Reno politics and development: Public lands, equine rules and the ‘Neon Line District’

Hosts Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad return to discuss several of the week's biggest stories affecting northern Nevada. 

We discuss the debate surrounding proposed federal changes to public grazing regulations, Washoe County's long-awaited updates for equine businesses, state of Nevada classified employee staffing proposals, NV Energy's transmission line project and Jacobs Entertainment's newest development plans. 

Along the way, we opine on how public participation, transparency and local planning continue to shape Reno's future — including observations about cattle, horse regulations and giant LED signs.

🔊 Listen to this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, BuzzSprout and KWNK Community Radio at 97.7 FM every Sunday at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to the This Is Reno Podcast, Videocast and Radio Show. I am Bob Conrad.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

And I'm Kristen Hackbarth. We broadcast on KWNK Community Radio at 97.7 FM in Reno and on all your favorite podcast apps.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And welcome back to the show. We are recording Saturday, July 11th, and we have a bunch of new news to discuss. And Kristen, I think the question of the week, at least as far as we're concerned, is are we going to finally get a Reno Sheriff's Department?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Uh yeah, I think it's a question of, you know, are we going to have the pickle suits all across the Truckee Meadows? Are we going to get the beige angels?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Or the deep navy blue?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah, maybe, but I doubt it.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Let's let's add some context. So when it was announced in March that Reno Police Chief Nance, uh Catherine Nance was placed on leave and then subsequently terminated along with a couple other members of her command staff for what we have determined is to be alleged we don't know what, but not properly filing their uh peace officer standards and training documents to the state.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Fudging.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Fudging your time on your training documents is what's being alleged. And so she's gone. And immediately the city put in place Washoe County Under Sheriff, Corey Selfarino, in into the acting position. He was subsequently very quickly appointed to the full position of Reno police chief. And it was very quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

There was some buzz right there at the beginning that there was uh going to be an effort to consolidate. And all of the head officials said no, that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Reno Mayor Hillary Shebey swore to me that that was not in the cards. It would be too expensive, too time consuming, uh laws would have to be changed. And here we are now, several months later, and guess what? Sheriff Balam is now pushing the effort to merge Washoe County Sheriff's Office with the Reno Police Department. We have that confirmed from several sources. And basically, we dropped an editorial uh just yesterday on Friday for our supporting members, and they get exclusive advanced information. And we posted this editorial and sent it to them on Friday. And basically, we opined on what we know about this, and it's uh apparently an exploration by the sheriff to merge these departments, similar to what Clark County saw, I believe, in the 70s, was it? Where Las Vegas Metro kind of became this super agency by merging with Clark County. So the Clark County Sheriff actually runs Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And our current governor was in the position of sheriff prior to becoming governor and was consulted by Balum at the outset of the whole RPD fiasco, which was kind of the source of some of the rumors, as Balaum had said that he had talked to Governor Lombardo. And I think a lot of people were like, Why are you talking to the governor about this local issue? And now we know former Las Vegas Metro Police Head Chief Joe Lombardo.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

And and we knew that that was I mean, we knew very early on that this was uh at least being mauled or discussed, and and now we have, I think, some evidence. And poor sparks, or perhaps grateful sparks, is not being included in this discussion of merging.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Oh, they're like the North Las Vegas of Reno. So for context, there in the the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department doesn't include all of their different jurisdictions. So North Las Vegas isn't included, uh Henderson isn't included. So there's still multiple agencies down in that area, even though I think LVMPD would want you to believe that they are the law enforcement agency.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, they have Henderson Boulder and all the, yeah, exactly what you just said. So, you know, I I think it's interesting. We did some cursory uh research on whether or not such a merger would actually be beneficial to the region. And there's very little evidence that creating a larger police agency does two things. One is reduced costs, and the other is reduced crime. And so I think the evidence is pretty scant out there, at least from what we could tell. There are some potential improvements that could come from this, but there are several downsides that could also come from such an arrangement. So I think it's too early to tell, but I think, you know, A basing such a merger on what happened down south, I think would be an error. There are, you know, it's kind of a even though it is similar, it ultimately I think is an apples and oranges comparison. So if we're looking at Metro as sort of the shining example of why such a merger needs to occur here up north, I think that would be an error to assume that. And I think because there is evidence that there may not be an improvement in terms of crime reduction, I think that's also very important. The labor issue, i.e. the costs, you know, I don't think we would receive a reduction in numbers of police officers on the street with such an arrangement. So we know that labor is the highest percentage of cost in police agencies. So I think it remains to be seen whether this is actually a a wise idea. But I think we may get through this exploratory phase after spending who knows how much money and effort on it to find what we already just uh discussed. Will we see more pickle suits or less pickle suits? And for those of you who don't know what pickle suits are, Kristen, would you like to explain?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, so the uh Washam County Sheriff's Office, their uniforms are green. And internally uh they often call them pickle suits.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yep. Okay, so pickle suits are beige angels. And if you don't know the beige beige angels reference, then you need to go watch some more Reno 911. So the name Reno Sheriff's Department comes from. For those of you who don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yes. So one of the things, the other things that we reported on this week was um we had two stories related to cattle. They both went kind of off the hook on our social networks. It seems that everyone is an expert on cattle grazing, range reseeding. We've got a lot of people providing comment on both of those stories.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

