something that citywide as they're creating our um you know, cost of living increases that those are being budgeted on a citywide level to ensure that we have sufficient budget to be making those decisions to determine yes, we can do you know, such a percent of colas and things like that.

So um I feel comfortable where we are now, especially knowing that we do have that excess each year, and then also we do have that rainy day fund if something were to happen.

Um, but I also once we get through water rights, and if we get this very important 80-acre parcel, which hopefully that will be almost all funded through grants, um we're gonna be kind of slowing down in our expenses because I I do worry about all of these things as well.

Last thing kind of tongue in cheek.

Um Jennifer is not here to support this, but she's okay with that 5% coming from parks in in your your isn't your salaries like was that that's brand new for us right now.

It's 95 us.

Yeah, it was we slipped that in while she was gone.

It was her idea.

Okay.

It was her idea.

So no, she recognizes that I am um helping department wide, which is great.

We're all a team.

Um, but she does not want open space to be paying for parks projects.

So that was her idea to make sure that we were being fair.

Yes.

Blink.

Uh the only question I had was regarding the adjustment to Aaron.

And you you spoke on the drop to 79.

Thank you.

So as usual, I got a few.

So but I want to um follow up here with Keith that for years now, open space has discussed this spending versus maintenance.

And Jen has become very clear, we're not buying a bunch more land here because we need to maintain what we got.

So there's been a lot of discussion about that, Keith, so that they manage that so they don't end up with more staff than they got money to do anything else with, because that's not what that question money was about.

It was about purchasing.

But so, but they're doing an excellent job of balancing that so far.

And when they add staff, I when I was first part of this process, I I didn't figure they'd have more than about three staff.

So I think it's great what's going on.

And it's developed as the more properties come online and the responsibilities for maintenance and the moving to the resource side.

So they're covering all the bases.

So uh they they've been doing a good job with that.

So uh that was just a comment on top of that.

Um I read on there it was auto locks.

I just want to make a comment on auto locks on the bathroom.

The behind the bathroom becomes the bathroom, then so just always a thought.

Uh when you lock the bathroom door, they're gonna use these because they needed to do something.

So I would hope that there's some thought put into that before they end up with that kind of a mess, but uh just a little bit of experience.

And then uh how do you pay for your signs interpretive panels?

I couldn't find that in the budget that those aren't cheap, so um, you're gonna answer that.

I'm sorry, I'm looking over there.

Oh, Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So um any of our signage or inter panels that's usually coming out of that maintenance management account, which is kind of a catch-all for everything.

But actually, we've had most of our inter panels funded through grants.

Cool.

Um, so usually if we can throw them in as part of a grant application, we do.

It's a great way to get education for to kind of couple with the project that we're working on.

Um, and then also be able to you know get that funded elsewhere.

So that's been kind of a model that we've been implementing the last couple years to to get those on board.

Now I might be an item behind, but I was I don't remember finding any mention of master plans through the SSR or the river corridor.

Uh were they in there and some part of this paperwork and like in the work program or so Silver Saddle Ranch Master Plan's been on our radar for a really long time.

Then we kind of took a detour to Carson River Master Plan.

Now we're detouring over to open space master plan.

So it probably should be on that like five year CIP list.

We might even be farther than five years out, though, honestly.

And I think getting the open space master plan is going to be a great foundation to then it'll probably identify Silver Saddle as a need and any other locations.

The Carson River Master Plan will ultimately be like uh an uh exhibit or some kind of a component of the overall open space master plan.

Same thing with the prison hill master plan, which we completed.

So those will all be under the umbrella of the Open Space Master Plan, which is in desperate need of being a good idea.

I misspoke again.

I'm talking about the canyon lands.

Oh, yeah.

So the Carson River Master Plan identifies the need for future Carson River Canyon planning.

Um it doesn't go in depth, so that would be another one, probably identified out of both of those efforts that someday we need to turn our attention to be forgotten.

It's just that they weren't in the in the notes today that I could find.

I was uh kudos to Erin.

It's because of her talent skills enthusiasm.

She made the position that way.

Um, if you had AmeriCorps sitting in there, that used to happen a lot for that position.

I don't know if they did that job, but I know they were part of it.

Um she needs to be getting accolades.

So I hope that with this new title, a new business card and a new door thing, that there's a raise involved with this because she stepped it up so much.

But that is all about her, and to replace her would be very difficult, I think.

Yeah, I hope she knows how much you appreciate when you get a pay raise.

That's always true, right?

And a new title.

Um, so I just had to say that so that she understands that we all understand that she's a real asset for this.

Um, another boo-boo that I made was the Burt and Ollie property.

I I didn't see that as yellow on the map, but that's an old map you said.

The grab pit.

Is it ever going to be on a list, or is it just like a no echo?

Because the choo choo is supposed to do something there too.

Yeah, that is um that's part of kind of an ongoing discussions we've been having with granite.

Um, there's some ideas about um because they own the mouth of the Carson River Court, Carson River Canyon corridor.

So um, there's some ideas about us potentially acquiring parts of that, and then maybe parts of the rifle range being used for mining.

