By Vernon Robison

A small crowd of angry Logandale residents showed up to the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) meeting last week to complain about, what they claimed was, an unsightly and hazardous earthwork berm that had been constructed in their neighborhood.

Reportedly, a single complaint had been filed, by telephone, to the Commissioner’s office about some alleged hooligans that had been driving recklessly and kicking up dust in the desert parcel just south of the Logandale Sports Complex. With remarkable speed, County Public Works crews appeared on the scene with dump trucks and a front-end loader to take care of business. In no time at all they had constructed a seven foot high dirt berm all along the north side of Bunnell Ave., and placed large boulders at either end; all specifically designed, it seemed, to cut off access to the desert lot from the neighborhood just to the south. Interestingly, nothing was done to prevent vehicles from accessing the same area from the east off of Heyer or to regulate traffic from Frehner on the north and the ball field parking lot.

Anyway, all of this was apparently accomplished with great expedience in the space of just a couple of days time. As far as anyone could tell, no one in the neighborhood nor in the broader community; including, possibly the alleged complainant himself; had requested or expected in their wildest dreams to have such a massive earthwork project built out of the blue. No plans for the structure were drawn up. Nothing was presented to the MVTAB for feedback or approval. It was just done. People living in the neighborhood came home one day from work and there it was!

Of course, if the community had actually requested such a structure it wouldn’t have appeared nearly as fast. There would be a vast checklist of costly elements needed to be completed. There would, no doubt, be an extensive flood study required which would result in the need for major flood control infrastructure to regulate all flood flows into the property within a three mile radius of the area. That, in and of itself, could take a decade or more. Just ask the folks down on Cooper Street in Overton. Then we’d probably need traffic studies, environmental impact analyses, a multitude of other complex studies, and finally several years of engineering to be done in order for the project to start construction. By that time, the cost of the project would have expanded into the millions of dollar range. We’d then be reminded that funding is awful tight at the county, and, by the way, the small Moapa Valley tax base doesn’t justify such a thing. So our request would be put at the end of the line there to wait.

Of course, all of this is just academic because the fact is NO ONE asked for this project in the first place. And no one wanted it.

But while we are postulating, certainly one of the necessary studies for such a project would have also included a consideration of how children and other pedestrians in the neighborhood would safely get around that new earthen structure to the ballpark, the fairgrounds and the elementary school beyond. In fact, as it happens that item was one of the chief concerns for the angry residents at last week’s meeting. The new berm and boulders had basically cut their kids off from riding bikes and walking to school in the relative safety of the empty lots, and had forced them onto busy streets with no sidewalks or trails, the residents said.

But wait! The remedy for that problem is already in the works.The first phase of the Moapa Valley Trails system would cover that exact area. This $3.2 million project proposes to build trails along the main roads between Bowler Elementary and Moapa Valley High School including Heyer, Lyman, Gubler, Whipple, St. Joseph and others.

The project was actually funded more than four years ago. But it’s been a while since we had any word on. Bbout two years ago. At that time the MVTAB was told that the project was through 80% of the design phase and was expected to be all completed by March of 2012. Well that is just a couple of months away! So it is probably safe to assume that, even after nearly five years waiting, the project is behind schedule.

But here is the best part of the story. Ironically, the sole reason for the MVTAB to meet last week was because, at long last, we were supposed to be getting an update on the progress of that very trails project. There it was, the sole item on the agenda! Well now we are getting somewhere, right?

But alas, the county staff member who was supposed to have presented the report, without explanation, failed to show up to the meeting. He stood up the town board. And so the exact status of the trails project is, sadly, still unknown to the community.

Guess the kids will just have to keep waiting for safe routes to be established for them to walk and ride to school.

Of course, thanks to County Public Works, we now definitely know one place where the kids can NOT safely walk! They got that squared away for us triple quick!

It’s really too bad that whoever it was that called in with the complaint on this matter did so anonymously. It would have been nice to know who it was. With those kind of results in getting quick action from the County, maybe we could have put him/her to work on kickstarting the trail system. Then the project might have been done years ago and our kids would already have trails to school.

And after that was done, there surely would be a long list of community needs that could have occupied his/her free time for many years to come.