So two brief items here for tomorrow's HRC meeting.
Thursday , June 11, 2015 @ 3:00 PM
Reno City Hall – 2nd Floor Conference Room
One East First Street, Reno, NV 89501
Stewart Park WallGate
The first is regarding Stewart Park. I received several emails from residents wondering why Stewart Park's historic WPA-built rock wall was painted "to look like a Teletubbies episode threw up on it" as one emailer described it. As it turns out, with zero notice to the public, under the guidance of the City of Reno Parks and Rec Dept, a third-party group painted the wall as a graffiti deterrent...even though I do running sprints in this park every other morning and haven't seen an ounce of graffiti on the portion of the wall they painted. I get that it was done as an act of neighborhood pride and dedication to keeping graffiti out of the neighborhood, but what that third party group didn't understand, which I won't name because they do a lot of great things for the community, is all of this history that makes the wall so special.
The paint job set off a firestorm of anger from local residents, who quickly posted their opinions on Facebook. One of the great things about having a city council mostly under the age of 50, is that they actually use Facebook. So three council-peeps, Oscar Delgado whose ward Stewart Park sits in, Jenny Brukkus and David Bobzien, caught onto the post and vowed to find out what happened. Long story short, the paint will soon be removed, and this will be discussed among other Stewart Park-related items at tomorrow's Historic Resources Committee Meeting. It was impressive how swiftly those three council members took action.
The El Cortez Gets Appropriate
Also tomorrow at the same meeting, there will be a presentation, discussion and possible action regarding El Cortez's Certificate of Appropriateness. Because you know, you gotta be Appro-pro when you own a building on the historic national register. You might recall, the El Cortez got into a bit of trouble when they began installing new windows without a permit, which would have triggered a review from the Historic Resources Commission. If you'd like to see what the El Cortez has planned, you may want to hit up this meeting.
I appreciate the effort, although it does look rather tacky. There are other ways to keep that park clean and orderly than painting the wall.