After stadium switch, Coffin turns attention to clean park

Surrounded by a cyclone fence, its gate padlocked, by any measure the barren lot on 15th Street is an open wound.

Its generations-old elm looks more skeletal than viable. A concrete slab once used as a basketball court lost its hoops and backboards long ago. What grass grows on this 1-acre eyesore is strictly accidental.

In another neighborhood, in a better part of town, this homely piece of real estate wouldn’t be the future site of a public park. It would simply be condemned.

But look around. This isn’t another neighborhood. This is 15th near Charleston Boulevard in the heart of City Council Ward 3.

And in Ward 3, residents will take what they can get. What they receive is the short end of every stick.

City Councilman Bob Coffin, who grew up in the area and represents the ward, is trying to get that lot on 15th Street transformed into a public park. Not into one of the grassy, cattle-ranch-sized pastures that Summerlin residents enjoy, but into something clean, safe, and well-lighted for the neighborhood’s many families.

When he’s criticized for changing his mind last November and voting in favor of the city’s decision to encumber $56.5 million to support the development of a downtown soccer stadium, in part with funds used for park development and maintenance, he points out the painfully obvious: Without a healthy infusion of money, parks in Ward 3 would remain few and far between. He shrugs off assertions he caved in to pressure.

On the contrary, he said. Just take a look at the ward and decide for yourself.

“What people up west don’t understand is, I’m from the Mayfair and Huntridge area,” he said. “I’m not going to abandon this area.”

The “Parks Element” section of the city’s 2020 Master Plan states only the obvious: “The Southeast Sector is largely built-out with few vacant parcels available for new development. The sector is largely underserved in terms of park acreage with a level of service well below the city standard.”

With just 1.36 acres of park space per 1,000 residents, the space that is available is overcrowded. (The standard is 2.5 acres per 1,000.) And geographically the southeast end makes up 23 percent of the city. In the past five years, the city has added just one half-acre park to Ward 3.

Coffin remembers the lot and adjacent Las Vegas Fire Station No. 4 when it was the site of Mayfair Elementary, an antiquated public school that was condemned and returned to the city’s control. A previous attempt to convert a section of the land into a park space failed.

His argument makes sense, but that’s not slowed the swirling criticism over the soccer stadium deal. The issue is reverberating politically with City Councilman Stavros Anthony’s announcement this past week to challenge stadium proponent Mayor Carolyn Goodman in the coming election. Opponents of the stadium have made no secret of their interest in finding qualified candidates to challenge council members who voted in favor of the plan.

Coffin spent nearly three decades in the Legislature and cast plenty of unpopular votes. He shrugs off the politics and appears quite comfortable with his decision.

“Ours is not a rich ward,” he said. “We don’t have gated communities. We don’t have private parks, which is what the west side of town is blessed with. What’s nice about this location is that the fire guys next door can watch it, too.”

Although Mayfair Park is a priority, Coffin was excited to talk about “two other candidates” for open space development in the ward. He pointed to aerial-view printouts of prospective sites titled “Harris Trailhead” near Las Vegas Wash and “Washington Las Vegas Wash Park” on the far east end of the ward. It’s tucked between East Washington Avenue and a glorified drainage canal.

They look like good places to dump a body.

But as the councilman will tell you, in Ward 3 you take what you can get and make the best of it.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.