A court fight has erupted over plans by Spring Mountain Ranch State Park west of Las Vegas to end its 38-year relationship with a group of park volunteers called Spring Mountain Ranch Docents.
The docents’ group helps interpret the cultural and natural history of the park.
The volunteers staff park attractions and provide guided tours, in-kind donations and financial support for park programs and historic building improvements.
In a March 2 letter to the Spring Mountain Ranch Docents, Nevada Division of State Parks Administrator David Morrow said the state is terminating its agreement with the group effective April 6. The agreement spells out how the docents provide volunteers and financial assistance and how the state trains, schedules and supervises the docents.
Morrow said that while the state appreciates the service rendered by the docents over the years, problems in the relationship have prompted the state to switch to the Division of State Parks’ “Volunteer in Parks” program to provide volunteer services there in the future.
“Unfortunately, involvement in internal state personnel matters, discord among the membership and the cost of providing workers’ compensation insurance has caused the administration of State Parks to re-examine the role of the docent organization,” Morrow wrote in his termination letter.
The docents’ group on Friday filed suit in Clark County District Court in a bid to block cancellation of the agreement.
Saying its members have been “loyal and dedicated guardians responsible for the maintenance and preservation of the park,” the docents said in their suit that Morrow’s stated reasons for terminating the agreement were “categorically false.”
The docents complained that under Morrow’s plan, a centerpiece of the park, its Ranch House, and other park amenities “will not be able to be open to the public on a daily basis and the interpretive and living history program for the park will be lost forever.”
Attorneys for the state have not yet filed papers in court responding to the lawsuit.
A spokesman at the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, parent agency of the parks department, said he hadn't seen the lawsuit. The spokesman, Bob Conrad, said the state's position has been that the docent agreement could be terminated any time for any reason.