And they're all experts, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

They're all experts. We republish articles from several sources. The um cattle grazing story was a ProPublica article that was written in partnership with High Country News. It's a it's free for republishing. We felt that it might be relevant information for people in northern Nevada. And so we republished that. One of the things I think that's important to note about the volume of comments we received on these posts is that it seems like a lot of people are commenting without actually reading the story. I think I would love to see Facebook put in some sort of a rule that requires you to actually click the link and potentially read the story that you're about to comment on before you go spouting off on what you think it's about.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

And can I interrupt on that point? Because I've I've got to interject. If it's evident you didn't actually read the article and you're coming in hot with some nonsense, there's a good chance other people are not going to see your comment from the moderator.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

So, I mean the other thing I think that is interesting, and and I don't know if these people didn't read the article or if they're just, you know, so invested in the debate on cattle grazing. But I feel like they missed some of the point of the cattle grazing story, which was really that it's less about grazing and more about public input into And lack thereof. Yeah, and the lack thereof of what the government is doing. Um, the federal government is basically rewriting the rules to make it harder for them to share their opinion. And uh it, you know, it cattle grazing may not affect everyone, but if they're gonna rewrite the rules on that, what else are they gonna rewrite the rules on? And from the story, um, the rewriting of the regulations, quote, reflects the Trump administration's priority to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, promote productive working lands, and strengthen local economies. Also from the story, the proposed rules would also ratchet back public participation in the agency's decisions to allow grazing on federal public lands. The BLM's proposed updates would strictly limit who has a say and when they can object, eliminating many steps where the public has been able to observe and comment on decisions to issue or renew permits. They're clearly trying to reduce involvement of anyone other than ranchers, said one BLM employee who works on rangeland management. And so for me, I think a lot of the comments that our Facebook followers commented on with this story was concern over this is Reno's attitudes towards cattle ranchers, or arguments over overgrazing, or arguments over who benefits more from the grazing, welfare ranching, wild horses. I mean, it ran the gamut. And I think really they miss the point that this is they are free to provide all of those comments on our Facebook feed, but the government is making it harder for them to actually provide any sort of comments where it really matters, which is in the formulation of regulations and what actually happens on their public lands.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

