Former county administrator indicated, libraries lose director and the Club Underground investigation

This week on the This Is Reno podcast, we — editors Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad — dig into several investigations and controversies unfolding across Reno and Washoe County. 

We discuss the federal indictment of former Washoe County Department of Alternative Sentencing chief Justin Roper, developments in the Anna Scott murder case, wildfire prediction markets, the increasingly contentious debate over Reno-area data centers, another leadership shakeup at the Washoe County Library System and uncertainty surrounding Reno City Clerk Mikki Huntsman.

We are also joined by investigative journalist Kelsey Penrose to discuss her extensive reporting into music promoter Brandon Deriso and the reopening of Club Underground — a project that required months of source development, lengthy interviews and a deep dive into court records. 

We end on a lighter note with some of This Is Reno’s recent arts and culture coverage — because after federal court, government investigations and data centers, everyone could probably use a little art.

🔊 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.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to the This Is Reno podcast video cast and radio show. I am Bob Conrad.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

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

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And today we have a special guest, uh Kelsey Penrose. Do you want to quickly introduce yourself and talk about the big series of stories that you we just finished publishing uh last week?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, um thanks to you guys so much for having me on. You know that I'm always down to talk about the crazy work that that we do. Um so I am a journalist, predominantly an investigative journalist and a uh government coverage journalist in northern Nevada. Um I mostly work as co-editor for Carson now down in Carson City. I've been with them for it's been almost nine years now, which is crazy to me. And I've been working with This Is Reno, I want to say it's actually six years, over six years now. I think I started working with you guys in 2019. And then I started with investigations with you guys just a few years ago. And this one uh has probably taken up like a third of the time that I've done investigations for you at this point because we're we're over a year since since we first were brought this story.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And so uh Yeah, and I can talk, I can talk a little bit about how it originated. So people for many years have uh, for lack of a better term, complained uh about this particular club promot or music promoter in the Reno area. And it's never to me really felt like it's really risen to the level of a story until we got word that he was reopening Club Underground under what a lot of people consider to be questionable things in his past and background. And so I kicked it over to you and said, Would you like to look into this? And it seemed like the more we looked into, the more we found things that might be of interest to report to a lot of folks.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, and it's funny because at first, kind of for the same reason, I almost wasn't really excited about doing it just because it it was just one of those, I'm gonna have to read a bunch of court documents, you know, and like um try to try to suss out where the where the news is. But as soon as I kind of was able to actually tap in, um the story just started pouring out. But I I wanna say it took five months at least to get people to talk because um nobody wanted to at first. There have been other articles that have come out about this individual in the past few years, in the past several years, I should say, that people felt were not a ref like an accurate reflection. And so at first they thought this was going to be uh the term was puff piece that a lot of people kept kept saying. But finally I just had to say, okay, um, we're just gonna have to go. And by we, I mean Bob said, stop messing around. You need to get this freaking story done. So I was able to interview uh Brandon Doriso, the the music promoter. We had about a four-hour plus conversation in January. And as soon as I recontacted a bunch of those people and said, you know, hi, this individual has, you know, now stated things on the record. Would you like to respond? Then all of a sudden the the floodgates were open. And so um I think I've I think I went back and I counted recently, and I want to say I interviewed or spoke to, I want to say it's 17 individuals over the course of the year. Um, and the average time per interview was about two to three hours. So it's by far the most, the most interview time I've ever spent on a single story in my life.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah, and I I should note too that, you know, the uh this person says that this his story has been public and he's acknowledged uh many of these things over the years. And as soon as I started pulling the court documents, by the way, there's an extensive court records and and police reports and so on related to this person. And once I started looking into him, I realized that that what's been said publicly, at least to my knowledge, didn't quite match the extremely complex and involved uh case history involving uh this person. So talk talk about, I guess, the high-level overview of of what his criminal case really shows.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

This all started roughly 15 years ago, um, when um Brandon DeRiso began working as a promoter, but then specifically he became a much bigger promoter. Um I want to say he was kind of shot into promoter, local promoter stardom when he did an Andre Nicotina tour. And after that um period of time, he kind of had a name that allowed him to get doors open. And so uh people began giving him tens of thousands of dollars and then hundreds of thousands of dollars and then multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars uh to purchase shows and purchase concerts and purchase tours. And some of them happened, you know, unequivocally, some of them happened, but it it all started to kind of break apart when um, I want to say it was 2011, 2012, there was a punk show or it was a punk festival with some really, really big time names at the time and still today that was supposed to happen at the Reno Event Center. And um when it came down to it, he did not have the money that had been provided to him to put on that show. And so they all pulled out. And then that was the first domino effect, um, leading to a lot of other issues that culminated in the uh the Flowrida tour that he had been given um about $400,000, I think, total uh from investors to purchase a multi-city tour uh that was supposed to occur during the fall and winter of 2012-2013. And uh it did not happen. He did not have the money. He investigators um in the court hearings talked about the fact that as soon as he was given the money, that money was withdrawn and spent on things other than a flow right at tour and like paying back previous investor investors in other endeavors. Yeah, the the term that the term that the investigators used was uh Ponzi type payments that he had taken. Uh one of them was like $47,000, another one was fifty thousand dollars, and he had used that to pay back prior investors who had invested in prior concert tours.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And some gambling.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

