Council members bicker, criticize volunteer committee
Several members of the Reno City Charter Committee pushed back against comments made by City Council members on Monday during a joint meeting to review potential legislative initiatives. Council members requested the meeting to learn more about the four policy recommendations provided by the Charter Committee earlier this month.
More than a quarter of the two-hour meeting was spent discussing the potential for special elections rather than an appointment process to fill vacancies on the city council. Charter Committee members said they had approved the proposal in a 12-0 vote with one member absent, demonstrating their near-unanimous support for it.
The recommendation comes after half of the Reno City Council was originally appointed after council seats became vacant. The charter committee proposed special elections after community criticism over several council member appointments.
Council member Miguel Rodriguez sought to clarify how a special election to fill a seat for a partial term would fit with the 12-year term limit imposed for council members. City Attorney Jonathan Shipman said he’d have to review case law to answer that question, but he said being appointed or elected for a partial term to fill a vacancy would come with the same eligibility rules.
Council member Devon Reese, however, grilled committee members on the details of the proposal. How will the election be formatted — as a primary and general or a jungle primary? Did they review how other elected bodies handle appointments versus elections?
Yes, the policies for other city councils in Nevada and neighboring states were reviewed, said the Charter Committee’s Dennis Green.
“What about the Clark County Commission, for example?” Reese asked. “They appoint. So it sounds like we still have some work to do on that issue. Now, did we analyze the voter turnout in a special election?”
Green said the committee looked at voter turnout, but that wasn’t the key factor in proposing a special election process.
“The impact for us … was, one, what was going to afford the most voice for the people … and the shortest most consistent amount of time,” Green said. “I don’t know that we considered, specifically, voter turnout in relation to the special election. It sounds like the conversation the council has been having is getting people out to vote has been a challenge overall consistently.”
Reese, however, said he thinks the charter committee has more work to do. He said in his research of national elections, special elections generally get a 7% voter turnout and he theorized that in a 10-candidate special election the winner may only get votes from 1% of their ward. He also expressed concern that whoever raises the most money to campaign would win in a special election.
A special election process could be less representative than a council appointment process, Reese claimed, because the council members “who have been voted on” by community members represent the community. Reese, along with Council members Martinez and Kathleen Taylor, were all appointed for their initial terms, and neither Martinez nor Taylor has been elected through the general election process.
Using Reese’s math, a special election for Ward 3, which has the smallest number of registered voters by ward at 22,002 as of May 2024, could draw 1,540 voters with a winner drawing hundreds of votes. For comparison, only 3,463 voters cast ballots for the Ward 3 primary in June 2024.
Committee member Margo Piscevich said, however, voter turnout was considered, and the data they reviewed showed that when elections are promoted, and in the news, people do turn out. Council member Naomi Duerr agreed that when people are interested in a topic they’re motivated to engage.
Tess Opferman, who also serves on the Charter Committee, said she’s seeing people locally and nationally feeling much more disconnected from their elected officials and a special election could re-engage voters.
“Our entire committee felt like it was important that we give our community access to vote for someone and not simply have an elected board decide on that individual,” Opferman said.
Council member Meghan Ebert thanked the Charter Committee members and said it wasn’t their job to look into the finer details of elections when making policy recommendations. She said democracy was more important.
“The feedback that I get from my constituents is there is a perception that elections don’t matter anymore, that voices don’t matter,” Ebert said. “I think it’s really important for us to prove that perception wrong, and one of the best ways we can do that is by having elections… The fact that it might be a smaller turnout is irrelevant to me. We need to let people know that they’re making the choice.”
Three more policy proposals considered
A second policy proposal from the committee would require a city manager to live in the City of Reno within six months of their appointment. Green said the intent was to have a manager who was more “in tune” with the community and familiar with community concerns.
“I’m trying to figure out what is the problem you are looking to solve?” Reese asked.
Charter Committee member Miranda Hoover clarified that the recommendation wouldn’t be to only hire city managers from those already residing in Reno, but to require that anyone hired for the job who doesn’t live in Reno relocate.
Reese said he wasn’t interested in dictating where a person must live but agreed that it wouldn’t be ideal to have a manager who commuted from a faraway city, such as Roseville. Despite that comment, he doubled down on his previous critique.