So it's not an issue pro or con of ranching, it's an issue of participation. Can I add some context to this whole discussion? Yeah. Because this is kind of my lane as a as I like to say, somebody who is very ag adjacent. I'm not an Aggie, but I say I'm ag adjacent and have been for many, many years. Uh livestock grazing in Nevada has dropped dramatically in the last hundred years, uh, while we've seen an increase, for example, in wild horse uh impacts. And I saw a few comments about so-called welfare ranching. I would invite those people to drive around the state and go tell me where they find a massive, super profitable corporate cattle ranch in Nevada. They may exist, but I think they're probably few and far between. I think most of the ranching you see in Nevada is a small business, a small family business by and large. Uh they are not getting rich off of ranching in this state. And the and I think there's some evidence uh to show that, you know, what we have uh a lot of are cow cow calf operations. And, you know, I think people they they see the word ranching or cattle, and they seem, you know, they assume they're we're this you know massive factory farm state with these giant corporate feedlots or whatever the case is. And I I that virtually does not exist in in Nevada. We do have feedlots, we do have large ranching operations, but they're not, I think, what people seem to think they are. And to put this in context, there has been efforts and there are efforts to eliminate all cattle from rangelands. And I'll tell you why I think personally that's very problematic here in a second. That those efforts really can tie up ranching operations uh and and keep people from actually making money on cattle in the state. And I think what's important to note that the Nevada Department of Ag uh released a report in 2024. It was an economic analysis of ag and food and ranching operations in the state. And what they showed is, and I'm I'm just gonna read a quote from it, but but what they demonstrated or what they reported was that there's very little profit actually in ranching. And and one anecdote was this it was quote, a 500-head operation in Pershing County, a cow calf operation, earned about $3,100 annually, or about $6 a head. That is old data, but I think it gives you an idea that that running cattle on rangelands is not the You can't even rent an apartment in Reno for that. It's not the cash cow you might think it is. And so that's that's number one. And where I think ranching operations really do make their money is is in sort of these uh extra type things that they add to their business, where it's uh you know, whether it's like hunting leases, uh they they're they're they're rich in land and perhaps water rights, but not actual cash. I think that's another misconception. Or they supplement their income with uh you know hay production, for example. So, you know, they have to do a lot of things to make a go of it. And it's not just a matter of the government handing a rancher and check and say a check and saying, go run your cattle forever, however you want, and make a million dollars. I don't think that really happens. It's certainly not like that. So it it's a it's a weird dynamic, and I think there's a lot of ignorance about how ranching actually happens in Nevada. And again, I would just encourage you, if you're at all curious, just drive through the state, go tour the state and talk with folks and ask them how things are going. I think what people don't understand is that you know a Nevada ranching operation probably has more in common with a you know small business in Minttown Reno than they do with Monsanto, for example. And just very briefly, I and I'll get off my soapbox. There's a reason for subsidies in agriculture. Do you know what they are, Kristen? Yeah. And why so ag is a very unique industry. And I teach this class at the university on communicating ag and environmental policy, and we talk about agricultural subsidies a lot and why they exist. Why do ag operations get subsidies? It's very simple. They're the only type of business that actually feeds people and keeps the rest of the population alive. So the federal government and state governments probably probably too to some degree want to give farmers and ranchers incentives to stay in business because they feed the world and they feed America and they feed Nevadans, they feed people in Reno. And so I don't think people understand why those kinds of subsidies exist. Now, whether or not I agree with those, that's a whole different story. Whether or not I agree with those subsidies being fair, they tend to benefit large, those larger ag businesses I just referenced more than the small mom and pop operations. So there there is some, there are some equity issues when it comes to agricultural subsidies, but they exist for a very good reason. Again, whether or not we like it, I think it's helpful to understand. And the last point I'd like to make is that, and I think you're going to talk about this next with the cow pie study, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, so cattle actually do us a favor in terms of keeping weeds and invasive species down. And well, well, there's some ev there is evidence that that cheat grass is edible for cattle, but we certainly know that goats, for example, we see those around Reno and sheep are also good at keeping down vegetation, particularly invasive species. So to say we need to eliminate livestock from the ranges, I think would be harmful ultimately. And it really, I think, would eliminate a very important tool in the toolbox. So I think, in terms of, you know, if you value sustainability and healthy environmental situations, healthy ecologies, I think cattle are a perfectly acceptable tool and perhaps should be used even more to control invasive, flammable, harmful species like cheatgrass, for example.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's another, that's the other cattle adjacent story we ran on uh on the website this week. And it was a research study out of UNR that apparently a lot of our readers, or at least our Facebook followers, um, could have done that in high school biology. So I'm not sure if they're such experts why they're not doing the research and publishing the papers. But at UNR, they actually have research scientists who are doing the work and publishing the papers. But yeah, I thought it that story, people were all over that story. And really it was, it was something that, you know, we put in because I thought, you know, cow, this is a story about cow pies, and that's so on brand for this as Reno that we need to run it. And really, it's you know, the science behind getting seeds to pass through a cow's digestive system to then reseed the range. Um, so if you haven't read that one, go in and check it out. Some really interesting going on.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Another tool in the toolbox.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

To manage rangelands that need management in Nevada. I mean, just drive through the state. The amount of like flammable cheat grass you're gonna see will blow your mind.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah. So while we're yakking about regulations and um and grazing rec grazing regulations, let's switch over to horses. And this past week, the Washa County Commission, um, actually not the commission, the planning commission, heard the proposal, draft proposal of the business code updates for equine businesses. These have been in the works for a couple of years. The the bottom line here is that not all regulations are bad. A lot of people commenting have no idea what they're talking about, saying that, you know, the government, the worst thing that the government can do is pass more regulations. Um, but the equine community, the the people who are running these businesses have been asking the county to update these codes for years. Uh, Commissioner Clara Andreola was pushing for it. You know, she was heavily involved with Reno Rodeo for years. And it's important because basically, equine businesses, which are like stables, horse arenas where you can go and train horses, that sort of thing, they were listed under the same business regulations as, you know, warehouses and car lots and office parks, and they're considered a commercial operation. And so they were being held to the same standard. It's not government overreach when you develop a segment of your code for to promote a specific type of business and allow them to have, you know, varying regulations. You're not, it's not great to be walking horses around on asphalt. So it doesn't make sense to have the same development requirements for an equine business to have a paved parking lot and sidewalks when what you really need is dirt. Um, there's different landscaping requirements. Um, there's different waste management. Waste management, yeah. So the equine community has been pushing for these. There was tons of public comment. The county actually commented on how wonderful it was to work with all of the um the community, the equine business community, on developing these codes. And they've for the people who it affects, they've been very popular. Apparently, for the armchair Facebook users, um, this is absolute government overreach.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Um cleaning up your your codes and requirements is government overreach. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Totally. So this is gonna come now before it it the the planning commission unanimously said yes, this is great. Let's move ahead. So this is now gonna come before the Washa County Commission, and they will review it. There will be a first and second reading and And I have no doubt that this will be adopted into code.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And some people will be upset by that, probably people who it won't directly affect.