There was a lot of gambling, and it's very odd because uh Brandon talks often about gambling. He he um he he enjoyed the he calls it the energy of it. He spent a lot of time at casinos, he spent a lot of time at roulette tables, he has lots of stories about it, but anytime anybody would bring up where the money came from for those, or uh if he had a gambling problem, he absolutely denies that he ever had a problem. He does not have a problem today.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

And I I believe a judge saw it differently and said that gambling absolutely was part of this.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

If I and that's why it was added to his uh sentencing agreement that he was not allowed to gamble or be anywhere near gambling uh for the time that he spent on probation. Um, but so all told he was admitted.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Right. So all told he ended up racking up uh it was approximately $900,000, at least in court records in in debt. Uh he says it was actually 1.4 because there was another $500,000 owed to somebody else. We don't know who that is.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I I don't think that it was just one individual. There's there's multiple people, some one of which I know of who was a very large uh investor. There was a there was a second group of large investors, but I I think the majority of people who invested were investing small amounts, right? Um a couple thousand dollars, maybe like 10, 20, something like that. And I say small relatively, not small to people like us, but I mean small when other people are giving somebody $300,000 in one sitting.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

And he ultimately gets popped with four felony charges, two of which were fraud, one was theft, and one was uh uttering a forged uh instrument. Uh so in the course of your investigation, and and and I will say, in in fairness to the to the reality of is a lot of people assumed that he was convicted of fraud, and that was absolutely not true. The two fraud charges were ended up ended up being dismissed because there was a uh the judge basically sided with uh Brandon's attorney and said, yes, the definition of security in in Nevada is somewhat specific. So the way that he was charged for fraud ended up having to be dismissed. And then a third charge of forgery was uh essentially pleaded out as part of a plea negotiation. So one felony charge of theft is is what stuck.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, and it's it's the the way that that the way that these loans, as Brandon refers to them as, were structured, uh functioned as a security, but because Brandon is not a registered financial bank um or financial organization, it it couldn't be charged that way. So so the investigators had charged him with uh securities fraud, but it wasn't because he did not commit fraud, it's because he wasn't a financial institution. So on the record, the the the judge said, yes, this is this is fraudulent, but they can only agree or disagree. They can't they can't pull new charges out of the ether. And by that point, um, you know, he he was going to be pleading down. Uh but in total, I want to I think it was over 60 years that he was facing across those four felony charges.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

These charges came up in what you said, 2012. And then I think the court case went, it was in court around 2019. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So the crime occurred in 2012, 2013. Basically, what occurred is that he did not have the money he said he did. He told his investors he had sent a million dollars to Flowrida and his manager, um, who was now refusing to give it back. And so he created a fraudulent wire transfer in a million dollars that he gave to his investors, and he also gave it to his own hired attorney, who then filed a federal court case against Flowrida, um, demanding the return of the million dollars, which was never sent. And so uh that's that's the origins of those charges, but he was never actually um charged and arrested until uh it was late 2017, early 2018, and then he was sentenced um around 2019, 2018, 2019.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

So I've seen uh people comment on some of the posts where we've shared this story online about how is this news? Why why are you reporting this now when all of this happened years ago? So what makes it relevant now and why why are we reporting it?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

So the the main reason when we got started on this was it was because of the reopening of Club Underground. So Club Underground itself closed, depending on which iteration you consider it to be, closed in you know the late aughts like mid 2010s. Um and it reopened at the same location under the same name that uh a lot of people remember from from back in the day of the it caused a lot of confusion.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

It did, yeah, especially because um which I think is what prompted people to contact us to say, hey, you need to look into this. This nothing about this adds up.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Which especially people were saying that he shouldn't be allowed to use the name, but that that name was originally Eddie Lorton's club. He's the owner of the building, he owned Club Underground. Brandon did work there uh for a period of time prior to him moving over to Tonic. But uh I believe that the the largest length of time that it was operating was um while it was the underground, which was under uh different owners. But unless something's trademarked, I mean anybody can name anything, especially if it's at the same location. But a lot of there was a lot in the grapevine, um, and there has been for years of people talking about him kind of popping up at different locations. When he was at the Virginia brew house, um, it wasn't it wasn't known for a long time that that it was him kind of working there, but a lot of people thought that it was. And then after he left there and he went over to the ranch house. So there's always been this kind of um whispering about stuff. And then when he opened, reopened Club Underground front and center, I think that's when a lot of these things kind of came back full force. And we had intended to to publish it pretty quickly after Club Underground opened, but that did not end up uh that did not end up being the case. But I mean, when when we're talking about what's happening now, there's a lot that's happening now um that I do believe is newsworthy, but a lot of follow-ups.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