“Normally we have a problem we’re trying to find a solution for,” he said. “This seems like a problem in search of a solution.” 
Duerr said she thought it was a good idea to take proactive action to outline residency expectations for city managers, pointing to other local leaders who have maintained residences in another state or in Las Vegas.
“Living one foot in and one foot out, we have seen that,” Mayor Hillary Schieve said, likely referring to former City Manager Sabra Newby, who moved back to Las Vegas after a short time in Reno.
Council members recommended expanding the policy to allow residency in Washoe County or smaller communities nearby such as Carson City.
Charter Committee members also brought back a past proposal to remove gendered language from the city’s charter. Opferman said this is the third time the committee has brought forward the policy proposal. In an effort to follow through with the intent, she said they have already updated the committee’s bylaws to remove gendered language.
Charter Committee members also proposed policies to adjust the terms of committee members appointed by legislators to align with that legislator’s term of office.
Council members propose additional charter changes
Council member Duerr said she had two more proposals in addition to the four from committee members. The first, she said, was to change the city attorney from an elected position to one that is appointed by the council. She said Reno and Sparks are the only cities in the state that elect their city attorneys.
“I think it would depoliticize the position and allow them to really get down in the weeds and provide advice for us,” she said. “I think it would empower the office to work more closely with our senior staff.”
Committee member Piscevich, an attorney, said employment of the city attorney had been discussed, but committee members tabled the idea quickly.
“If you’re an attorney you need to be separate from your clients, and you need to be separate for everything that you do,” she said. 
Duerr asked for more detail as to why most other cities in the state hire their city attorneys.
“I really don’t care,” Piscevich replied. “You need to be independent. I’ve been a lawyer for 43 years, and I would in no way want to have my client telling me what to do. That doesn’t work. You shouldn’t be able to browbeat your lawyer.”
Ebert agreed, noting that the city attorney is there to serve the city and ensure council members follow the law, not to take direction from the council.
Duerr’s second recommendation was to change the structure of the council so that the mayor is not considered a member of the council as it relates to term limits. In Reno, unlike some other cities, the mayor is considered a member of the council, and their years of service as mayor count toward the 12-year maximum for a city council elected position.
“I’ve seen the mayor serve for 10 years and I really do believe the mayor serves a different function than the council members,” Duerr said. She also pointed to the numerous legal issues the structure has created and the need for clarity. Council member Jenny Brekhus was taken to court during the 2022 election in a term limits dispute, an issue Mayor Schieve has grappled with as well.
Reese said Duerr’s argument was compelling, but he felt allowing a person to serve 12 years on council and another 12 as mayor is excessive.
Martinez said he saw merit in some of Duerr’s ideas, but with just two bill draft requests and limited political capital, maintaining focus was most important.
Community participation in city business questioned
“Just to put a point on it: People stop coming to meetings after they’re called conspiracy theorists and they’re called names by the folks on the dais or otherwise. I think it’s important to use a different choice of words. Everyone who doesn’t agree with someone is not a conspiracy theorist. Maybe we could just have a little bit more decorum in the way that we engage with the public so they do feel as if they’re being heard when they show up to meetings.”Charter Committee member Lily Baran
The meeting also veered off course as Schieve expressed concern about what she saw as a lack of engagement from the community as the Charter Committee’s policy proposals were developed and asked about noticing for the meetings. She pointed to a recent postcard she received announcing changes to Title 5 of the municipal code — a city effort to update business license and permit rules — and to meeting times that may not be convenient for community members to attend. (The City Council meets on a weekday at 10 a.m.)
Nic Ciccone, who oversees the city’s government relations, said neither of those are issues for the Charter Committee.
“Our meetings are always at 5:30 p.m. for the Charter Committee, with the exception of this one,” he said. “To your point about plain language … we were very deliberate in the charter review process of using what I would call plain language.”
Charter Committee member Lily Baran said if the public isn’t showing up to meetings, council members can still attend. “That hasn’t really occurred,” Baran said, adding that it would help to have a council member present at the committee’s meetings.
Ciccone said City Council members must approve any bill draft requests to be submitted for the 2025 legislative session by the Aug. 14 council meeting to have them submitted to the legislature before the Sept. 1 deadline.