unknown 22:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

People who have no idea what an equine business is.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Also the other horses in the news, the Virginia Range horses, which we're not allowed to call wild, apparently, also in my lane here. Yeah. You know, back when I worked for the Nevada Department of Ag, I dealt with this issue a lot. You know, that the Bureau of Land Management in the 1980s declared the Virginia Range, which for those of you who don't understand what that is, it's basically the rangeland between Reno, you know, Fernley Fallon area, you know, between 50, 80, you know, that whole area where you see a lot of wild horses. Well, the BLM declared that entire range wild horse-free back in the 1980s. So every horse that remained there and has continued to occupy that space since then is not deemed a federal wild horse. It's considered feral astray livestock.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Those horses did not get the memo.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

They did not get the memo. Yeah. They were not trespassed properly, I think. So here we are, you know, however many decades later, and we have a horse population on this range that you know fluctuates, but you know, has grown and does grow. I, you know, I think in the the last I looked, and that several thousand live up there. And we all know what's happening in Reno, which is that we're expanding our population and our developments and whatnot into what has been historically mild horse land. Historically, in the past few decades, I would say. So horses are being pushed away from their habitat. And a lot of people are very alarmed by this. They are essentially due to multiple miles of fencing being shut off from their water sources. And there was a very interesting quote in this story we we published with uh Kelsey Penrose, who writes for us but also works for Carson now. And you know, the the quote from the story is that wild horses are no longer considered wild. They're designated as feral livestock, regardless of whether they escaped their paddock three days ago or they descend from Spanish horses brought here, you know, hundreds of years, you know, hundreds or plus years ago. So it's a very interesting situation. And back when I worked at the NDA, the the BLM, I remember, said that there is no way that any of those horses on the Virginia Range would be considered related to any of their wild horses, which is basically the BLM's way of saying that horses do not cross dry riverbeds such as the Carson River, or they don't cross highways such as Highway 50, which we know they do because I've seen the photos of motorists getting, you know, striking and killing horses and also themselves getting killed. And so I believe a DNA test was done to show that there had, in fact, been some cross-pollinization between the BLM wild horses and the Virginia range livestock. Imagine that. So, you know, especially now what's happening, they're being cut off from their water source, and you know, it's a development issue, it's a population pressure issue, and I think when all was said and done is that developers have, you know, it's been determined that they cannot be forced to provide water to stray animals. I think is really where it stands legally. What that means for the horses is I think they're there, you know, really the Wild Horse and Burrow Act created a sort of a very tough political situation. I, you know, I it's it's an unwieldy problem. If you have too much horses on the range, which you often do in designated herd management areas or horse management areas, I forget what what the term is, you know, they can very easily exceed their capacity for what's healthy for the rangeland in those areas. And that means they then get rounded up, gathered, and sent off to lucrative retirement facilities for the rest of their lives at the taxpayer's expense. And so the risk there is that you know, denuded rangelands, uh, watering holes that, you know, could get dried up or whatever. And I have seen photos of dried up watering holes with skin and bones horses lying next to them, dead on the ground or barely alive, and it's super sad to see. And so I think we're stuck in a position of either you let them run free and don't do anything, and you risk damaging Nevada's ecosystems, or you round them up. And also, in addition to risking Nevada's ecosystems and rangelands, you end up with dead horses, you know, um, horses just dying of not enough food or water. It's become a very unpopular situation on both sides of the issue. And I think we're gonna probably see see some more dead horses in the Virginia Range as a result of this, ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Well, that's a downer. So let's switch off from our four-legged stories. Head over to the state of Nevada.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

You know, Kristen, I was contacted. We do not, I think people don't always understand that we don't really cover statewide issues. We have in the past, and I I say we probably do maybe one a year. But typically we when we get a state level issue, whether it's you know a Carson City or legislative issue, we typically won't cover that. We'll wait for the Nevada Current to run it or another publication that will allow us to republish it. So a lot of the statewide issues that we that show up on this as Reno are really not written by us because we want to focus our resources on the greater Reno area. And I think that's what most people have come to expect from us. But very occasionally we'll do a state issue, and it's usually when I think it's important, you think it's important, and we're not seeing it getting covered elsewhere. And that was the case here. Back in March, I was contacted by a state of Nevada employee who told me something very startling, which was that the state had held its budget kickoff presentation for next year's legislative session back in February. And in that presentation, in a presentation by the Human Resources Division Director, she told the gathered state administrators there that they want to consolidate nearly 90 employee position types that are currently classified. And the plan that was presented, the PowerPoint, the slide on the PowerPoint very specifically said they want to eliminate these employee classes from being classified. They essentially want to declassify certain managerial type employees. And that would mean people in protected classes, people who can be union members and have to go through very specific processes before they can be disciplined and fired and so on and so forth, they would lose all that. They would become at will. And I know some of you listening to this are going, well, why haven't we done this years ago?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