So you had a three, four-hour-long interview with him, and a lot of his communications were or statements were very hard to verify, not only against the official record, but against what other people had said and done. He's essentially he's alleged a vast conspiracy in Reno involving anyone who essentially speaks out against him or expresses concern about you know his criminal, easily documented criminal past. And he ends up with so that takes a long time to research, but he ends up on probation just for five years and ends up being dishonorably discharged from probation and and talked very briefly about why that was and then what happened next.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So prior to and while he was facing his criminal charges, he had civil judgments against him from a lot of these investors who came back and you know wanted to reclaim the money that he had taken from them, but he didn't have any money to repay them. But those civil, those civil cases were found in their favor. But um when he was brought up on criminal charges, a lot of those civil charges then kind of were bundled into the overall court case for the criminal charges. And so he was ordered um to, you know, stay out of trouble, don't, don't do crimes, don't, you know, do drugs, et cetera, et cetera. Uh stay away from handling specific types of financials. And so part of part of the sentencing was that he needed to pay back this I it was approximately $900,000. And at the time of sentencing, he over the course of several months prior to sentencing, he was able to pay off some of these smaller amounts. And so he was basically ordered to continue doing that. He submitted a statement stating that he was going to be paying, you know, thousands of dollars a month, and this is how he was going to handle the restitution, et cetera, et cetera. But by the end of that five years, he had cumulatively only paid uh the average was about $100 a month. Some months he paid more, some months he paid nothing. And this is all just according to the court documents. Um, and so he had completed his his five years um probation or suspended sentence, but he had not paid off that restitution. So he was dishonorably discharged. Um, and and he still owes that debt. He he can't discharge that debt. So it basically is still uh kind of back into those civil charges of um he still owes it. He has a lien against him for these charges, but he cannot be put in jail if he doesn't pay it because we don't have you know debt prisons anymore in America.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Well, thank you, Kelsey. It's a uh six-part voluminous series. And uh I will tell you, and I know Kristen can second this. Uh, there's a lot more to this story that we we did not report. And uh we we basically stuck with what we could easily verify and and validate through court records and several witness testimony and so on and so forth. So uh it, like you said, Kelsey, it took a while to suss out what the facts were because they were so muddied in this entire exchange over the course of the last six or eight months or however long it was. So thank you for your good work. Uh really appreciate it. I think it's a very compelling story, and I hope people are more informed now that it's out there.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for bringing me on to chat about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Thanks, Kelsey. You take care. Okay, and you know, one thing, you know, we need to talk about is I think something that's very time consuming that people don't really understand in journalism is that it's called cultivating sources, which is basically developing relationships and trust with people who may or may not want to speak openly about you know what they've been through. And that alone can take, as Kelsey said, months. It's um, I think what a lot of people say to us is why they come to us for trusted local Reno news, is because we've been doing this for a long time. People know who we are. We're not just some recent graduates that are going to be here for a year or somebody who's come in from out of market who's gonna sign a two-year contract with a TV station and then up and disappear. And so we have a lot of institutional knowledge. We have extensive archives of reporting and stories and issues that I think uh you know is getting lost with a lot of turnover in newsrooms. So I think hopefully that speaks volumes as to why we do what we do and why people come to us with these kinds of stories. So, Kristen, speaking of which, a story that's been a long time developing is uh what happened with the Washoe County Department or Division of Alternative Sentencing. It's something we've talked about in the past on this podcast, but now we have a huge break in this case.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, so it's the Department of Alternative Sentencing, or the former department, because it was uh disbanded, I think January 1st was its closure. It was voted to be dissolved last October 2025, following all of this, I guess, scandal. And this story really did come about, and our reporting on it became much more robust because of uh sources reaching out to us and giving us information or pointing us in the right direction. And so we really, you know, appreciate all of the people who maybe weren't mentioned in stories, but gave us a lot of great background information. And so, what this story is, is if you've been following along in March of 2025, the Department of Alternative Sentencing, which has an office on 6th Street, was closed down for two days and allegedly raided. It was a they we we heard people call it a raid, but basically the U.S. Secret Service and the Reno police uh shut it down and were investigating and taking out boxes of documents and what have you. This actually coincided somewhat with the county's internal audit. So Washoe County has you know their their internal audit schedule where their their staffers will go and do kind of checks of different departments to check and see, you know, are these operating efficiently or what have you?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

