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Attorney Fires Back at School District

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Washoe County School District Superintendent Traci Davis, through her attorney, fired back today at the school board for what she is calling trumped up allegations against her.

Attorney William Peterson told ThisisReno that “if they have charges to be made against Traci Davis, they are required to assert those charges in an open meeting.”

Of the more than 200 pages the district posted on its board document website, Peterson said none point to malfeasance by Davis.

“The claim of ‘substantial evidence that [Superintendent] Davis provided access to said information’ is based on 225 pages of handwritten notes, text messages, and emails from or exchanged by, between, or among Byron Green, David Lasic, Jenny Hunt (Ricci), and David Frydman, with occassional attachments, but not a single email, text message, letter, or note from … Davis (and the District certainly conducted an exhaustive email and record search before bringing these charges), and not a single email, text message, letter, or note from any of the persons involved in any of these communications, stating, or indicating that any of the information mentioned or discussed came from … Davis, or identifying [sic] her as a source,” Peterson wrote in an email sent to the school board of trustees.

He added that school district attorney Neil Rombardo may have “sent a memo to ‘his clients’ (the board) without realizing that Mr. Lasic was automatically included on all such emails although not named as an addressee.”

Reader Peterson’s letter, and a number of other documents and communications, below.

He also questioned why the district brought these issues up now.

“They had this stuff since 2018,” he told ThisisReno. “Why didn’t they go in there and ask them, and say, do you have an explanation for this? Instead, they get this stuff for three weeks and gin up charges to get rid of them.”

Peterson also criticized the district’s handling of the case.

“There’s a way to go about [this],” he said. “It’s called a performance evaluation. This was all political theater for the obvious purpose of enabling the district to accuse … Davis of wasting taxpayer money.”

Peterson said that the district also terminated her email access, “not an ordinary practice with a voluntary leave of absence…”

The school district did not respond to requests for comment.

Bob Conrad
Bob Conradhttp://thisisreno.com
Bob Conrad is publisher, editor and co-founder of This Is Reno. He has served in communications positions for various state agencies and earned a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2011. He is also a part time instructor at UNR and sits on the boards of the Nevada Press Association and Nevada Open Government Coalition.

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