While its budget for the next year includes money for repairs to the fields and lighting at the Out of Town Park, the City of Fernley hasn’t been able to make any progress on a management plan for the park that has languished for almost 10 years. The city is hoping it can get some help to change that.
At the May 20 meeting, the Fernley City Council approved the submittal of an application to the Urban Design and Preservation Division Design-Preservation Rapid Assistance Teams (D-PRAT) for the site plan of the Out of Town Park.
According to the staff report for the May 20 meeting, the application asks the D-PRAT volunteer group to assist the city in developing a site plan for the Out of Town Park, including a sports complex and rodeo grounds improvement that is financially sustainable, ADA-compliant, provides trail connectivity and meets the needs of the community.
D-PRAT provides free planning assistance to local governments and community-based organizations that need support to address specific problems or challenges. The city’s Grant Coordinator Trisha Livingston said she submitted the application to meet the May 15 deadline, but told the council it could be pulled if they did not want to move forward.
She said if the application is approved, a team of 8-12 D-PRAT volunteers will meet with city staff, review plans and documents, conduct a workshop and develop a plan that would later be presented to the council. The city would be responsible for promoting the workshop, coordinating the workshop facility, coordinating and engaging stakeholder participation, providing a light breakfast and lunch for workshop attendees, providing transportation for the D-PRAT volunteer group through city vehicles and contributing $5,000 toward travel expenses.
In the application, the city requested planning assistance because it has not been able to execute recommendations included in the Parks Management Plan approved by the City Council in 2017. That plan identified the creation of a sports complex at Out of Town Park and the relocation and improvement of the rodeo grounds as major goals.
The city’s application states that “the city could not fully develop the sports complex without first relocating the rodeo, and it could not relocate the rodeo without massive capital investment, so neither project moved forward.”
The application also states the city has directed its limited capital resources toward other urgent priorities, leaving the sports complex and rodeo grounds unfunded. The city currently has $250,000 budgeted for Out of Town Park improvement project design in the 2028-29 fiscal year budget, meaning sports complex design work is still years away, let alone construction.
The council did allocate approximately $1.2 million in the upcoming 2026-27 budget for repairs to the existing fields and new lighting at the park.
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