And so they knew something was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Yeah, I think they knew something was wrong. It was a really bad audit, which we also reported on. But immediately when the uh when the department was shut down, everyone was sent home on paid administrative leave unless they could work remotely. Chief Justin Roper resigned immediately. Through our reporting, we learned that he had a business of his own in Las Vegas that basically provided a lot of the exact same drug and alcohol testing services that were being provided in Reno. We talked to a formal former DAS employee and who worked for DAS and then also wound up working for Roper at his Las Vegas business. And we heard that he had on at least. One occasion taken drug testing chemicals from DAS and transported them to his business in Las Vegas. Um, and so we had a feeling that you know the Secret Service is involved in evaluating uh investigating financial crimes. And with the employees' statements about him taking chemicals, we knew that this had to do something with fraud and theft. And so that was confirmed with an indictment that was handed down last Thursday, August 6th from the federal court that uh he was indicted on one count of theft from a federal program because DAS, you know, a lot of county, a lot of people don't realize, but a lot of different local programs, county, city, they're funded with federal grants. And DAS was one of those programs that was funded with federal grants from, you know, justice and you know, these crime grants. And so it the the federal government doesn't have to prove that Roper specifically took money from their specific grant. All they have to prove is that he took money or uh items of value that were that were from a program that is federal that includes federal funding. And so they're alleging he took about $56,000 worth of probably drug testing chemicals, is my guess. It's just a guess.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Maybe equipment too.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, possibly. Uh, not really sure what that looks like. Um, but a warrant was issued for his arrest. He has already had his first court hearing. We have heard that his trial will be in late September, I think September 28th. He's out on a personal bond. According to the Secretary of State's website, he still owns his business in Las Vegas, and it is still open and operating based on the website. So um that's that's the latest on this case.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I think we'll be hearing more in the near future.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yes, we will continue to follow this and and see what happens. I mean, this this is a very serious crime, even though it's one count and it's one count of theft. And we just talked about someone who was, you know, given five years of probation for theft. Well, in this case, because it's federal, he has the potential to, I think, up to 10 years in federal prison and pretty hefty fines. I I think I read somewhere it was about $100,000. I couldn't verify that, but that's that's almost twice what he actually is alleged to have uh stolen. And so a pretty big fine prison time. Uh not sure if he'll get alternative sentencing or not.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Well, speaking of federal court cases, um this is no laughing matter that Del Shea, uh the Anna Scott murder case is continuing to be hashed out and fought in court, federal court. Also, there was an uh an two indictments in that case. I I've gone to two court hearings now, both were last week. And in both cases, the federal judge scolded the the federal prosecutor who's prosecuting the two alleged uh suspects in the case. And I don't want to get into too much as far as the case itself, other than to say that the way that the federal prosecutor is handling this has definitely drawn the the judge's attention and not in a good way. So uh it's it's looking kind of sad uh how this case is being prosecuted, at least to date. The the defense attorney is essentially saying that there's no evidence being had that's been provided as of Thursday last week uh that even ties this suspect to Anna Scott's murder. And so I think that's problem number one. And the case was actually set for trial uh for last week.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Uh that has also when when the when the judge made that rule or when the attorney came out and said, you know, there's no evidence tying this. At the same time, we wound up getting a press release from the sheriff's office saying we're still investigating, and we have two people, but we think there's more people that know something. So it seems like they're still building this case, even though they're going to trial on certain parts of it.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

So that case is is kind of moving along. Uh, you know, I think so far the defense has provided very solid arguments that there's been a lack of evidence produced uh so far in the case. So I'm gonna keep following that case. Uh, I will attend as many court hearings as I possibly can to just keep people informed on what's going on. I think there's a lot of relief in the community that arrests have been made. However, uh, judging by how the prosecution's been handled to date, I I remain concerned. And so please stick with us. Uh, I find it very curious that other media are reporting on this case without even sitting in the courtroom, which is baffling to me. But uh this is Reno will have the story in the near future. Uh Kristen, do you want to do you wanna talk about how about betting on wildfire? Yeah, currently, as we're recording this, about half the North Valleys is on fire or in in evacuation uh scenario. It's a quite a wild time in in Reno. I mean, August, July tend to be very hot months with a lot of wildfires. And this uh the North Valleys is is burning right now.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Yeah, so uh, you know, this came across, we get a lot of press releases from our Congress people, uh, Senator Katherine Cortez Masto, Senator Jackie Rosen. They're always sending out press releases about different actions that they're taking in Congress, signing on to letters, you know, uh submitting bills, etc. Well, this one came across and immediately sparked my interest because they sent a letter to um a federal agency that is in charge of overseeing like securities markets and different uh, you know, kind of uh more related to like the housing crisis and selling shorts than gaming. But they also oversee these prediction markets like polymarket, calci, uh, crypto.com, where people can, it's essentially betting. The companies like to call it something else, like swaps or contracts, but basically it's betting on the probability of something.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

