MARK WAITE / PVT From left, Rob Otto, Theresa Otto and Andrea McGuire look at maps where children from the Pahrump Valley Boys and Girls Club stuck suggestions on what they wanted to see at Last Chance Park. RELATED STORY Youths, adults brainstorm park Advertisement

Most of the crowd of 70 people attending the open house on the Last Chance Park design Wednesday night at the Bob Ruud Community Center raised their hands in opposition to allowing off-road vehicles in the park.

The sentiment wasn't lost on designers, who went out of their way to assure the crowd this was their opportunity to describe what they want in the park.

Noel Smithers, a Simkins Road resident for six years, recalled how he got the park project started with a simple inquiry to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. He found out the area behind his house fronting on Shadow Mountain was up for disposal, to be auctioned off to developers.

"In the five years we lived out there, we've seen a lot of destruction out there: four wheelers, sand rails, full-size vehicles. When it rains they go up there and mud bog, and there's just large areas of no vegetation anywhere, steep ruts. People are cutting down mesquite trees, people are taking away rocks. In the next five or six years there probably won't be much left there. That's the way we're looking at it," Smithers said.

He added "The idea was to keep it as low keel as we could with horse trails, hiking trails and a place for people to go have a picnic out there."

But organizers didn't get far into their presentation before Arden Houser, a resident on Carrol Street at the far north end of Pahrump just before Roadrunner Road, asked, "if you're trying to preserve it, why did you put an off-road feature into it?"

Environmental specialist Mary Ellen Giampaoli said the off-road area was part of a preliminary design to present to the BLM to open up the application process to get the land.

"Once we go forward with this park, it is our park design. We will restrict that use," Giampaoli said.

Pahrump Public Lands Advisory Board member Claire Toomey, an avid horseback rider, said, "I've been there coming up on five years and the destruction I've seen over the last year out there is just unheard of."

If the property is transferred to Pahrump, Toomey said the town will be responsible for the management and upkeep. A couple of residents complained about the cost to the town and stormed out before the official presentation ended.

Sally Sheridan, with the National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Program, said the American Society of Landscape Architects will volunteer its services to design the project. Its plans will be presented at a workshop May 27-29.

There will be a request for stimulus money or grants, Sheridan said. She said her program hopes to get a local group to form a stewardship program to maintain the park. Giampaoli suggested involving groups like the Girl and Boy Scouts picking up litter, businesses willing to donate poles and railroad ties, a whole community effort.

Mark Sanchez, BLM outdoor recreation planner, said his office is collecting information on roads, trails and washes used by off-road vehicles for a resource management plan that will be revised in 2012.

"Basically you can go anywhere you want right now," Sanchez said.

"If that brush catches fire, we'll lose our homes," Fran Watt, another resident of Carrol Street said.

"Once you make a park and the ATV people come out there and destroy it, then what?" Rose Holmes asked.

Giampaoli said once the town decides what it wants in the park in a plan of development, those uses will be written into an agreement with the BLM for future use of the land in perpetuity.

"It actually gives you more control in the future over what happens out there, because there is actually a framework versus right now it's all kind of wide open," she said.

Rob Otto was one of the few members of the audience who spoke in favor of all-terrain vehicles, if they drive responsibly on designated trails.

After the hour-long presentation, Houser noted, "When I first came here (in 1993), one night I had 100 burros in my yard. Now there aren't any. There's mountain sheep up there. They're very shy and skittish. If you have people up there, you're going to drive them off, you're not going to have the wildlife," he said.

Gerhard Gran, a senior citizen, said he hiked up to the mountain 11 times. "If you want to preserve it, keep people out. Keep everybody out," he said. "You don't need trails. It's very good walking without trails. When you talk trail development, you mean ATVs."

Gran predicted there would be crime, vandalism, soil damage and noise, noise, noise if there were a park.