This Is Reno obtained two-and-a-half years of City of Reno public records on discretionary spending to see how the Mayor and City Council members spent those funds. Hours were dedicated to poring over numerous travel receipts, city council donations, candidate disclosures and other documents. Findings reveal that some council members appear to have violated city policies. 

This is part seven in a 10-part series, which is being published over the coming days. Read the complete series here. Subscribe here to get access to all This Is Reno articles.

Reno City Council members over the past several years have made thousands of dollars in donations through their discretionary budgets while also fundraising for reelection. Some appear to have received personal benefits after their donations. Both scenarios appear to violate city council policies. 

In 2022, council members approved Resolution No. 9036 to update their discretionary spending policy from 2005, which outlines several rules for spending those funds. Those rules allow for any portion of a council member’s discretionary budget to be donated to a local nonprofit as long as it provides a community benefit.

The resolution includes guidelines and restrictions, including one which seems to be contradictory. The resolution states, “A council member who becomes a candidate, as that term is defined by NRS 294A.005, for any public office shall not be entitled to make a recommendation for a donation from the time the council member files for public office until such time that the council member is no longer a candidate.” 

The state law referenced in the provision is NRS 294A.005, which defines a candidate as anyone who has accepted “one or more contributions in excess of $100,” regardless of whether they’ve filed a declaration of candidacy or appeared on a ballot. 

Based on the language, it’s not clear if council member donations are prohibited once they’ve received contributions over $100 or if the prohibition is triggered once they’ve filed for office. City attorneys did not respond to a request for clarification of the policy.

“It might not be illegal, but it may not look appropriate to members of the public.”

Council members are also restricted from receiving any personal or private benefit from their donations or making donations to support individuals or political campaigns and lobbying efforts, per the final clause of the resolution. Records show most council members appear to not be following these rules. 

John Pelissero, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said, “Elected officials should always be able to demonstrate that they are not mixing official city business with private, campaign-related interests. And, ethically, an elected official should not accept campaign donations from any organization that does business with the city or benefits from city funds.” 

Council members in the past have donated anywhere from 30% to 100% of their annual discretionary budget to local nonprofits and neighborhood activities. The donations are approved during Reno City Council meetings and are generally around $1,000 each but sometimes can reach up to $10,000. 

This Is Reno, for example, received funding from Council member Jenny Brekhus from her discretionary funds, which are being used to fund our “A City in Crisis” documentary. A number of current and former council members, as well as the mayor, have supported This Is Reno through advertising, subscriptions and personal donations. Brekhus’s $1,500 donation to the documentary through our fiscal sponsor, Independent Arts & Media, is the only donation received from city discretionary funds. (This Is Reno does not donate to or endorse political candidates.)

Annual campaign contribution statements filed with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office show that five of Reno’s six city council members, as well as Mayor Hillary Schieve, took in thousands of dollars in campaign donations at the same time city records show they were also donating thousands from their discretionary spending accounts—from the city’s taxpayer-funded general fund—to nonprofits of their choosing. 

Jenny Brekhus is the only council member who appears to have not violated the council’s discretionary spending policy. In 2022, she raised nearly $28,500 toward her campaign for mayor but only used discretionary funds for inter-city giving, funding special events, fire station landscaping and the Historical Resources Commission. In 2023, no longer running for office, she resumed donations to local nonprofits, giving $29,000 in discretionary funds.

Brekhus told This Is Reno she was aware of the city resolution barring using discretionary funds donations to nonprofits while running for office. She also said she tries to focus her donations on Ward 1, the region she represents.

Candidate contributions follow city-funded donations and vice versa

While using discretionary funds for nonprofit donations is not a violation of city policy, in several instances, council members received campaign donations and support from individuals who also served on the boards of the nonprofits that received donations from those council members’ discretionary funds. 

Among Schieve’s campaign contributions was $5,000 from Doug Roberts in May 2022. Roberts is on the board of Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation, which received a $3,000 donation from Schieve’s discretionary account six months earlier in December 2021. 

Council member Miguel Martinez received $550 in campaign donations from a board member and two executive staff who work at nonprofits that received city donations recommended by him in 2023. Among the campaign contributions were $200 from Alex Velto, a board member of Mater Academy, Council member Devon Reese’s business partner and a member of the city’s planning commission. Mater Academy received a $500 city donation seven months prior to Martinez receiving a campaign contribution. 

Martinez also received $150 from Mario DelaRosa, executive director of Latino Arte and Culture, a nonprofit that received a $2,000 donation six months earlier. The organization went on to earn a city lease and another $10,000 grant pushed by Martinez in August 2023. Donald Griffin, co-founder of the Black Wall Street nonprofit, donated $200 to Martinez seven months after Martinez donated $1,000 from his council funds to the organization.

In 2022 and 2023, Council member Devon Reese took in $7,475 in campaign contributions from board members of nonprofits that received donations from his city discretionary fund. Reese, in March 2023, received $200 from Ivet Contreras, who serves on the board of Latino Arte and Culture—beneficiary of $12,500 in donations from Reese’s discretionary city account, on top of Martinez’s donations to the organization. 