And they sort of like it's not a Ponzi scheme, it's investor rolling.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Exactly. It's it's not gaming or betting, it's a contract or a swap. And so I guess polymarket, which is one of the biggest ones, they were actually when the LA fires were happening, the Eaton fire and the other one, um, they were actually taking bets on you know how many acres would burn or how many homes would burn, or you know, there were all these different bets that people could take. And they got a lot of pushback. I guess a lot of people thought this is really crass, this is you know, the worst day of people's lives. This is this is something that is devastating for people and families, and to to do betting on this is is disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

And so people are betting on the on the bug fire and the Fred Mountain fire right now. And I think there's probably two others to burn.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah, and so basically, you know, the big markets, Cal She Polymarket, you know, word is that they've kind of pulled back on some of those and are not allowing them on site, but there are other newer prediction markets that are coming out that there's one called Wildfire that is specifically just wildfires. And I think right now they're focused on California. They're not actually doing real money, it's just play money, but they have the intent to come out with real money betting on these things. And so the senators are basically saying, you need to regulate this, you need to do a better job, that that we cannot be allowing people to wager on things that could contribute to arson, could contribute to delayed response. You know, if if you put a wager on a fire and then you start the fire and then you don't call 911 to report the fire, you have then just you know influenced your wager. And so it it could be devastating to communities, especially those that are, you know, wildfire prone. Um, and really it's just it's just a disgusting way for people to be trying to make a buck off of something that is is devastating. And so hopefully they'll get some regulations on the books and and that will not be an issue as as is right now. I think there's still challenges in Nevada. The gaming industry is challenging the the rights of these prediction markets to operate in Nevada. Um, and so like CalShi's not eligible to operate in Nevada right now. Um, but just because it's not operating in the state doesn't mean that it doesn't affect the state because people elsewhere can be betting on fires in Nevada if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That's kind of crazy to me. And I I'll be honest with you, until uh I saw your draft story, I didn't even know this was happening. And I think you're right, it is rather disgusting.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah, pretty disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

So making money off of other people's misfortune and natural disasters.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

I mean great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Speaking of uh making money off of other people's misfortunes, uh, there was a data center meeting recently.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Data centers are back, you know. Uh the sit the Reno City Council did place a moratorium on data centers for about a year, year plus, maybe. That was a few months back. But the Trekkie Meadows Regional Planning Agency has been working behind the scenes to gather feedback from various groups and organizations, and they presented some of that, their study, their research, their findings to a group of concerned citizens last week at the Reno Public Market. And I attended the meeting, and it was uh, I would say unnecessarily the meeting. Uh there was a people are very concerned and just outraged, frankly, at these data centers just popping up. And TMRPA's Jeremy Smith, who, by the way, I think did a really great job during the pandemic. I don't know if you remember his COVID modeling and and all the data that they were putting forward, uh, his team there, uh, very important, valuable work. He has sort of been thrust into this position, primarily, I believe, by the Reno City Council, who you you'll remember, even refused to meet to have a discussion about this issue. I mean, that was bonkers. That was what last year. And so TMRPA was kind of put in the position to sort of figure out how do we coordinate these regional governing bodies and create a sort of consistent set of data standards, I guess, is what's ultimately going to happen. People were pissed. Uh, they were very frustrated that I believe that we're even having this conversation, if I can really sum it up in that super basic way. But, you know, people are just, I think, by and large, opposed to these uh showing up in their in their backyards. And a lot of people took issue with the language that was used in the survey, referring to people as stakeholders rather than as Autumn from the Water Over Data Alliance said, uh, members of sovereign nations, you know, not stakeholders. So there's concern, uh, concerns about language. They were concerned that there's no bilingual surveys for people to express their opinions. And they were uh concerned also about the lack of feedback or lack of uh people taking the survey. I believe there was about 150 or so that had taken it by the time of the meeting. So part of the meeting was to really push people to take that survey, and even that prompted some outrage. Uh so I think when all was said and done, it was perhaps beneficial in that it put some information out there. But I think uh Jeremy Smith, the executive director of TMRPA, was kind of put in an unfortunate position that he was kind of taking the beating that really I think wasn't deserved or should not have been aimed at him. You and I, we wrote the editorial about this and and really wanted to remind people that it was the city of Reno's blatant inaction in developing any kind of guardrails on data centers that has allowed these to pop up on Keystone Avenue and in the North Valleys of Reno. And while Jeremy Smith was the punching bag at that meeting, there were other council members present who were the ones who have made these decisions to not take any action on data centers and decision. And really, they should have been aiming their ire at those council members, in in in our opinion, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah, I think you know, the for people who aren't familiar with the TMRPA, it is the governing board is Reno City Council members, Spark City Council members, Washoe County Commissioners. And it the whole purpose of the the TMRPA is to kind of form this regional approach with policies. And so when there's like a really, really big development that is going to affect multiple jurisdictions, TMRPA will weigh in and it has to go through them for reviews. And there's a big kind of overall strategic plan, it's to keep all three jurisdictions working together with a regional kind of vision and goal and and even you know kind of playing by the same rules and and guidelines. And so really the role that Smith and his team have is just to kind of work on developing that research and giving the information and guidance on what would be best for these communities. But it took them a long time to to kick that over to the TMRPA. And then I think waiting and allowing data centers to continue to come through for approvals without having any sort of guardrails or guidelines is what has created a lot of the problem. And yeah, it's it's I think TMRPA needs a little bit more budget and a little bit more uh grassroots enthusiasm to get more feedback on their survey because 150 of the entire community is absolutely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Yeah. I I think people confuse uh policy analyst with policy maker. And I think that's a fundamental error to make. You know, I I would put TMRPA more on the analytical side of developing, you know, presenting policy options. You know, you think of like your research analyst at the Nevada legislature, their job is not to pick sides or even enact the policy, it's really to inform the policy as it should be enacted. And I think that's really what Smith was trying to say is like, I'm not, you know, he he was on the defensive quite a bit, and a lot of people were yelling at him. And he's like, look, I'm not the decider here. I'm the person who's trying to inform how how this is going to be decided. And your feedback is is going to help inform that as well. So he did say that their outrage and their, you know, just blatant opposition to data centers will be communicated back to his uh governing body, which I believe will be taking place in the next couple of days. So we will have an update on that on thisisreno.com, as well as probably in the next podcast. And we'll see what happens as far as whether or not data centers will be allowed in the Reno area in the future and in urban centers again.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Well, and for now, there is still the Keystone Data Center over on Keystone Avenue, and we ran a story on that as well. Michelle Baker was working on this piece, and really, I think it started off as an article about this group No Desert, No Data Nevada, which is in opposition to this Keystone Data Center. Some of the founders are residents who live right next to it. It has been doing construction super early hours. Um, they're saying that about they've had more than a 10% change since the permits were issued, and that that should trigger, you know, a review that they would have. And so they've written flooded people's inboxes with these concerns.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

