Working in Clark County: Roy Flores, Clark County Grounds maintenance specialist

When one hears the words “local sports” in the pandemic, two other words come to mind: not happening.

However, at Clark County’s Luke Jensen Sports Park, at Northeast 78th Street and Northeast 41st Avenue, the park is seeing a large uptick in activity. And with that, an uptick in garbage that Clark County Parks ground maintenance specialist Roy Flores, 27, has to clean up.

“At first, not too many people were coming out and playing. They were staying at home,” Flores said. “But as time passed they’d start using the fields more often. The usage of the fields, I’d say, has doubled since COVID-19.”

He estimates that on a slow day, around 75 to 120 people are using the 20-acre park, which isn’t exclusive at Luke Jensen.

Clark County Parks spokesperson Magan Reed said that the increase in activity is happening at all of our parks.

“We don’t necessarily have a tally machine to tell how many people are coming in,” said Reed. “But we do have parking meters at our four regional parks, and when we looked, we are up more than 25 percent, and we don’t even count the summer as being over yet.”

Luke Jensen Sports Park, constructed in 2012, features three synthetic turf fields, two grass baseball fields, batting cages, rest rooms, picnic areas, play equipment and other amenities. It’s where Flores, a San Diego native, spends most of his 40-hour work weeks, though he occasionally fills in at other county-owned parks.

The Columbian caught up with Flores to learn more about him and his job.

You grew up in San Diego, Calif. What brought you up just over a year ago?

I had been coming up to visit most of the summers. My older brother has been up here since I can remember. I’ve always liked it. I just took a chance. It’s overwhelming, the population (in San Diego) — there’s too many people there. San Diego traffic was horrible. If it was a 10-minute drive, it was about an hour to get there. You wouldn’t be able to plan anything. You’d have to go early in the morning or late afternoon. Also, over there, the trails were all pretty much deserty. Here, like when I go up to Silver Falls, which is one of my favorites, everywhere is green.

What exactly do you do in this position?

We take care of the baseball and soccer and softball fields. We have our natural turf that we take care of for baseball and softball, and we do the maintenance on the natural turf, like irrigation, mowing and edging. Then on the synthetic turf, we sweep and aerate it. If you don’t do the maintenance on those, when the kids fall, there’s no bounce to it. We do a GMax (impact) test every three months to see how much bounce our fields have.

How have you been navigating overcrowding issues?

In the mornings, the first thing we do is clean the rest rooms, then we do litter pick. That’s our morning routine. Since COVID there’s been a lot more litter around the park, so the usage of the park has caused us to take more time out of our day to clean up their mess. We used to have a half bag (of litter). Now it’s like two bags of garbage daily. Then there’s been times where the parking lot has been completely full.

What would you say has been the biggest challenge in the pandemic?

Having people distance themselves. What I’ve had to deal with if I go to a park, our play structures at the county are closed. I let them know they’re closed. We put up signs and caution tape around the play structures, and then I’ll turn around and they’ll rip it off. And they’ll tell me they didn’t do it even though I saw them do it.

How are you coping personally in the pandemic?

For me, my fun, my enjoyment would be rock climbing and hiking. I can do that by myself, and I’m not around too many people. I’ve learned to distance myself. I’ve learned to change my routine.