Amid another long City of Reno council meeting, one of the consent items on August 28th, nearly one month ago, seemed innocuous enough.
B.19 was written in the agenda as “Resolution of the Reno City Council amending Resolution Number 9170, amending benefits provided to Management employees not covered by an employee-management contract or collective bargaining agreement; together with other matters properly relating thereto.”
Then Devon Reese, taking part remotely, piped in through the speakers making a motion to add very beneficial severance pay for assistant city managers if they were let go after a new city manager is appointed.
“It reduces their anxiety for them,” he said of proposing six months salary and benefits for termination without cause of these well connected highly positioned city staff. Another initially selected council member Kathleen Taylor immediately seconded the motion. She later said “this would offer some sort of protection to our ACMs [Assistant City Managers] and hopefully throughout the organization that we are a stable place to work.”
The only council member who spoke out against the idea Meghan Ebert said being let go “comes with the territory,” of these highly paid appointed positions.
“Where do we draw that line? There’s other people that are appointed. Are we going to start extending that down to every single appointed position? I think this is a policy thing that should maybe have the city manager’s input and involved,” she said, to no avail as the motion passed.
In a follow up text, she explained being let go with a change of city manager is part of the risk associated with these high positions, without the same protection as others. Ebert is also wondering whether Jackie Bryant, whose salary was elevated since becoming interim city manager, will remain at the high salary if she doesn’t get the full time position.
Former City Manager Doug Thornley announced his resignation in April shortly after a travel gate expose by This is Reno was released concerning dubiously approved travel reimbursements for several council members, including Reese, Taylor and Martinez. He then left the position this summer. His last Transparent Nevada salary and benefits total had him at nearly $350,000 in 2021 which kept climbing after.
Jenny Brekhus couldn’t attend the late August meeting but wrote to Our Town Reno by email: “These golden parachute provisions for the assistant city managers cast doubt on the Mayor and Council’s seriousness in hiring a seasoned city manager. What these contracts do is say to candidates, look we want you to keep these people on your leadership team, so we are tying your hands with them or big payouts. City managers always come into an organization and evaluate the team and make changes as they see fit. City manager candidates will perceptively wonder how else the Mayor and Council will meddle in city administrative operations and think that this is an elected group that won’t let a city manager manage.”
Bryant was appointed as interim City Manager in June, serving in that role until a new city manager is hired.
Several readers who reached out to us to look into this motion said it gave the optics of a too close for comfort symbiosis between city staff and council.
It’s now been reported that Reese is being investigated by the Nevada Commission on Ethics over two possible ethics violations to “secure unwarranted privileges or advantages for oneself,” and to attempt to “benefit personal interests through the influence of a subordinate.”
According to This is Reno reporting, on one city-funded trip, he rented a car with city money and then drove several hundred miles in it, even though he was staying at a hotel where the conference he was attending was taking place.
One of the complaints being considered by the ethics board indicated Thornley “dubiously” approved “frivolous official travel expenses which were extravagant and personal in nature.”
The ethics board said Martinez “must agree to complete ethics training within 60 days” of its deferral agreement regarding separate complaints against him also based on This is Reno reporting, “and must submit his travel records to the commission’s executive director within 30 days of travel.”
In the award-winning multipart This is Reno investigation, it was detailed that the recently appointed councilman stayed in $900 per night rooms on city trips, was reimbursed over $700 for a plane ticket city records indicate he never paid for himself, and got paid back over $180 for a hotel room dinner in New York City even though he was getting a meal per diem on that specific trip.
Shortly after the report came out Martinez wrote a check to the City of Reno for $1,844.70 to reimburse the city for some of his travel expenses but never detailed how he came up with that amount. “I am the one who signed the paperwork and turned in the receipts for reimbursements that were incorrect. It was not intentional, but still, I should have paid better attention to detail,” he wrote on social media.
This is Reno also reported receipts indicated Taylor had a series of unusual reimbursements, from parking, to renting an eight-person short-term rental and not joining an organization as a member to save money to attend a conference.
Taylor, Reese and Martinez are all facing elections in November to remain on City Council. Taylor and Martinez have never been elected, with pundits expecting the Ward 3 candidate to win his seat, while based on primary voting, Taylor, now moved to the downtown Ward 1, could have more difficulties.
Rebecca Venis, on the City of Reno media team responded to an Our Town Reno query about the added motion to B19 indicating: “City Council may modify staff proposed language in a resolution as long as the modifications are within the scope of the agenda item being discussed. Here, the resolution pertained to management benefits. The Council modified the resolution to add a severance benefit for Assistant City Managers. The new benefit applies to three Assistant City Managers.”
Venis added: “Assistant City Managers are at-will employees that serve at the pleasure of the City Manager. Prior to the adoption of the resolution, Assistant City Managers could be terminated with or without cause, and were not entitled to any severance benefits. Severance benefits were determined on a case-by-case basis, at the sole discretion of the City Manager. The resolution grants Assistant City Managers a severance benefit when terminated without cause.”
In our conversations leading up to this report, Brekhus wondered why Reno needed so many assistant city managers, and readers who alerted us to B19 and its added motion, concerned that it went through unnoticed, also expressed disapproval that this came on the heels of the City Council approving a $20,000 bonus and better severance terms last year for Thornley who resigned soon after.
Our Town Reno reporting, September 2024