And I need to be clear though, you said 10% change in the expected energy demand that they were going to need.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Well, they're saying that there was more than a 10% change in the data center building plans.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Oh, building plans. Okay. Yeah. I thought it was the amount of electricity they were going to be using.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Well, and that's, I think, what you know, it it started off as this 10% change in the building plans. And then the more research that Michelle did on this, she noticed that they are touting this as using much more data than was pitched to Reno City Council and included in their applications and information for their conditional use permit. And so while this was originally, I think, pitched at about four megawatts, up to about six megawatts that they were going to be using. One of the executives in this company that is going to be the data center, uh Centra, Centra, yeah, was saying that it was going to be a 12 mega 12 megawatt data center, which is twice as much data. And that really kind of got Michelle going down a rabbit hole. And so she was reaching out to the city. Basically, it doesn't matter how much power the data center uses, the city doesn't have any jurisdiction over that. As long as they have the same building plans and they adhere to their conditional use permit, which doesn't require any information on the amount of data that they're using, then it's fine. The city doesn't care. The data or the energy usage is an agreement with NV Energy. And so in researching to find out if there needed to be an additional layer of approval for this data center to use twice as much energy as initially proposed, which we're not even sure if that was a typo from the person in the centra executive or if it's the actual intent. But we won't know that because NV Energy says that that information is proprietary and they will not share it because it is private customer information.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I think this is freaking insane, Kristen, that that we have uh reported this and and come to find this. I what what what I think Michelle was experiencing it is that nobody would answer her questions about how much energy consumption is this data center going to use. Because we come to find out through both the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada and NB Energy, data center energy uses energy use, according to these folks, is confidential information. And I think that is crazy. The two biggest impacts that data centers have on the environments where they are built are water and power. And if we don't get to know one of the two most major impacts that that these facilities are going to have, how can citizens be reasonably informed, let alone have any kind of basic opposition or support for these facilities if we don't even know what kind of impact they're really gonna have? I don't, I'm not a legislator, but I hope our legislature next year looks at this issue because this is crazy that we're not even allowed to know this information.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

At this point, we see when data centers are pitched or when they have been pitched, they always say, you know, it's gonna be a five megawatt or it's gonna be a 12 megawatt. I think that that is more included in the description of the data center as a selling point, as a sales message, and not so much as a resource usage message. And I think, you know, they pitch it as that, but they can always change it.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

That's called a bait and switch.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah, it really does not have any impact on it, it doesn't have any um real uh tangible information that can help citizens understand the impact that that data center will have on their community.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

I believe what what Michelle reported was it was originally pitched the Centra Keystone Avenue. New data center was originally pitched as I believe a four megawatt data center. And then the, as you mentioned, the centra executive Shelly Greco on LinkedIn said called it a 12 megawatt AI powerhouse.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Yes, before eventually revising her post.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Yes, she deleted that.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Yeah. I think she deleted that after Michelle reached out to her. But yes, she deleted that 12 megawatts and now it just says that it's going to be a powerhouse.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