And you know, that's they're they're facing similar things at the federal government. And really the gist of it is that it's to depoliticize some of these positions where the state really benefits from having consistency, um, a lack of partisanship, you know, there's kind of that even keel institutional knowledge and and continuity regardless of who's in office. Um and you're seeing changes like this happening at the federal level. So, for example, Trump um making the change to Schedule F, which is, I think, career policy positions, it's a very similar thing where they're stripping them of those protections so they can fire them and then get somebody else in place that's going to cater to their policy whims. And I think um it's something similar here, but really the reason that those protections are in place is to create some continuity with state operations.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Yeah. You know, when I work for the state, it's not uncommon to have projects that extend over multiple years, you know, grant-funded projects. I ran uh several, helped manage several grant projects and do campaigns and and whatnot. And those are not things that just come and go over the course of months. They last multiple years. If you give this the director of a state agency the power to fire those employees at will who are managing those programs, like you said, you're gonna lose that continuity, you're gonna lose that expertise, you're gonna lose that institutional knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

So I think protecting that point it becomes wasteful. It becomes financially fiscally wasteful.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yeah. So the I think the wisdom to having classified employees, and there's there's drawbacks too, but obvious drawbacks, but the wisdom there is that you get that continuity. They are sort of the buffer between the political appointees and the work that needs to be done so that the work can continue and in theory be more efficient. And people who have built careers in state agencies, for example, can continue to do that and not just be fired because you get a new governor. Typically, that happens with directors of those agencies, not always. Uh, when I worked, I worked under three governors, and we thought, you know, when I got hired at the state in 2006, Governor Kenny Quinn was in office. And I got one of the questions I asked during my interview was, well, what happens if Dina Titus becomes governor? She was up for governor at that point. And my director at the time said to me, He's like, Well, that's a very astute question, because you know, it could be mean that I'm out of a job, and I was getting hired to go work for this person who was probably one of the best bosses I've ever had. And so that happens to sort of the director class of people and the assistant directors and and all of that. But I think to your point, Kristen, you really need that continuity for these organizations to run as efficiently as they can. So when the state announced that, and I got the complaint from the state agency, I looked into it and I thought, wow, this is a pretty major departure from what's happened in the state classification system, a pretty dramatic departure. But more importantly, what was presented at this meeting was not what was documented after the meeting. The state altered its presentation after the fact and removed that slide where it said it wanted to declassify these 90 some positions. So I did a records request to the state, and this is where it gets bonkers. I wanted to see the versions of that PowerPoint to see what had been changed. And I filed a records order on March 9th. I didn't get a response until March 17th. And by the way, the law in Nevada is that they're supposed to either respond or provide the records within five business days. Five business days go by and they say, Oh, your email was in our spam folder, which was kind of insulting. Um and so the response I got was not, oh, we better hurry up and give these records. It was, oh, we're extending our deadline another five days to March, whenever that was. April 3rd, actually, at this point. And on their new deadline, they then responded and said, Well, we actually need another week. So now we're up to April 10th.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

This sounds familiar, Bob. Uh this has families.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Sounds like dealing with the city. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a troublesome part of the Nevada Public Records Act is that these government agencies get to continually set their own deadlines and miss them with no penalty. And judges have let them get away with this when they've been sued for violating the Nevada Public Records Act. April 10th comes and goes, do you think I got a response on April 10th? No. On April 13th, I asked for an update. I didn't get a response. I asked again April 20th. I again got no response until more than a week later, and some anonymous state employee says, Oh, now we need till May 15th to respond to you. They kicked the can down the road another entire month for whatever reason, didn't really cite one, which they're legally obligated to do. Do you think they responded to this new self-imposed deadline?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

You know, I feel like if they had, we would have been talking about this a few months ago.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

