Beautification Project In Motion At Last

A community improvement project that has been in the works now for over two years is finally gaining traction and reaching completion. The project that began as a modest local plan to beautify the intersection of Moapa Valley Blvd. and Cooper St. in downtown Overton has been taken up by Clark County Public Works and is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

It all began with Overton resident and former Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) member, Kurt Lytle. During his

One specific area of focus was on improvements to what he called the “Cooper Triangle”, a rough and plain asphalt island in the middle of Cooper street at the intersection with MV Blvd.

Lytle envisioned well designed signage placed in that spot that welcomed people to downtown Overton. He also wanted to see simple landscaping within the traffic island to beautify the space.

Everything started off well enough. Lytle sought funding through a County Community Improvement grant that was written through the Moapa Valley Chamber of Commerce. The funding was granted to the project. A graphic for the new sign was selected. The sign was even built and shipped to the community.

It was at this point that the project started to run into snags in getting the work approved on the street. “The area that we were improving was inside of the street right of way,” Lytle explained. “There is just a lot of complexity in the codes for doing something like that. It had to comply with all of the permitting rules and be safe and compatible with the street right of way.”

In the end, all of these requirements and regulations had slowly ground the project to a halt. It had been stranded for several months. And, all the while, the beautiful sign sat, propped against a wall, inside the Overton Community Center.

About a month ago, Lytle finally decided to take action and try to get the project in motion again. Using the remaining grant funds and volunteer labor, he purchased and installed decorative rock inside of the traffic island. With the rocks, his volunteer force formed a walkway through the area. “People always use that area as a walkway anyway to and from the convenience store there,” Lytle said. “So we kept a walkway clear so that could continue.”

But the action sent up red flags at the County level. Lytle soon received notice from the County Public Works Dept. that by establishing a walkway in that spot, he had triggered a whole list of regulations that would be required to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. For example, there are no sidewalks on the east side of Cooper street. Also there was no established crosswalk associated with the new walkway. In short, Lytle was told that the walkway had to be removed from that area.

At that point, Lytle said that he was rather discouraged with the direction that things were going. But pushing the project to a point of crisis had provided an opportunity to coordinate and work more closely with the Public Works Department. Director of Public Works, Dennis Cedarberg and Road Maintenance Manager, Cameron Harper arranged a meeting with Lytle to discuss the project and try to find a solution.

“We sat down with Mr. Lytle and just talked about where he was going and got his thoughts and ideas on the project,” said Harper.

“They were very helpful,” said Lytle. “In the process they started to see that a sidewalk on the east side of the street and a crosswalk was needed there to provide access to the convenience store and the new Senior Center.”

These things were beyond the scope of what Lytle had originally proposed. But they seemed to be necessary for the project to move forward.

Harper finally proposed to widen the road on the east side of the intersection, install an asphalt curb and sidewalk connecting to the existing downtown sidewalk, and put in a concrete decorative curb on either side of the traffic island walkway to keep the decorative rocks from spreading into the walkway. He also agreed to install the welcome sign to ensure that it would be done up to County specifications.

“After talking to Mr. Lytle, we found a way to utilize our maintenance forces so that we could participate in this worthwhile project and put in the improvements,” Harper said.

Lytle was pleased with the new direction the project has taken. “When I actually went in and met with them, they were very reasonable and went out of their way to find a solution,” Lytle said. “I am just thrilled to death that the little project that we started will now be expanded a bit so that it all connects and makes sense. It restores faith that the County staff is not always unreasonable. They want to make things work.”

“I guess that the lesson here is that there is a lot that we can do to facilitate things like this,” Harper concluded. “But we need to talk about them first and make sure that what gets done is good for everybody.”