So there's kind of a whole like plan that is um in the works that involves not only open space but parks, kind of a department-wide discussion.

There was some stuff included it or tried to be included in the lands bill that's going through right now.

So it's like that's kind of a it's a gen project, and it is a big project, and and there's a lot of discussions in the works, but it's a bit nebulous right now, perhaps too nebulous to put on a map.

But just know that there are some strategic discussions happening surrounding that.

I'd be good at that.

That's good that we asked that question.

So um maybe next year when this when you're working on the budgets, the CIP projects, if we took a tour, would be wonderful as a board to go look at those sites and have that discussion so that when we're sitting in here just not looking at paper, we've been there, touch, feel and smelted.

Um that's a long ways down the road, but it's just a recommendation.

Um I have a uh one that I've talked to about, and I don't know where it's gonna go, but I'm I use your prison hill trail a lot.

And that road up to that trailhead is terrible.

And I know I mentioned it before.

I would really hope somehow you could work with the city or work with the crews or get regrind or get something, because now there's three roads going up there, and more people park at the water towers, the water tanks, than the fancy trailhead because that road is terrible.

People park at the bottom.

It's like this island that's this beautiful trailhead that you need a four-wheel drive to get to.

So I've challenged Keith because he picked on me last time to bring his Porsche up there.

So I just wanted to make that comment one more time.

I'm sitting not as the chairman anymore, but as uh Jay's assistant.

Asking that question.

So I you don't need to answer it.

We're okay.

You just need to make that statement.

And I have a uh my last comment is has the budget that we just reviewed and make comments on already gone to the Board of Supervisors.

Lindsay Boyer for the record, yeah, that's a good question.

So because of our snow storm problem, normally you guys would have heard this all in February, which would have been well before anything went to the board, uh, because it's now April.

There has been one board meeting already where this information did go to them.

Um there's gonna be a second meeting in May where they ultimately finalize it.

So the the board has not approved the overall city budget, but all of this information has been conveyed to the board um initially, and so that's a function of kind of the snowstorm and and not being able to give you guys the presentation when we normally would, which is February.

So if uh was there any burning issues that you heard tonight that would need to be changed for that next meeting with the BOS I did not hear anything that needed to be changed, but if there's something that you heard, let me know.

No, that was a question actually.

Yeah, I didn't have a little note to say this should be in the budget, but there's some narrative that could isn't as important as the dollar numbers per column.

So we're so I don't is it still an action item if if we're passing something that isn't going to says to the board of supervisors on there.

I think so.

We say they have finalized.

Yeah, there's still there ratify it.

There's still one more meeting, so it's not a finalized, so I would say that it still makes sense to see the to make a motion.

Make a motion for good measure.

Yeah, all right.

Well, then we'll look for uh it to be an exit, keep it an action item, I guess then.

Uh uh, and there any other comments and questions after I spent my five minutes or some more actually.

Uh so if there's no more questions, public comment for this, it is an action item.

Thank you.

I just want to say Denny French Carson City, Nevada, how much I have uh picked up through this meeting.

I appreciate it very much and all the work that's gone behind and all um I hadn't heard or read anything about the fuel consumption situation.

Uh was that fuel under maintenance or equipment or how does that fit in there?

I didn't see me fuel for the vehicles.

Vehicles.

Well, do you have any more questions for staff so I can direct that to them from here instead?

Was that a I see I'm not allowed to question staff?

No, you can question me.

Give me the question.

Is there anything else?

Could you well that's just the fuel um where it fit into the budget?

Okay, and also I just want to appreciate um uh Mr.

Commissioner Schaefer's question about us living in our means.

I brought that up at the supervisor meeting.

Uh you know, we're growing very fast, but we're not getting the income yet from the sales that we would like to help support open space and such.

And so um, but for the city as a general.

So I appreciate the fact that you finited it, you put it there for people to see.

I appreciate that very much.

But uh I am concerned about some of the uh the issues as far as changes and fluctuations and that rainy day money might be coming really in handy handy soon, unfortunately.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll let you answer the you guys have your own fuel tanks, or do you go to the Chevron station?

Lindsay Boyer for the record, there is a line item within our budget for vehicle fuel.

And uh there are special gas stations that we go to.

The CFNs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's something that didn't know in your budget that price of gas going up.

So I'm diesel.

Oh, diesel and nuts.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

They're gonna have to be pushing their cars around for a while here after while zero.

Okay, so it's back to the committee.

Is there any more comments or questions and the call for a question?

Anyone make a motion for me?

I'll move to recommend to the board of supervisors the budget for a fiscal year 2027 as presented.

Did I get a second?

Second?

Second key.

Any more discussion?

Seeing none called for the question, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

None.

Unanimous.

I'm gonna ask the board uh if you want to take a five-minute break or not, or we move ahead.

We're all good.

Okay.

Staff updates.

Where are we at?

Where Marina come up and sat down.

Oh, you're second on there after the director.

You had to sit here all this time to give that report.

So we're on 6A.

The director, huh?

The horse growth report.

Five A.

Oh.

Yeah, you know.

Are you looking at an old agenda?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm looking at the agenda from the meeting that we did.

From February.

Yeah.