On May 21st, now what is that three months after March, April, two months after? No response. I asked again, where are my records? And the next day they said, Oh, we're gonna need now until June 12th to respond. We're talking one PowerPoint, Kristen, and some emails. That's it. June 12th comes and goes. Nevada Department of Administration. I'm finally just going, okay, this is ridiculous. So on June 24th, I told them, I emailed this anonymous account for whoever gets to access it. I said, if you do not give us these records within five business days, you can have your deputy attorney general contact my attorney who's copied here on this email, and you can either give us the records or we're gonna sue you for violating the Nevada Public Records Act. What do you think their response was, Kristen?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Request denied.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Request denied, yes. So three months goes by for them to tell me that there's no different versions of this PowerPoint anywhere. They did their due diligence to look. Well, guess what? The original PowerPoint with that slide that they subsequently deleted is still available online. They just removed the original link. I still have it though. So I now have two versions of the PowerPoint that they say don't exist. What can we do about this? I don't think much. I spoke with the I I told the state employee, I'm like, here's what happened to your initial inquiry three months, three plus months later. And they just said, this is ridiculous. There's it doesn't take that long to search emails. It certainly doesn't take that long to send over a PowerPoint file so you can see the version history of it, which the state lied about. And the effort, I've I've since come to find out that the effort to declassify employees was came out of a legislatively approved study in 2023 that was conducted but had no indication that this was going to be the end result to declassify these employees, even though the state has been hinting at that for, I believe, three years now. Where it stands, uh, you know, I reached out to the state employees union to see if they had any concerns, and that was also a very strange situation. I it turns out they're in receivership. I did not know that. They had not been managing their finances properly. And I just asked them for a comment. I gave them the exact, you know, short version of what I what I just explained, and I assumed that they would be ready to take up pitchforks, you know, at the the Capitol or the legislature, or at least issue a stern statement. Guess what I got instead?

SPEAKER_00 39:09

This was a comment from a PR person?

SPEAKER_01 39:11

This is from the communications person for the State Employees Union. I got a two-sentence pitch for why employees should join the union with no comment at all on this insanity at the Nevada Department of Administration.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Sounds about right.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

This whole debacle, I think, taught me two things. Well, one is what we already knew is that the state of Nevada serially uh violates the Nevada Public Records Act and then lies about it after the fact. The ACLU still has pending litigation against the Department of Motor Vehicles, and in that litigation, we've seen exactly what I just said is that they denied records existed and then lied about it after they figured out that they actually did. But the second point is that these advocacy organizations, I think, are kind of succumbing to this weird branding PR mindset of we don't have to answer your questions. We just have to advance our brand in responding to the news media. And it's kind of a lame, in my opinion, PR attempt when you send an organization or somebody questions, and what you get back instead is something that you didn't even ask for. And if I was a state employee still, I would be furious over this. I would be like, this is where my memberships dollars are going, is to not answer questions from the news media and just do these kind of weird responses. And I think at the long and the short of it, you know, this the employees that I've state employees I've talked to about this story are not happy, and frankly, nor should they be.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Well, you know, speaking of lame PR statements, and you know, I'll qualify this by saying that I've done PR. I did PR for years. Um, I know what working in public relations is and what it should be. Um, but we did a report this week on the counties, Washoe County's extension of the NB energy transmission line from Verde to Border Town. It was an extension of the time that they are allowed to get building permits. It's just a two-year extension. They weren't relitigating the project. The project is approved, um, but there has been a lawsuit. So the project crosses multiple jurisdictions. It crosses Washoe County, Reno, and California. And so NV Energy has to go through each of these different entities to get uh conditional use permits and approvals and all of the you know environmental reviews. We've reported on this in the past. So the city of Reno wanted them to reroute the line, and NV Energy had sued. That was a couple of years ago, and it's kind of been sitting ever since. We haven't there hasn't been really any movement or news on this while this lawsuit has been pending. And all of a sudden, you know, they're asking for this two-year extension, and we hear that it's going to be coming back before Reno in a few weeks, which means that something has happened with the lawsuit. And we had heard that the lawsuit was dropped. So I reached out to NV Energy for a Let me guess you asked him a question about it. You know, I asked him a very specific question. I said, um, you know, when was this lawsuit dropped and why? And I got six or seven paragraphs about six minutes before the end of the workday. Six or seven paragraphs of public relations fluff that didn't answer any of our questions really. Um restated everything we already knew about the issue. And, you know, I think I pulled half of a sentence out of that response to include in our story. And I responded and said, you know, this didn't really answer my question. Here's my question again. And I sent that, I think at 6 30 in the evening. Our story was gonna run at 6 30 in the morning, which we hadn't told them. We gave them a almost a full day to respond. And 10 30 the following morning, I get a response saying, Hey, what's your deadline? So, you know, I sent them.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

When did we run the story?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

6 30 that morning. So four hours later, I sent them the link and said the story already ran.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

