A bill to reverse replacing Reno’s City Council at-large seat with a Ward 6 Council member in 2024 is having its first hearing before the Nevada Senate Committee on Government Affairs later today, to the dismay of a Reno charter committee volunteer and community members.
“It was kind of injected into what we were doing because we weren't actually talking about this,” Edward Coleman, with the charter committee since 2022, told Our Town Reno concerning these recent developments.
Coleman, the executive director of a Reno nonprofit called the Black Community Collective, says most people in the city are unaware of this issue because of the time lapse. The change to have Reno institute a Ward 6 instead of an at-large seat was approved by the state legislature in 2017. Now, Reno officials are leading the charge to reverse the change before it’s even taken shape.
“It feels like it was brought in to get rubber stamped so that it could provide cover for people to say, ‘well, this official body said it was good, so it's okay.’ And that's 100% how business is done in Reno,” Coleman said. “When you really pull that curtain back and see the dirty, underhanded things being done in the background, that's when you really get a good idea of who's actually running the city. It caught many in the actual committee completely flatfooted.”
Coleman was appointed to the above committee in 2022 but now feels disillusioned with the process.
Initially Coleman says many members of the charter committee were against reversing the change. “A lot of people were like, ‘I don't even know what this is.’ So it was kind of brought up out of the blue as an issue we should discuss. And so it was tabled for some members to get more information on what this actually was, why it's important, that type of thing. But at that time, I don't think there were enough people that would've supported [it]. So in between then, and the second vote, people who had initially wanted to vote no, changed their position.”
He said after many were pressured to change their views, it eventually passed at the Reno committee level. Coleman says this is one more instance of how Reno is experiencing what is called regulatory capture.
“It's when a system government stops benefiting the people and starts serving special interests. It's when special interests gain control of an institution basically, and turn it to their own needs. I feel like that's what played a part in this. I know City council members asked me on two separate occasions to come have a talk. They wanted to see, you know, how I was doing, which they'd never done before and they've not done since. And it would be interesting to see how many of the members of the charter committee who did change their mind had discussions with city council members because it seemed like they were more invested in this than anybody else.”
Members of the committee who considered going back on the creation of a sixth ward as part of their agenda in June.
According to the City of Reno website, the charter committee was “established to review the Reno City Charter in its entirety to identify any changes that would provide for a more modern, effective and efficient City government.”
Council members then voted in August to ask state lawmakers to repeal the provisions of the 2017 Assembly Bill 36 (in screenshot below) and keep the council structure as is.
The new 2023 SB 12 would also eliminate gendered language in the city’s charter document and would allow the city to “acquire, improve, equip, operate and maintain, convert to or authorize green infrastructure projects.”
The introduction of SB 12 comes as the current at-large council member Devon Reese is already running for re-election.
He is holding a campaign fundraising kickoff on March 23rd, and has an active donation website, even though he lives in the Somersett area, in Ward 5, which is now represented by Kathleen Taylor. She was selected in September by Council to replace Neoma Jardon, who stepped down to become CEO of the Downtown Reno Partnership, for which she was fined $3,000 for an ethics violation.
The wording on the Reese campaign releases don’t indicate whether he is running for the at-large seat or what should be a Ward 6 in 2024, while he currently lives in Ward 5.
We reached out to Reese via Facebook messenger but he didn’t respond.
The above ask for Reese’s upcoming bid doesn’t indicate whether it’s for the at-large position
“I’m not going to hazard a guess on this, but I mean, we all see who's doing this and we all see who's most attached to it, and those individuals also have received max donations from certain realtors and people of that nature,” Coleman said. “So, I mean, connect the dots. It's right there in front of everybody.”
Others on our Twitter page were more forthright. None voiced support for the reversal.
“Reese must not live in the proposed Ward 6,” wrote one commenter.
“Reese wants to be mayor. They cannot continue the resign and replace strategy they have going (as easily) if they allow a sixth ward. The member at large is key to this cunning plan,” wrote another.
“Reese needs to retire from politics,” another begged. “His faux progressivism [and] neoliberal capital interests are more detrimental to public welfare than how that seat is categorized imo.”
“It’s not fair to the ward that needs real representation and we’re told they were going to be given that. This seems like a power play and not what is best for our Reno community,” Lea Grace Moser added.
“This is a power grab. At-large voting is a gift to the powerful few at the expense of the less-powerful many,” wrote Bob Fulkerson.
Recent research indicates at-large voting leads to discriminatory results. Wards allow for more direct representation, unless heavy handed gerrymandering occurs.
According to the Nonprofit Vote website (above), the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg cited the at-large method, “along racial gerrymandering, as a preeminent second-generation way to deny equal opportunity for minority voters and candidates. Congress has banned At-Large voting for all federal elections. It’s been discarded by most states. No voting method has been subject to more litigation for its discriminatory impact on local elections.”
Others we spoke to anonymously say they’ve heard city of Reno officials say the at-large seat is needed to advocate for affordable housing, which could very well be championed by the mayor instead. They also said ward specific members are not known not to want affordable housing in their own wards, so the argument makes no logical sense.
They are also worried that Reese is fundraising and wanting to show the support he has as a way to force through the reversal, since currently there should be no at-large seat in 2024.
Meanwhile, Coleman said he will be stepping back from volunteering for the city of Reno.
“I’m not really a fan of the current setup, so I've decided to step back from that and wait for elections and look for individuals who actually are going to represent the needs of the people and not just pay lip service to it,” he said.
He’s also frustrated that two of the current members were selected rather than elected, after abrupt departures, and that Reese himself first arrived onto the council as a selection as well. Coleman still holds hope for the electoral process, despite most incumbents having the favor of deep pocketed donors.
“People should remember that dollars can't vote. Sure, they can blanket the airways, they can do all kinds of stuff, but they can still be beaten when it comes to just the straight up vote. And that's going to take more work on the other side of things, getting people interested, getting people motivated, letting them understand what the issues are, but … I haven't lost hope in that respect,” he said.
“I really encourage people, especially as we get closer to voting for a lot of these appointed seats and whatever happens for the at-large sixth Ward seat, to really be engaged and pay attention and hold these people accountable for the things they've done to this city,” Coleman concluded.