How cute. And also did not respond to us for comment. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

And you know, one of the funny things I think that is is funny about this is that they're touting it as a sustainable lead design. LEED L E E D is a designation for green buildings that have less environmental impact. And so I just think it's insane that there is a data center that is going to be guzzling up power and water, but the building is lead certified.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Ask me how casinos get lead certification while still allowing smoking.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

No comment.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Very similar kind of issue.

unknown 45:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

So what else is on top of me, Bob?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Well, speaking of former Washoe County officials, uh, you know, we broke the story last week that the brand new library director abruptly resigned. I believe she was on the job less than four, less than three months.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

It was about three months, I think.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Okay, so this is crazy. Uh now keep in mind, former library director Jeff Scott was essentially told you're gonna be fired. You know, there's an agenda item coming with your termination on it, and just and it's a packed room at the downtown Washoe County Library. Everyone's waiting to watch him get fired. And just prior to that meeting, he announced his resignation.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah, I think I'd pass on that too.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

When was that? That was some time ago.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Uh it was like March, April, May 2025.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Yeah, so they've been sort of uh actually, uh, I believe it was, yes, it was, yes, you're right. In the interim, they had a acting or not acting. They say she wasn't acting, but she really was sort of the acting head, uh, Stacy McKenzie. And she then reportedly got fired. I'm told she appealed that and ended up not getting fired. I have not gotten any solid confirmation of that, but uh, for whatever reason, she was ousted as the acting library director. And then a new one comes in, uh Lisa McClure. She came in in early March and And there was a big national search.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

I mean, they had candidates from all across the country, McClure is from Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

So they went with uh an outsider, and uh basically we we got the tip that she resigned. We we published a very quick brief with very little information. And then soon after that, we got a copy of an email that she had sent to the library trustees. And uh, by the way, and it did not come from a library trustee, but we just ended up getting a copy of it. And uh apparently, uh fairly quickly, the last meeting or two, there was some animosity or some concern expressed by by trustees about what was happening, what was not happening, and there was some criticism. Well, unbeknown to anybody, somebody told Miss McClure, you had better resign or you're gonna face a public termination. That's according to the email that she sent to the trustees. We do not have any confirmation of that. We do not know who may have said that, but we did learn that yes, the library board of trustees hires and evaluates the director, but the county manager and the HR outfit can terminate, supposedly, we're told this, uh, the library director if there's some kind of stuff happening that we may never know about, which happened to the prior one, the acting director. So there was a lot of there were some money issues, there was uh trustees concerned that stuff wasn't being done, there was some animosity or some friction between library staff and the new director. And essentially she up and left, and we're back to square one at the Washoe County Library System without a director.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Yeah, I think I think it's sad. Um, I think McClure in her discussions at the trustees meetings and in her email that that that we had received, she talked about how she hadn't gotten any official training on things, um, that she came into a uh a system that had no executive director for almost a year and it has these budget challenges. You know, the library staff or the library budget was kind of essentially cut when the tax uh allocation did not get renewed. And so she kind of came in this situation that I would say is not optimal for a new employee, and not optimal and expected, frankly.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Yeah, I mean, read the news stories.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

I think I think she had some challenges ahead of her. I think that, you know, uh from what I read and what I listened to, she really had um an idea of how she wanted to get things going. I think that the stars just did not align for her. And so, yeah, like you said, we're back to square one. Uh, I think fortunately, it seems that our library staff is fairly resilient. I think that they love their jobs, and so I think that the library fairly resistant as well. Yeah, they're good, the libraries are gonna keep chugging along. Uh, so we'll see this, you know, we have a couple of new board members on the library board, and so we'll see what happens with finding somebody to fill those shoes.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

I guess it's back to following the library board of trustees meetings again. I was kind of like thinking, you know, we got asked, I think it was maybe three years ago, like, hey, Conrad, you guys need to start following these trustees, library board of trustees meetings. And I I was like, Yeah, well, what's going on? And they sort of told me about a lot of the shenanigans. I guess it was maybe three years ago. And and so we did, and we started following it very closely. And and after the new director got hired, I'm like, cool, the waters will calm.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Nope. Spoke too soon.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

You know where else the waters are not calm, and and this should come as no surprise to anyone, but the waters are not calm at Reno City Hall.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Reno City Clerk Mickey Huntsman is again back up for termination. Her her position is is scheduled uh tomorrow, I believe, or in two days.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Yeah, I mean, by the time a lot of people are are listening to this, they will already have the answer and they will know more than we do right now, which is that she will likely be losing her job and will get either three months or six months severance.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