So we tacked on Horse Creek Ranch, which is item 5E.

So well, I'm not prepared for that one.

So uh can you read that?

Let the chairman do it.

Got the agenda from February or whatever.

That's funny.

Yeah, February 17th.

Different time zone.

Can you read that for the record?

Sure.

Uh for possible action.

Discussion and possible action regarding the annual monitoring report for the Horse Creek Ranch Conservation Easement for 2025.

Yeah, and I remember seeing that in the email I got.

I just printed there on.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're on.

For the record, Marina Lovejoy, Senior Natural Resource Specialist.

So Lindsay a little while ago mentioned the Old Woods Ranch Conservation Easement and explained a little bit about what a conservation easement is.

So we acquired this conservation easement, Lindsay, in 2008.

Quite a while ago, almost 30 years ago.

20 years ago.

Long before you were working.

In any case, we have had this responsibility for monitoring this conservation easement for quite a while now.

And so what that entails is we go up there at least annually to conduct this monitoring effort and to make sure that the landowner is in compliance with the tenants of the conservation easement.

All conservation easements function a little bit differently, but generally they serve to retain the conservation values of the land.

And so we purchase the development rights from of that property.

So it cannot be you know subdivided or developed outside of a specific building envelope that does exist for the property that Lindsay will speak on here in a little bit.

So essentially there's a number of things that we look at to make sure that the landowner has remained in compliance with that conservation easement.

And long story short, um they are in compliance um still to this day.

So that's great news.

So my intern, Travis and I went up there in October of last year to conduct the monitoring.

It takes several hours.

Things are looking uh pretty good.

There are several natural resource concerns that we um continue to monitor and make note of year to year.

Um so to um to begin providing recommendations to the landowner.

Uh we have provided recommendations ourselves as well as uh met with NRCS.

That was in maybe 2024, the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Um we are hoping to continue discussing with NRCS their recommendations for the property and receive a very detailed comprehensive um natural resource plan for the property.

Uh we're waiting on that.

But that will entail, you know, a number of conservation practices that the landowners could engage in to kind of restore some of these degraded natural resources up there.

And those specifically the forest health, it's pretty dense and thick up there.

And so those are things, and not to mention, you know, the fuel hazard up there.

Those are things that we would like to see addressed.

The pasture is grazed by cattle annually.

And so there's been some degradation there to pasture health.

We would like to see some improvements made there.

So just things that you know, over time, as the land is being worked and utilized, there's things that could be done to kind of you know uh get us back in a direction for improved natural resource health up there.

Um we do have plans to meet on site with the Nevada Division of Forestry this summer.

Uh they um will need to update the forest stewardship plan for the property that was created when we acquired the conservation easement.

Um so that is out of date, and we would like to see that updated, and that's a function of the division of forestry to update that.

Um all that being said, um, you know, we're keeping keeping um a close eye on things up there.

Um we do annual monitoring, um, and so we'll just keep um plugging away and and coordinating with the landowner.

Um, but I will let Lindsay talk a little bit about um the uh build site.

Lindsay Boyer, open space manager for the record.

So um, in addition to looking at the natural resources and the conservation values and the wildlife habitat and kind of all the things that you'll read in in the report that Marina put together.

You will probably remember from April of last year, we had the landowner come and give a presentation about the home site that they were looking to build, and um, we kind of reviewed and approved that plan.

It had gone to the planning commission as well.

So after all of that, um, I think they determined that some of the requirements to build that home site was going to require um some major improvements to the road.

The road was going to need to be paved, it was going to need to be widened, they were gonna have to remove like a lot of trees that they were not feeling super good about having to remove that many trees.

Um so ultimately they have kind of pivoted.

Um, they are no longer going to be constructing those homes, at least for now.

Um, and they are now just looking to make some improvements to the existing historic cabins that are on site, which have been on site.

Um I think one of them is over a hundred years old.

Um within the easement, they're totally allowed to make improvements to those cabins to preserve and protect them.

Um so it's all within what they're um what they're proposing, is all compliant with the easement, but um I think they're hoping that that way they they have a place where they can go and enjoy the space without having to to kind of create such an impact to the land through development.

So um that plan is continuing continuing to work its way through community development as well.

There may be another different plan in the future, and we'll just continue to keep you updated.

But um, for now, that's kind of the the direction they're headed.

Um, but ultimately the the conclusion is that they're they're compliant with the easement.

You know, we we look at these natural resource concerns and we make um suggestions and we're helping to connect them with the right agencies um to help support those efforts, but as far as the tenants of the easement are concerned, they're in compliance.

So I think with that, we'll take any questions.

Which side breaks Blake, any comments?

I'm sorry, I don't want to prolong the meeting, but some of the provisions that are the conditions of approval or what the owner has to do, or the things that you report on where you say the owner is in compliance.

Um there's a conservation easement recorded on a property like that.

Um the requirements to maintain those certain items, is that at the cost of the owner?

They like the stream erosion that you were showing, and you know, and I suppose the cattle grazing is something that they're gonna have to manage better, right?

Because part of that conservation easement is to maintain it in a in a good pleasing community asset way, but is that at the cost of the owners to do all of that?

