It's one of the crown jewels of the Sparks Parks and Recreation Department, the Sparks Marina. As it nears 20 years old and vandals wreak havoc for maintenance crews, visitors are finding it less enjoyable.
The Monday after a busy weekend often leaves the Sparks Marina trashed. What's left behind by beachgoers is a consistent problem.
“Morning sometimes there is broken glass all over that parking lot,” observed Sparks resident, Earl Riemath. It’s just one of the issues he sees while walking his dog. Some benches have been removed and not replaced. Broken sprinklers and abused gazebo space have yet to be fixed. What looks like household trash left to the wayside.
“Ten years ago it was a beautiful place. It was a good place, a safe place to come to. Now you don't feel that way.”
There's a full time maintenance staff that takes care of this 100-plus acre park that is showing its age.
“We try and go through it on our capital projects to replace amenities as they age. This one is 20 years old so it's starting to come due for replacement,” said Mark Andersen, assistant public works manager for Sparks Parks and Recreation.
Andersen says sadly, many of the maintenance problems are caused by vandals backlogging their list of things to fix.
“We've had multiple times in the middle of the night where people will kick off sprinkler heads.”
Community service work crews help pick up garbage, but can only do so much.
“We provide over 100 trash cans here if people would just put their trash in the receptacles that would be a great start for us,” said Anderson.
“Keep it clean, it's our park, it's a jewel. We got to take care of it,” implored Riemath.
As for leftover tree stumps on the south side of the park, many of those have yet to be removed, but were cut down in an effort to keep people from living under the trees.
