Before his mother passed away at the end of 2022, Michaelangelo Aranda remembers she used to call him “Mayor Michael.”
His father, who is currently struggling with health challenges, set the bar even higher. “When I had shared with him that I'm running for city council,” Aranda says, he told him he hopes to stay alive to see him as president.
“I don't know if I will career that far,” Aranda told Our Town Reno during a recent podcast interview.
For now he’s one of many candidates for our city’s new Ward 6, with a campaign website extolling “Reno Born Reno Ready.”
He says he wants to be a voice for a thriving neighborhood as well as bringing representation for the city’s large Filipino-descendant population.
“I am a first generation product of immigrants who chose Reno as their home when they moved away from their homeland of the Philippines Islands,” he writes on his about page.
For Ward 6 and south Reno, it’s a labor of love.
“I love the community. I have tried to build strong ties within it,” he said of where his mother used to work as a nurse and what has been his family home for his wife and two young boys. “We go on walks, we do all the local things within our areas, including the library and the regional parks. It actually inspired me to get into local government. I actually currently serve on the Washoe County Regional Parks and Open Spaces Commission and hopefully do a good job of representing my district as well as on the Washoe County School District’s SHARE Advisory Committee.”
As part of his busy life, Aranda works part time as a paraeducator at Jwood Raw Elementary School for students on the neurodivergent scale from kindergarten up to fourth grade.
“I have a strong belief in localized government,” he said when asked his reason for now running for political office.
“The biggest changes come from those who represent us on a local level. Nothing is more affecting to the day to day of an average citizen than the rules, the municipal codes, everything that happens on that local level. I want to do right by my community,” he said.
With a crowded field, and only the top two vote getters going to the November election, unless one wins outright with a majority on June 11th, Aranda says he is trying to meet as many ward members as he can.
“I am very excited and proud of the connections I've made so far, but it's really about getting into the community, knocking on some doors. I have an upcoming Meet the Candidate Town Hall that's coming up on April 10th, where I want to be able to meet as many people as possible, get my name out there, and hopefully succeed in the primary to make it to the general,” he said.
His underlying priorities he says are cross partisan. “I think that no matter who you are on party lines, everyone can agree that you want safe schools, you want safe access to parks, and you would love to keep our beautiful wetlands and our beautiful South Reno economy ecologically succeeding,” he explained.
As a school educator, he has inside interests in improving our schools.
“There is obviously the constant underfunding,” he said. “Everyone, I think would agree with that. There's also the change of leadership that keeps happening with the superintendents going in and out.”
Another point he brought up is the importance of increasing access to more quality child care, with long waiting lists currently for many families.
Meanwhile, he calls regional parks the most important aspect of our communities.
“We're talking about these large parks that are multipurpose that our community uses. And it's so important to be able to put some love and appreciation into that. It also encompasses anything that's not within the actual city borders to the open spaces, anything that's owned by the county. “
His story is Reno through and through, having been born at what was then called Washoe Medical Center, attending Dilworth Middle School, Reed High School and then UNR, with his father having worked in casinos his entire life.
One of Aranda’s first adult jobs was working for the Sands Regency before if became known as the J Resort, as part of the Jacobs Entertainment 4th street buyout spree.
“I have a little bit of nostalgia when I look at the building, and then I cry a little bit knowing that it's not the Sands Regency it was in its heyday,” he said of a development project that has divided locals.
“That's not to say that it didn't need the improvements, and I believe that if you ever followed and not many people do, the story of the Sands Regency in that area in itself, it has changed hands because of a lot of economic downfall…. Jacobs has the funds to be able to make that area beautiful, and I think they're doing a good job at that,” he said. “What we should be looking at is the economic impact that it's having on that area in that district.”
Generally, in terms of new ideas for the 4th street area, downtown Reno, other development and the boom in Ward 6, he believes there should be more strategizing and work with the Planning Commission.
“We just don't want new traffic,” he said of Ward 6 specifically. “And when we say traffic, it's because there's a lot of lack of infrastructure to go with the speed of everything being built.”
Proper infrastructure, he says, should also include “ensuring street lighting projects are thought ahead of time rather than reactive to the population that we're growing, but also making sure that we don't encroach on some of the natural resources and the natural environments that we have.”
On a personal level, when asked if he has any hobbies he responded: “At the risk of sounding boring, I think the biggest hobby I'll have is learning. I'm a perpetual learner.”
What about his first name? “I’m a baby of five, and when [my parents] were pregnant with me, they allowed my siblings to choose my name and they voted on their favorite Ninja Turtle, which happened to be Michaelangelo,” he explained. “I remember in high school I had an election and I said, Michaelangelo, I have two names. I'll do twice the work.”