Marina Lovejoy for the record.

Um, I'll start answering that question and then I'll let Lindsay probably take over.

Um ultimately, yes.

And there is an endowment account, almost 50,000 that was um established when the property initially entered into a conservation easement.

And so that money has been set aside and not really touched for a number of years.

That money could be used by the landowner to do this work.

Uh Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So to answer your question, I mean, ultimately, it is their private property that they maintain.

Um, as long as they're compliant with the easement, they're not required necessarily to do the stream bank things because that that's just an example.

That's not specifically identified in the easement as like thou shall not um have stream bank erosion.

So these are suggestions that we're providing to them.

The stewardship account is a money endowment that was donated to Carson City to hold as part of the easement.

So if for whatever reason the landowner wasn't able to make an improvement, or we felt like there was some reason why we needed to go in there and use that, there is money that Carson City can use to implement some of these projects.

Um, most of the improvements that they have made or that they will make will um will be their expense to to have.

Um, or there may be grants that we can connect them with, like NRCS and other funding sources that can help offset some of those costs that they um might not be familiar with, you know, some of these projects.

So ultimately that stewardship account is there so that you know, if we, the conservation easement holder need to step in for whatever reason, we have money that is set aside dedicated to the property outside of our quality of life Q18 funds.

And that money that was set aside came from the original um owner of the property.

So it's since been sold once to somebody else, but when they when we did the conservation easement, they gave us 50 grand on top of that.

So I hope that answers the question.

Okay.

That stewardship account uh looking at the budget, it looks like $3,000 has been spent since it's been donated to the city.

Is that sitting um in some low risk investment fund, or is that just the money there and no one can touch it?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, so it is in its own account dedicated to just Horse Creek Ranch, so it couldn't be utilized for any other property or any other purpose.

Um, but it's funny that you mentioned the like the interest piece because I was thinking like this maybe should be in an interest bearing account.

So that was actually something that I noted I was gonna follow up with our finance team about.

Thank you.

Uh question on the monitoring schedule.

It always looks good to use the same time of year.

The originals were in February.

Not a good time to probably go out there potentially with winter, but uh this gets to my question.

Are these surprise visits you do?

Are you just gonna try and do it in October every year?

And you can kind of get it what I'm asking.

Is a surprise visit, maybe a little randomly, you might see something different than what if you give a month's notice will be there on this date.

So just curious how you handle, and maybe it's a general statement for this easement and others.

Um Marina Lovejoy for the record.

Um, I'll probably start that question and have Lindsay help me a little bit.

Um there they're not surprise visits other than I give a hopefully a week or two notice.

Sometimes the landowner wants to be there and hear what I have to say and what I think, um, which I definitely encourage because I want to hear, you know, what they are noticing as well.

Um I don't think that our uh tact is to try and have any gotcha moments with the landowners.

We want to be working in partnership with them for the conservation of this property.

Um but I it's a point well received that yes, the original monitoring photos were taken in February.

Um and that was probably out of our control.

I of course wasn't working here at the time.

Um, but the conservation easement timeline can kind of take a long time or happen fairly quickly, and you just kind of need to get those photos when you can get those photos.

Um, but I certainly could include um, you know, October photos of the following year, 2009 or 10, let's say, um, so that you could have a longer term comparison, you know, October 2010 to October 25.

I could consider doing that if that would be helpful.

Anything else?

Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So um the reason why they were done in February is typically these baseline documents have to be completed at the time of close.

So they have to be completed as close to the closing time period as possible.

So we were closing on the conservation easement in February, that's why they were done in February.

Um, and then I think October was chosen moving forward because it's kind of end of season, you get like the full growth.

You know, you're not impeded by like snow or something like that early spring.

Um, so that's kind of how that time frame got completed.

Um, you know, like Marina said, we're not we're we're we're hoping to have a very cooperative relationship with the landowner.

We don't want to have those gotcha moments.

We do give them a heads up, we're coming out of respect for them.

Um based on the things that we're analyzing as part of the conservation easement.

If there was some major violation, we would know about it, probably whether we gave them notice or not, because it would be apparent super apparent, like they built something they didn't say they were gonna build or something like that.

But um, I will say that the the current landowners, so this is the second landowner that we've worked with, these conservation easements follow a property.

So no matter who owns the property, it'll always be there.

Um, they've been awesome.

Awesome to work with, very concerned about the conservation of the property.

Like I said, when they found out how many trees they were gonna have to remove to build that road, they said never mind it.

And I'm sure cost was a factor, but they also really were concerned about the forest and and having to remove too many trees and impacting the aesthetic and and wildlife value.

So they've been great to work with, and um, I think that's the thing with these conservation easements is we're really developing a long-term partnership.

Any more questions?

Yeah, is uh action item.

So public comment.

I just left my green on accidentally.

I wasn't anticipating just to practice.

Denny French Carson City, thank you very much.

Um, I had noticed this uh particular horse ranch situation as being one that I didn't understand, how come we were buying the fact that they wouldn't sell it out to uh big builders or such and to keep it for the conservation and the watershed and all of that.