It's it's a very peculiar couple agenda items. They're they're back to back. There's two different agenda items. One is to, they're both to sever her employment with different language being used. So I suspect this was all legally crafted. But as you mentioned, there's one option for a three-month severance and then another for six months. And the amounts of money, of course, differ depending on which way the council votes. Uh, they're very peculiar agenda items. And I did a public records request, which of course was denied by the Reno City Attorney's Office. This is raising a lot, like people are very curious. Like they're even emailing us going, what is happening over here? And I don't have a lot to tell them. Uh, I will say that I did get a comment from the mayor, and she said she requested consideration of a proposed settlement agreement, and a council member requested consideration of termination for convenience. Neither item involved termination for cause. So they are terminating her employment, it's just not for cause, supposedly. And again, quoting Shivi, my understanding based on legal opinion is that nothing in the report would be the basis for a fur for cause termination. Now, that report, according to sources, uh, confirms that there was uh based on a lack of presumably not showing up to work or leaving early, those kinds of things. The city clerk was kind of not present when she was physically there. She was sort of vacant and not as attentive to staff as she perhaps could have been. Again, that's according to sources. Essentially, there was a really low morale, some dissatisfied staff members in the office uh alleging various things. And it got to the point where they conducted a human resources investigation that did validate some of the employee concerns, according to what we've been told. Second time this has happened, the first time, I believe we discussed on the last podcast, or maybe a couple podcasts ago, they had this agenda item and the mayor made a motion to remove it from the agenda, and that was passed in a four to three vote.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Yes. She wanted to see the investigation play out before making any sort of decisions, which was a principled move that does not hold for all city employees.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Like the chief of police. Yes. Who knows? You know, I I think she I think three things could happen. One, uh maybe four. Uh, one would be agenda item one, uh, the other would be agenda item two. So it would be a severance with a three to or six month option. I think a fourth possible outcome would be they uh decide to keep her, potentially.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

I'm not sure that's gonna happen, but there's only three options, Bob.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Well, then the what was the oh, I had a never mind. Three options. Oh, I know what it was. No, the fourth option is they could do they could shelve the agenda item again and and kick the can down the road.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

Yeah. So well, that sounds familiar too.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yeah, so I don't know what's gonna happen. I suspect uh Mickey Huntsman may not be the city clerk after that meeting, uh, we will know very shortly. But you know, I thought I think it also speaks to in this case, the city clerk is one of two positions that reports directly to the city council and the mayor, the other being the city manager. And if relationships with your own employee have gotten have devolved so much that it's prompted this kind of complaint and in type of investigative process, I mean, this takes us back to what happened with Andrew Klinger, if you remember that back in whenever that was 2016, 2017. I don't remember that. The council took a long time to essentially sever that agreement with uh Andrew Klinger. You know, a lawsuit came out and all sorts of crazy things happened. And, you know, a body overseeing an individual employee like this is going to be a tough thing to do structurally in the first place, let alone how do you get all council members on board on how to properly deal with a situation like this.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

And so I think I mean I think the nature just of the managerial relationship is that they don't have a lot of direct oversight over that employee, uh, aside from you know reporting metrics and and you know, there she is on the dais running the meeting kind of. So I think, yeah, I think it's an interesting managerial setup when you are tasked as a council member, you would be tasked with uh oversight of this position where you're not necessarily working with them on a regular basis and seeing their their office performance.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

In that way, it's it's it's a tough thing to adequately supervise somebody in that position. However, it also shows that perhaps that in and of itself is problematic and could sort of open the door to some disgruntled employees and situations like we saw back with Andrew Klinger. We'll see what happens. Uh, last but not least, Kristen, you wanted to note a few new things happening.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

On a lighter note, we have had a couple of fresh writers contribute to the Ces Reno over the past few weeks. We had uh it and you know, it's a little bit more arts and culture. We often don't have the capacity to cover all of the arts and culture that's happening in the community. I know, Bob, you go and uh you go to a lot of the theater productions. Um, on occasion, we get live music performances, but we don't have, we don't get to cover kind of the depth of arts and culture in the community that that we know is out there. And so CJ Emerson Branch did a great piece on the micromania midget wrestling, uh, which I thought was great. I really enjoyed reading that story. And then Vivian Liao did a great piece on the Joy Project. Uh, she has contributed a couple of stories, other stories in the past that are really interesting, kind of looking at art and art exhibits and how they are uh intertwined with some of kind of our culture and um different things in the community. So if you get a chance to check out those authors and read some of their work on our site, I I would highly recommend it. Nice, it's a nice break from our gripes about the council and the county commission in the school district.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

Well, I think that's it. You know, on a final note, we offer this podcast for free to everybody. And but what you may not know is that it takes hours to actually produce these. And that doesn't just, I mean, the prep is actually and the recording is the easy part. It's the after-the-fact editing. And we hope that you appreciate this work and that you consider becoming a pain supporter. You will get exclusive content uh that other people cannot access. And you also see a lot fewer ads, so you get a much better reading experience on the website when you become a pain. This is Reno subscriber. And all you have to do is just head on over to thisisreno.com forward slash subscribe, and we will see you next time. Thanks so much.