Decision criticized as lacking honesty, transparency 

Additional reporting by Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad

After last week foregoing hearing the results from the recruitment firm hired to search for a new city manager, the Reno City Council on Wednesday officially offered the position to Interim City Manager Jackie Bryant. 

Bryant told council members at the beginning of the search that she did not want the position full time, and she did not apply for the role during the candidate search. 

However, during Wednesday’s meeting, Bryant accepted the appointment and said she was honored for the council’s support. Her refusal before, Bryant said, was in part due to a case of imposter syndrome. 

“I never saw myself in this role,” Bryant told the council. “I had been very content as a number two and assumed I’d be taking this role temporarily. As I began to do the work and develop a different relationship with this council, I became more and more open, and at some point the imposter syndrome I may have had vanished.”

She said after doing the work for some time and becoming comfortable with the position, she could finally envision herself in the role. She said after it was offered to her at the last meeting, she became excited to continue the work, and further the council’s goals and policies “in the most transparent, efficient and compassionate way.” 

Council had nothing but praise for the work Bryant has done. Bryant was appointed unanimously and approved for a base salary of $368,728.46, nearly $11,000 per year more than former manager Doug Thornley and the highest base pay of any city manager in Nevada. 

In addition, she’ll receive a $500 monthly vehicle allowance, and for each year of service the city will pay for the purchase of one year of Nevada PERS credit. Bryant will also receive traditional benefits such as vacation and sick leave, medical and dental benefits, potential annual bonuses—last year Thornley received $20,000—and in the event of termination, a full year of severance pay. 

Council members defend choice

Some community members took issue not with Bryant herself, but rather with the process it took to hire her, which they say lacked transparency and wasted taxpayer dollars. William Mantle, who has campaigned for roles in city government, said council members should not have considered someone for the role who did not follow procedure by officially applying for the job.

“This council, under the mayor’s guidance, has once again shown us that the ends justify the means.”

“The process for her selection is problematic to me,” he said. “In June, Ms. Bryant unequivocally stated that she wasn’t interested in the city manager position. She didn’t apply, and so this body expended a significant $75,000 on a national search for a city manager. This body is either reckless or irresponsible when it wastes $75,000 of taxpayer funds as it has done.

“Now you’re dictate-appointing Ms. Bryant as city manager in a completely opaque and circumvention of the usual process,” he added. “Your action has created the specter of suspicion, favoritism and unfortunately, even backroom dealing. This process plus the high initial pay has set up Ms. Bryant for extreme criticism when she makes any error, innocent or not, that could favor this body.”

Council member Naomi Duerr disputed Mantle’s assertions. If Bryant had expressed a desire to take on the position, she said, the recruitment process would have continued in the same way, just with Bryant’s application among the others. 

“I want to disabuse people of the notion that somehow we wasted $75,000,” Duerr said. “We went through the process very deliberately to get the best applicants that were available at the time … We’ve [now] had that competition, and since we’ve gotten to know you … I think it’s kind of obvious that you are superior to the other candidates, from me reviewing what the offerings were.”

Duerr said she doesn’t believe the city “skipped steps,” and added that people change their minds all the time, referring to Bryant’s decision to accept the position full time. 

Process criticized

Despite Duerr’s assertions, in past manager searches the finalist candidates and their resumes were presented to the public during a council meeting with interviews and council discussion. None of the finalist candidates presented to council members by search firm Bob Murray and Associates during one-on-one meetings were shared with the public. Bryant’s resume was also not provided, nor was an interview conducted during a council meeting.  

The mayor’s past insistence that the manager be a Reno resident was also not addressed. When asked if Bryant, who previously lived in Carson City, was a Reno resident, City of Reno spokesperson Diego Zarazua refused to say. He only responded that the city’s charter requires the manager to live in Nevada.

Duerr asked that Bryant’s resume be made public for transparency, as all other candidate applications for the position were available to the public during the process. 

Mayor Hillary Schieve echoed these sentiments, and added she believed people were upset about the process simply because it was a cool thing to do. She said she was offended by those who questioned the council’s decision to appoint Bryant.

“It’s so popular right now to be negative and anti your government,” Schieve said. “It sounds ‘cool’ I guess. It’s popular to push back against government, it’s very ‘the buzz’ and the typical narrative. But as a reminder, it’s your government that shows up when your house is burning down.”

Mantle, following the meeting, said Schieve’s comments were hypocritical. “In psychology they call that projection,” he said, adding that Bryant not only skipped the rigors of the search process and avoided public scrutiny, but was potentially privy to information on the process, “or worse.” 

“Government authority derives from the rule of law, the adherence to policy, the transparency that examples proper behavior and the people’s faith,” he said. “This council, under the mayor’s guidance, has once again shown us that the ends justify the means.”

Schieve said Bryant is the best candidate for the role not only because of her background and her work, but because she understands the needs and challenges of the city. 

Schieve, who was elected to the council in 2012 and assumed the role of mayor a decade ago, appeared to blame the high turnover rate from previous city managers on former Council member Jenny Brekhus, who had been a punching bag for several council members throughout her tenure on the council.  

“We have been through five city managers and all of them have been incredibly talented, but previously we had a very challenging city council and it made it very hard for a city manager to want to stay and have longevity,” Schieve said. “When that happens, you go through a lot of turnover, and when that happens, you end up spending a lot of money and a lot of tax dollars on that turnover.” 

She said with the hiring of Bryant, they can mitigate any of these issues because Bryant already knows what she’s getting herself into. 

“We absolutely know what we’re getting, we know the talent, we know what she brings to the table,” Schieve said.

She added that having to fill the city manager position within six months, as is dictated by the city charter, makes the process more challenging.  

“It causes you to have to rush, it was an interesting time right before an election — there were [not many] people applying for jobs,” she said. Gary Phillips, the recruiter with Bob Murray and Associates, on Dec. 4 said 46 people had applied for the job and 10 met the minimum qualifications.

Council member Devon Reese blamed Nevada’s public process—which requires transparency—as a barrier to recruit and retain quality leadership. 

Council member Meghan Ebert said when speaking to the recruiter, she had still been under the impression Bryant was not an option—although she said she hoped Bryant would change her mind. Ebert said that, despite Bryant not going through the same recruitment process as the other candidates, she is confident in her abilities. 

“Everything she does here in her role is subject to public records, and that has been part of her recruitment process, the work she’s done here,” Ebert said. “It’s all publicly available. Her work for the council and the city speaks for itself. I think she’s proven to be qualified for the job.”