But I've seen that I'm not able to clearly think what is their responsibility as to the conservation side of it, because it hasn't been really spelled out, and I'm trying not to direct it, but I just it would be helpful for me to know is the grazing that I'm concerned about, the overgrazing and the drainage um part of the hey, you know, you we just need you to move your cattle here certain times of the year so that this place can regrow plus the past the soil stage, because we you know want to make that so those clarifications, if there's a space that I can look that up myself, I'd be glad to.

But right now it's not real clear to me what's a gotta do on their part and what's not.

If they want to do their cattle in ways that I don't think they should, or such like that's not my business.

But if the land that they're having those cattle on isn't tended properly, that land then has the erosion possibilities and other concerns that would then affect the creek or this or that.

And so I just the clarification.

So if Lindsay has a suggestion or or if Lovejoy does as to where I could look to see what the specifics they really are responsible for, and that what we are then asking them to do with their money and what we then will supply with our time and effort.

And I appreciate the fact that they get up there and take these pictures.

Having it on the same time every year is great, but the visits shouldn't necessarily be on the same time every year, so that you get to see it when it's full of snow or when it's at this point in the desert in the heat of the summer.

So thank you very much.

Who pushes the timer?

Oh, there no, no, no, no.

It's fine.

I was just curious that it keeps turning on, but nobody's near a switch.

So I go, there's the there's the master, the key master back there.

You got it.

Thank you.

Uh okay, I had comments.

Uh would Nevada State lands have something that would explain conservation easements, do you think?

Where would is that the website you might send them to?

Or not so I might be using the wrong word.

No, Lindsay Boyer for the record.

So as Marina mentioned, each conservation easement is unique, and each one is a legally binding document that outlines the requirements of the landowner.

I'm pretty sure the conservation easement is on our website.

Um is certainly something that we have brought as part of packets in the past, so it's absolutely available somewhere as part of a past meeting, but I'm pretty sure it is on our website.

Um we could start including it as an exhibit each year to to refresh everyone's memory about the tenants of the easement, just so it is there.

But just to explain a little bit further.

So when you think about these conservation easement documents, um a lot of them have very high level conservation objectives, such as like don't build a golf course here, don't subdivide it into a million houses.

Don't timber the entire forest and sell it for profit.

So when you think about those are very high-level things that are included in the easement.

And then some of these natural resource concerns are very um, I don't want to call them low level, but they are um more in the minutiae.

And so they can be compliant with the easement as far as not building a golf course, and there can still be some natural resource concerns that we can bring to their attention and help them coordinate a solution to.

If that's a good thorough answer, thank you.

Yeah.

I I might want to add, I'm sure since it's an easement, it's a recorded document.

And that that's available three quarters office associated with that APN.

So that's public knowledge and available, you know, from the assessor in the recorder's office.

Any other comments or questions?

Call for the question.

May make a motion.

I can do it.

Okay.

I move to approve the annual monitoring report as presented.

I have a motion, second.

We have a second.

Any more discussion?

Seeing none, call for the question.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Thank you.

I've I found the on my tablet here with the right one.

So now we're at staff update.

And poor Marina, I feel bad for you.

You keep yawning.

And that's not rude to me.

That's not to pick on you.

I think it's just funny.

You want to get the heck out of here and go home, man.

It's a long day.

I really appreciate staff sticking out this late with us.

This is not a Blake.

This is not a normal meeting.

Normally it's it's not as intense with so many facts and figures, and but it's the program.

Totally, 100%.

All right.

You're back on stage, Marina.

I think I'll read it, right?

For discussion only.

Senior natural resource specialist.

Oh, and open space manager report.

Activities related to projects managed by open space, including within the Carson River Corridor.

Marina and Lindsay, both stereo.

Lindsay Boyer, for the record, Open Space Manager.

I will tell you about Busy's Ranch and then I'll kick it over to Marina.

Um, so I had alluded several times tonight that there were several water rights acquisitions completed in January 26th of this year.

Um, so I've got the numbers in front of me so I can tell you them.

So we acquired um 203.51 acres or 915.795 acre feet from Vidler Water Company.

That was for uh just under 2.3 million.

Um, and then we did a second acquisition with the Anderson family.

So those are the the previous owners of the ranch.

They had a small amount of water rights remaining that they had been applying to the ranch.

We acquired those as well.

So that was 86 acres or about 363 acre feet.

Um, and that was for a purchase price of 730,000.

So I mentioned between both those acquisitions, that's about 69% of the total water needed for the ranch.

And then um I had talked about how Sniplema is kind of the remaining piece to scoop up that last piece of water that is uh needed.

So we have 1.8 million dollars in grant funds that we'll use to acquire the last piece.

It's gonna be about 694 acre feet, give or take.

The reason why it's give or take is um some of the due diligence that Sniploma required of us is we had to complete a water study and a water report.

Specifically, that water study had to quantify the number of acres that could beneficially support migratory birds because that's the way the application was written.

Um, and so ultimately the results of that water study will inform the next steps of that process, which will be an appraisal.

So the water study will say they can put X number of water to beneficial use here, and we're gonna be proceeding with an appraisal later this year.

So we and we'll be doing a phase one ESA as well.