But you know, it's responses like this that make us hesitant to reach out to people. people in the first place because we're not getting the answers that we're looking for. And we're not getting anything even adjacent. Like if they don't want to answer the question, that's fine, but I don't need seven or eight paragraphs of fluff at the end of the day when I've been waiting for this information. It's just wasting time. It's completely pointless. And frankly, you know, it it it doesn't give a a good perception of the company when they are refusing to answer very simple questions. You know, I could I could we could easily go online, pull the court documents, find out what's going on. We just asked a simple question, couldn't get a straightforward answer. So super frustrating. This transmission line is is likely going to happen. It's been in the works for years. There are still people that are upset about it and and I can understand why. You know, this is one of the areas where there is um one of the few areas where there's single track through forest area. And so a lot of people who use that area for recreation are frustrated and upset that there's going to be a massive energy transmission line through that area. But that's neither here nor there at this point. It's it's it's going through the process um and an NV Energy isn't being very transparent about what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Shocker. I think Kristen people need to understand if you work in the PR world or you interface with the media in any way, shape or form, and a journalist asks you a question and you come back with some nonsense that doesn't address the question or answer the question, you will not from us get that your crappy response published. You're going to get a statement that says NV Energy did not answer questions about this project.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Well and I think you know one thing that's important and we do include those kinds of statements in our stories when we do not get a response there's there's kind of this perception that news stories need to present both sides.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

But their side on this issue is not their PR statement. It's answering the frickin question.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Exactly and so oftentimes our stories don't feature both sides whether that's necessary or not because you can't get a clear answer or any sort of relevant information out of half of half of this the entity so you know it's an NV Energy suck fest.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah I I remember this do you remember the Keolis bus strikes a few years back? Remember there was three back to back you know we were we were getting a lot of information from the unions and when we'd go to Keolis for a response you know you're talking about drivers or sorry uh bus riders community wide not being able to take public transportation for you know a week or more on end. You're talking about you know basically widespread disruption and we'd go to the Keolis people and ask, well we'd like comment on this you know this is pretty serious stuff and here's what the union is saying and the response we'd get back which is sometimes like two days later like a ridiculous delay for a single sentence response that would be something like we value our employees yeah you know I think I think one of the reasons that it's so frustrating is that it almost it gives me the feeling that they think that we're idiots. And yeah it really is gas it's our idiot yeah it's PR gaslighting is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

I would I'd rather just be ignored and have them not respond. And frankly that saves us time because we don't have to input or even think about nonsense if it comes our way. So yeah if in case those of you who are listening this haven't caught on if you give us that kind of response and we come to you for you know an inquiry or whatever um you can expect that we will not include your crap as a response if it doesn't address our questions.

unknown 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Nor are we obligated to.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yeah I mean and I'll point out um you know when I I do a lot of reporting on um for some reason lawsuits at UNR and Scott Walquist is their communications director up there and um he's a nice guy and every time I reach out to him you know they're not going to comment on a lawsuit because it's pending litigation and he issues the same statement every time. And so now you know at this point I just say hey Scott is this your response to this and he says yes and you know it's it's streamlined. I know he's not going to say anything and he knows he's not going to say anything and we're on the same page and it's quick and easy and I don't have to wait for some fluffy statement. Thank you Scott.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

You know and I will say those kinds of responses are are grave errors uh there's a whole field of litigation communications you do not in litigation have to not say anything. You can always say something. And I and when I we when we get those kinds of city of Reno does this all the time I mean I just don't even contact them anymore I just say I just write my story and say at the end that the city doesn't comment on pending litigation. My question is why not people do it all the time and they're allowed to they shouldn't be trying to influence the nature of the litigation but they certainly can comment they comment on all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

They do it in their legal filings well and that's why we often go to the legal filings instead you know we'll report from the legal filing because we know they're not going to make a comment but I can at least appreciate when they just say this is going to be our status quo statement for any of these types of questions.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

I appreciate it on just a very fundamental level but I'm also thinking wow you're just shooting yourself in the foot while you're doing that but that's your choice.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

So let's move on you know this past week you know it's interesting I sign up for some random emails from the city and one of them is the um uh current development projects email I think I get it every Friday it comes once a week and it's different projects that are coming up for review in uh in the city planner's office and not all of these are items that are going to make it to a planning commission or council agenda. Some of these are administrative reviews and one of those that is an administrative review is the quote cemetery sign that Jacobs Entertainment has been wanting to put up at the Mountain View Cemetery kind of a it's a it's right there next to the cemetery off of Stoker in Northwest Reno along interstate 80 that can you describe it though you have to describe it you know a lot of people on social media when seeing this sign have said that it's hideous. I said that it gives Bluuth banana stand energy. And if you don't know what the Bluth banana stand is just Google that um but for rested development fans I know that you know what I'm talking about. So this is this massive sign advertising Reno's Neen online district um and I'm saying that it's advertising the district because really you'll need to read Alicia Barber's commentary on the barber brief um where she goes into more detail about why it is advertising signs signage.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Can I can I interrupt this is actually very important because this exact point was litigated by Scenic Nevada and they argued that it was advertising and the courts came back and said no it's a wayfinding sign.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