Reese, in 2021 gave $2,500, and in 2023, gave $1,000 to Sons & Daughters of Erin (SADOE), a local nonprofit promoting Irish heritage, of which Reese is a member. SADOE board member and now-President Willie Puchert helped Reese with campaign fundraising, co-hosting a “suggested” minimum $100 per ticket fundraiser for Reese on June 15, 2023. 

Reese did not disclose his membership in SADOE or his relationship with Puchert when voting in favor of those donations. Council member Megan Ebert is also a member of the organization. She told This Is Reno she received a $20 cash donation from Puchert for her campaign, which does not need to be disclosed on state election forms because it was less than $100.

This Is Reno reached out to city attorneys Karl Hall and Jonathan Shipman on Feb. 12 to clarify details of the council’s donations resolution. They did not respond. But at the city council meeting two days later, council members Reese and Ebert, for the first time, disclosed their SADOE memberships before approving a donation to the organization. The donation was $1,000 from Schieve’s account and $500 from Ebert’s discretionary fund.

“The real problem here is the appearance that this was not a proper donation because it led to a fundraising benefit,” Pelissero said. “It might not be illegal, but it may not look appropriate to members of the public.”

In November 2023, Reese received $2,500 for his campaign from Shirley Folkins-Roberts, co-founder and board member of Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation. The donation arrived nine months after Reese allocated to the nonprofit a $1,500 city donation. He also received a $500 contribution from Cordillera Film Festival Executive Director Emily Skyle-Golden in November 2023, six months after donating $285 in city funds to the festival. 

In September 2023, Reese gave $1,000 in discretionary funds to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. Two months later, he received a $2,500 campaign contribution from FBNN board member Abbi Whitaker. Six months before the donation, Reese also received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Whitaker’s business, The Abbi Agency.

Reese and Martinez donated $1,000 each in August 2023 to the Albee Aryel Foundation, which was founded by Ron Aryel. Both council members received campaign contributions from Aryel in 2023. Reese took in $775 across six separate transactions, and Martinez took in $350, all from Aryel.

Council member Kathleen Taylor also received a $100 contribution from Emily Jaenson, a Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation board member, two months after Taylor donated $1,980 to the nonprofit from her council funds. In March 2023, Taylor voted in favor of a $3,000 donation to Eddy House while it appears she was also serving on the organization’s board. Neither she nor Eddy House’s executive director responded to a question asking when she joined the board.

Some discretionary purchases approved or recommended by Reese were for event tickets or gala tables. Several were for activities hosted by lobbying organizations, appearing to violate the city council’s policy. City officials did not respond to a request for the names of those who attended these events.

City policy states that “donations shall not be made in support of individuals or for political campaigns or lobbying efforts. No donation shall provide any personal or private benefit to any Council member.”

Reese purchased two tickets with city funds for the Nevada Women’s Lobby Annual Awards and four for the 2021 Silver State Equality Awards. Both of those organizations are focused on lobbying efforts.

A city-supplied accounting spreadsheet shows the $1,000 donation for the 2021 Silver State Equality Awards as going to the organization’s 501(c)3 nonprofit arm, the Silver State Equality Initiative, which is not a violation of council policy. Silver State Equality has a political 501(c)4 arm as well. The council’s resolution for the donation, however, notes that the organization “seeks to elect pro-equality champions, up and down the ballot to pass pro-equality legislation.” 

Reese served on the 2021 Silver State Equality Awards host committee and now also serves on the advisory board for the nonprofit. He did not disclose his relationship with the organization before approving the donation during a council meeting.

Council members have also spent over $2,000 from their taxpayer-funded discretionary accounts on food and drinks using the city’s Suite 19 at Greater Nevada Field. In the summer of 2023, Reese and Taylor each paid $700 for entertaining guests at the field on Aug. 13 and Sept. 3, with $200 of that amount covering tips for ballpark staff. Despite being requested by This Is Reno, the city did not provide a guest list of who was using the suite for either of those games. 

Reese documented that he attended the Sept. 3, 2023, game on Instagram. He said a variety of groups are invited to attend games in the city suite, including “folks for Older Americans month, police folks, fire folks, Black Community Collective, and Our Center as I recall.”

Another activity that was documented on June 16, 2022, on Instagram, this time on the City of Reno's account, was Reese participating in goat yoga with students from the Dean's Future Scholars program using funds from his discretionary account and an unknown city account. The Dean's Future Scholars program is overseen at the University of Nevada, Reno, by Washoe County Commissioner Mariluz Garcia.

As to the goat yoga, Peliserro said, “This session must be an essential part of the training and for the benefit of the official's duties” to be considered ethical government spending.  

Read part eight tomorrow.

Correction: The Albee Aryel Foundation did not provide any campaign contributions to Council members Reese or Martinez. Those donations came from Ron Aryel, the foundation's founder, in his personal capacity. This story has been updated.