Um, and so those are kind of the next two biggest pieces as part of the Sniplema project is concerned.

Um we've also been working on um creating an option agreement.

Vidler Water Company is who we will be purchasing um that last piece of water from.

So we want to make sure we have an agreement in place because these projects take a million years.

We don't want to have in anything happen to the water in the meantime.

So working on that agreement as well.

Um, but I am looking forward to completing this water rights project because it's been a big one for us.

So with that, I'll let Marina speak to the rest of her items.

For the record, Marina Lovejoy, Senior Natural Resource Specialist.

I'm very happy to speak with you all about the last few months.

I'll try to keep my yachting to a minimum because now I'm self-conscious.

Okay, so I'll start with the Carson River Master Plan.

Lindsay has mentioned this a bit today during tonight's meeting.

But we're making slow but steady progress on that document, and I'm really, really proud of the work that we've been doing.

We're in the writing phase, and writing is uh really difficult to write cohesively and consider all of the recommendations from technical experts and the public, and so we really want to thoughtfully create this document that's going to guide us through the next several decades managing the Carson River area.

Um I am really proud to share that I went to a conference in March, the River's Edge West Riparian Restoration Conference that's in Grand Junction every other year, and I presented a poster that speaks to the Carson River Master Plan update.

Um and I talked about all the engagement and how we're really balancing strategies for how to manage natural resource protection with providing recreation opportunities.

Um I thought that that poster and the message was really well received, and I got lots of great questions and engagement.

Um, and so it was it was great to go somewhere else and talk about Carson City, and people were really excited and enthused to hear about question 18.

Um, and and um a lot of places do not have that type of funding, um that type of dedicated funding, and so it was cool to show off our program.

Um to Cottonwood surveys.

I mentioned this earlier, um, but my intern Travis Navarro, I am just so proud of him.

He has been diligently surveying Cottonwoods, like I've mentioned.

Um, and he started near the Mexican Dam and has worked through about halfway through Silver Saddle Ranch, um, the the river corridor there.

Um he has surveyed over 2,000 cottonwoods that includes like little saplings all the way up to the you know 30 plus inch diameter uh cottonwoods out there.

Um, and what we found is that beavers are predominantly targeting trees less than 10 inches diameter breast height.

Um, so that's maybe like, you know, like that.

Um, so it makes sense intuitively, beavers are going after the smaller trees, but they will go after those 30-inch diameter trees, like the really big trees out there, if they're in close proximity to the river.

Um, so this information tells us how we need to adjust our management, where we need to adjust our tree wrapping protocol.

Um it's really cool.

So at that same conference, I also had a poster talking about all of Travis's survey efforts and the results of the of that work.

Um, and that was really well received, also.

Uh Travis and I also we we presented at the watershed forum that's put on by Carson Water Subconservancy District.

Um, Travis has been working for me for less than a year, and I made him present at a conference, and he did amazing.

Um I thought that this community really received that information well.

Um, and they were excited to learn how that could help them manage their own uh cottonwood galleries in their own respective areas.

Um let's see.

We participated in Trout in the Classroom again with river wranglers.

Um I got Travis out there, um, and he and he seemed to really enjoy engaging with the students and sharing his own angler stories, and so I thought that was really neat.

Um let's see, re-vegetation and restoration.

I mentioned earlier the Riverview Park mastication out there and all the work that volunteer and staff have done to broadcast seed.

Um, I mentioned earlier there is a large invasive weed presence in the absence of that dead sagebrush.

Um, we were expecting that.

I applied for funding and should be getting the agreement any day now to pay for herbicide and additional uh drill seeding.

Um the sheep.

So it's year 20 of the sheep program, if you all can believe it.

We've been working with Borderland and Sheep Company this whole time.

Um, about 2400 sheep are out on the hillsides right now.

Um we kindly ask the public to keep their dogs leashed when they're hiking near the sheep to prevent conflicts between the sheep and the dogs and the um livestock guardian dogs and people's pets.

Uh, so please take that into consideration.

Um I mentioned also that we have about $90,000 in grant funds from the Nevada Division of Forestry.

Um, much of that pays for the fire department to water the sheep every single day.

Um, about half of that paid for installation of a fence around the quill pasture off of Kings Canyon Road.

There's um you know a large pasture there just west of the Long Ranch neighborhood.

Um, and that neighborhood, the Long Ranch neighborhood, has wanted grazing there for a while to knock those fuels down.

But we needed a fence to keep the sheep away from the quill water treatment plant.

So now we have that fence.

We can have the sheep grazing in there for the first time in a very long time this year.

With that, I want to read into the record a letter from Mr.

Ted Borda of Borderland and Sheep Company.

This letter is dated February 13th of 2026.

And this is in recognition of the of the Open Space Advisory Committee award.

So he writes, dear members of the Open Space Advisory Committee, on behalf of the entire Board of Family, I want to express our sincere gratitude for this award and for the vision you have carried forward over the years.

Your commitment to preserving and enhancing the open spaces of Carson City has created opportunities that benefit the entire community, and we are honored to play a small part in that work.

Our family has been rooted in this community for more than a century, and it means a great deal to us to continue in contributing in meaningful ways.