It's not an advertisement so Alicia gets into the finer details of that and I'll skip that you can go check out the barber brief for that it's free. But basically they want to put this sign up along the freeway everybody thinks it's hideous. It's pointing to the Neonline district it wants people to get off the freeway at fourth or at Keystone and take 4th Street to get to downtown rather than going down to Virginia and turning off where the road casinos are. So it's definitely benefiting Jacob's entertainment and all of his whatnot down there on 4th Street. There's a new astroturf coming in on those flat fields by the way oh yeah but the sign a lot of people think it's hideous it's probably not going to be neon I'm pretty sure it's LED um and it'll be some you know giant it's I think it's like 60 feet tall. It's really big it's a really big sign. Um and a lot of people really don't like it. And so that is coming up for administrative review. You can provide comment to the city um online uh Leah Picati is the planner on that I apologize Leah for the volume of emails that you will likely be getting about this sign.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

But Alicia should be apologizing.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Well I think actually I think we both published her email address but um but yeah so that was in that was in the current development projects email and I caught it and I thought oh this is interesting we're gonna have to write about it and um I think a lot of people didn't see it coming. So I'm glad that that I get that email and I'm glad that we shared that information. The other component that was in that email that we reported on is the Skyways that Jacobs Entertainment is planning to put in across Fourth Street and across Ralston to a as yet to be built parking garage structure that in renderings looks like it also has some many story uh hotel and conference center on top of it. There's some sort of a pool complex, pool and patio complex that they're looking to put in oddly enough the skyway that goes from J Resort over to the pool area across 4th Street is intended to have some sort of a uh kind of a mock-up of an old Reno arch that was erected in the 60s as part of the Neonline district. And I did a little research on it because I'm I wanted to find out when this Reno Arch went into you know what version of the Reno Arch this was KUNR had done a story on this oddly enough this was the only version of the Reno Arch that didn't include neon so they're putting the Reno Arch version that was never neon into Reno's Neonline district across their Skyway which is to me so on brand for Jacobs Entertainment and what they're doing for the neonline district that you can't even make this stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

You know I think it comes down to Kristen uh you know on on the one hand I I think Jacobs should be applauded for trying to improve downtown on a fundamental level because nobody else was really doing that. But on the other hand I don't think many people like what they're doing there. I know some people do like some people who have gone to the concerts but those are kind of a temporary you know one-off type things they're not like a daily destination thing and I think there's just a lot of frustration over Jacob's entertainment that has been doing this for a decade now and given all that time that's transpired I think has comparatively very little to show for it.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

Yeah I I think the way that they've gone about things um hasn't earned them any points in the community. And and yeah I mean I think the hypocrisy of it and some of the just the the ridiculousness that they've got this neonline district where they're relying on LED. You know they took down all the neon and they've replaced it with LED and they're calling it the neonline district is just asinine.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

I mean I I think the issue is this is that the the city kind of bent over backwards for Jacobs and and presumably continues to which I don't think is a wise thing to do. I I think it's you know in in government you obviously have to work with businesses that's your job and you have to accommodate permitting and new projects and all these things but when the there's a promise and literally I sat there in 2017 10 feet from Jeff Jacobs saying he's going to have several projects coming up over the next few years. Well few to me is three or four which meant we should have had a bunch of stuff by 2020 2021 that's never really materialized or very little has and I think that that people have a right to be frustrated by that. I think it's been an overpromise under deliver kind of situation. Yeah with Jacobs. Well I don't I don't think we have anything else you know going on this week we've got more stories coming obviously yeah that's what we do let us know what you think about the downtown plans in the comments below uh if you like our podcast please give us a review on Apple Spotify you know all the all those those podcast apps and you know on a final note I want to tell everybody about our award-winning newsletter Kristen and I and Darcy Harder every Friday we put out this newsletter for our supporting subscribers our paying members and we've won two years in a row now awards for this newsletter including the top award for the editorial of the year in 2025 from the Nevada Press Association and that is statewide so we you know we got that award above everybody in the state you know in the urban category and that newsletter comes out every Friday it has no ads in it and you get a subscribers only take on the week's news plus you get reader hot takes which are a lot of fun animated gifts which are even funner and news briefs that we don't publish anywhere else and that's one of several perks you get when you become a supporting this is Reno subscriber. Most of the ads on our website once you become a paying subscriber they go away so you get a much better reading experience and you know you just head on over to thisisreno.com forward slash subscribe and you will get all those perks and it comes down to if you buy the annual plan to less than I believe nine dollars a month. Thank you for listening.