Being able to use our livestock to help reduce wildfire risk on the west side of Carson City is both a privilege and a responsibility we take seriously.

We are proud to support a program that protects the land, strengthens the community, and reflects the values that have shaped this region for generations.

Thank you again for this recognition.

We look forward to our partnership for many years to come with appreciation.

Ted Borda, Board Heland and Sheep Company.

Well written.

Very nice.

So again, we're just so appreciative of that partnership.

The Sheep Project, you know, in general is a collaborative effort.

There's the Forest Service involved, there's the Washoe tribe involved, state lands, many private landowners, plus the city.

So we could not do this project alone by any means.

Okay, so I want to briefly mention a couple of volunteer updates, and then I'll be done, I promise.

So today is volunteer recognition day, April 20th.

Now you know.

What do we get?

We're all volunteers.

Big thank you.

Oh, stickers, yeah.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Yes.

So we we've mentioned this today, but we have incredible volunteers here in this community helping not only um parks and open space, but you know, citywide, um, helping us um do just all of our normal functions in the city.

And so we thank our volunteers so much.

Um and Erin Larson, our volunteer coordinator, for um helping uh us manage that program here at um parks and open space.

Um Erin did provide a little bit of an update from this amazing event that she put together this last weekend.

It was an Earth Day Trash Bash.

Um, and so we had almost a hundred volunteers across nine different parks and open spaces around Carson City.

Um and they basically um picking up trash and dog poop and pulling weeds a couple hours last Saturday.

Um and this has been uh like an initiative that Aaron's wanted to start for a few years now, an Earth Day celebration cleanup event, and she pulled it off and it was a great success.

So she's doing great things, and um on the back, there's a table of past and upcoming events, and that is it for our update.

One one more thing.

Sorry, uh Lindsay Boyer for the record.

Um I'm gonna bring Greg into our report as well, and he has an update about the e-bike working group that we are looking to convene.

For the record, Greg Berger and Trails Coordinator.

So yeah, we would like to uh develop an e-bike working group.

Uh as you know, electric bikes or e-bikes are called, there are they're they're growing in numbers exponentially.

And um there's a lot of opinions and perceptions and misperceptions about them.

Fortunately, in the state of Nevada, we have an NRS that defines what an e-bike is and describes generally where they can and cannot go, uh, with some exceptions for left for municipalities.

Um and so the e-bike working group group would look specifically at Carson City and what are, you know, what are what are our needs, you know, what um in Carson City, who rides e-bikes, where, um, why, when, um, what are the benefits and what are the impacts?

Uh, what are you know what are the opinions, perceptions, and misperceptions?

Um I'd like to um have the committee uh develop and conduct an online survey, have at least one open house.

Um we I'd like to conduct some field surveys and observations, um, hopefully using Marina's interim for that.

Um, and then uh we can develop um, you know, uh our develop a report and and and decide are there any actions that need to be taken?

Do we need to have education speed limits or any kind of ordinances or policies, and then present our findings and our recommendations back to both this committee and the uh uh parks and rec commission and um and then possibly take that to the board of supervisors and but anyway, I'd like to report back to um to our committees at least um by the by the joint meeting in December.

And so um I'm asking for one of the uh committee members to volunteer, and this is not an action item, so you don't have to to discuss it among yourselves and decide, but you can just come to me afterwards and and let me know if you would like to volunteer to be on that committee.

So any questions?

I'll take questions.

I have a question.

Do you have are you looking also for community involvement on that working group?

If we know some folks that are very avid get around towners, um if you think you have somebody that would be um uh a good a good person to put on the committee, yeah.

I'll take the recommendation.

Right now we're looking at um OSAC PRC uh transportation, and um, and then we've got um uh Lindsay and David uh Navarro and myself um what beyond it so we'll start on that side.

Like any comment.

That's very interesting.

Thank you.

Um I guess what is the impact um in general just on the e-bikes, and we can keep it real brief on the trails.

Is there torque issues or or issues with that and and maintaining them?

I'm just not familiar.

Yeah, good question.

There's that I mean that that's a lot of the stuff that we would actually go into into what you know what are the what are the impacts that we have here in Carson City.

But in general, there's quite a bit of research into that, and and the the findings generally speak to that the that e-bikes don't uh produce any don't have a higher impact than a traditional bicycle line of trail.

Um what e-bikes do, however, do is they they allow people to um travel farther, um longer distances and things like that.

So those all add to impacts that you know that um that you know require additional trail maintenance and things like that over time.

Thank you.

Just curious.

Oh, you got some more.

Okay, no, are these comments on the overall report staff report?

Three not just the yeah, only one.

Um how much are we paying the fire department to help water the sheep?

$90,000?

Thank you.

No, thank you.

I'm glad that you asked for clarification.

Marina Leftriff for the record.

So that grant from the division of forestry is over five years, about 90,000 over five years.

About half of that roughly went to installing that fence, paying for material materials and labor.

Um, there's a bit of money in there for like signage, um, some miscellaneous supplies, and then the remainder of that is for the fire department uh to water for five years.

And so per season it's maybe like four or five thousand dollars per season.

I was gonna say I heard about fire department watering the sheep.

Yeah, it's it's maybe we should get them to help and we could issue them an award so we could get a letter from them.

Yeah, the fire department is.

What's gonna cost them to water?

Do they have to buy the water from the um I don't believe that?

I'm not gonna get into their start a fire to come for free.

I was gonna say no, it's a great partnership, and so definitely want to you know pay pay them, yeah, for this effort.

Um it's a lot of time.

Yeah.

Uh great report.

I just one thing to touch on for the e-bike working group.

I would uh just personally recommend uh looking for someone um in that group who is uh just on the younger side.

Um uh someone that might be engaged uh with that community.

I have never ridden an e-bike, I don't own an e-bike.

I would love to volunteer.

I just am not a good person to speak on that, but I think just getting a uh you know, someone's opinion that that is probably out on you know an e-bike frequently uh younger uh seeing that side of things, that perspective will probably bring a lot of good insight for your group.

Nothing.

Well, um the e-bike thing.

I got a couple of McGravel and a mountain bike, and um I love it, and it's an age thing, so there's not a lot of youth out there.

It's a senior citizen thing that you can go back in the mountains again.

But there are the problem with the youth are those electric motorcycle looking things that are kind of bigger than a bicycle, they're tearing it up, so they're a problem.

So a youth represent be wonderful.

I don't maybe the bike bike smith or Dennis would probably know somebody maybe that could recruit.

But you and part of it is you got to recruit part of the sheriff's department too, because a lot of this goes right back on the sidewalks and then the streets and crossings, and so when I was on the state bike board, we've just started to deal with this, and there's a lot of communities that have dealt with this.

And there's a lot of communities that have dealt with this.

California, I guess, has had a bunch of deaths with these kids with these bikes getting whacked because they're not part of the traffic flow.

So that's I'm great that Carson City's doing that.

So they had a discussion, and maybe the Forest Service could be a part of it too, because the basin unit just released their plan in the basin and gave what 70 miles of trail to the e-bikes or something that they can ride now that they couldn't in the past.

So and the federal regulations like you can't ride an e-bike on the Forest Service part of the Carson City Trail system.

People don't understand.

So it's great.

Great that the committee's happening.

So I um so it's the only comment I was going to make.

Any else?

Is it an actual it's a discussion only, so I don't have to call it for public comment.

So great job.

Um are you guys tired of talking about yourself?

You deserve all this credit.

So uh where are we at now?

We're on uh 7A update from foundation.

Carson City liaison.

Usually Jen says something, I thought you got something, Lindsay.

Lindsay Boyer, open space manager for the record.

So in your packet, there's a report that the foundation provided us provided us with.

Um just an update on the ongoing projects that they have.

Uh Aaron was our open space advisory committee liaison for the Parks Foundation, so that may be something we want to consider in the future if anyone put it on the agenda next time.

Yeah, if anyone wants to step into that role.

Um, but ultimately you can review the attachment in your packet for all the activities they've been working on.

And then we're uh O secur agenda items.

Anybody have anything that wasn't on the list?

It's just it's not a joint meeting, so we get to be by ourselves again, right?

It's not a joint meeting.

The next one will be joint in June.

December.

Yeah, because we missed ours that pushed it.

Oh, okay.

Okay, well, Jay gets to worry about that one.

So if there's no future agenda items, we were beyond that, and we're back to last public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

Jenny French, Carson City.

I'd like to um bring up the the bikes uh situation as far as the group to get together a panel.

Uh Blake Anderson impressed me as an enthusiastic lover of this community and utilizer of many of the areas around here, and I would just like to recommend somebody maybe check with him.

He was an applicant for a position on the commission.

Oh, did I get the did Anderson?

I Williams, right?

Oh, okay.

Now, what was the young man?

I've got you both mixed up.

Bryce Collins.

Bryce.

I I've got him here.

I just had you mixed up.

Bryce Collins, Bryce Collins.

He's the young man that was applying uh along with um Brenda Hunt.

Um, and I just his enthusiasm and his ability to get in the positions he's had in his uh resume, as well as his um willingness to learn.

I mean, I would just like to add to anybody's workout that a little tinker bell should be on every bicycle.

I was approached while I was out on the trail recently, very quiet person coming up to me, and and I had no idea they were coming.

Had I gone left or right, I would have I would have at least a hello, I'm coming from some.

But some of these uh electric bikes move so quickly and so quietly.

So just as a requirement, I know that one one trail area had little tinker bites uh bells that they had to give away, and I'm sure those disappeared the first minute they were put out, but that would be even helpful.

But um, yeah, I'm sorry, I got the gentleman's name wrong, and I've been calling you wrong all night.

Welcome.

So at least I brought the right resume.

I mean, the uh agenda.

Sorry.

Oh, thank you.

Thanks, you're welcome.

I just didn't want to be alone in this.

Uh that will be the only one on my O bit that I goofed up one agenda.

No, I think this meeting went very well, and I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

You bet thanks, Danny.

Okay, all I need is somebody to ask for an adjourn.

So moved somebody, so moved done.

Thank you.

And after this.