At Reno City Council on July 23: Resolutions to authorize staff layoffs & overhaul citizen boards & commissions
Proposed actions raise serious questions about timing and transparency.
Summer break is over for Reno City Council, which reconvenes this Wednesday, July 23. It’s one of three meetings of city public bodies this week, in addition to the Building Enterprise Fund Advisory Committee (July 22) and the Truckee Meadows Stormwater Permit Coordinating Committee (July 24). You can always view the week’s scheduled meetings on the Current & Upcoming Meetings webpage.
That page only lists meetings of formal City bodies. For everything else, you have to look on the City of Reno Calendar, where you’ll see that Ward 2 Councilmember Naomi Duerr is holding a “Biggest Little Council Connect” at Swill Coffee at 3366 Lakeside Court on Friday, July 25th from 9-10am.
I don’t want to bury the lede here, as they say in journalism, so I’ll say right off the bat that my chief concern today is the appearance on the City Council agenda of what I consider to be an extremely premature resolution that would overhaul a whole slew of citizen Boards and Commissions (and eliminate a few) and—alarmingly—would permanently restrict the scope of the Neighborhood Advisory Boards to reviewing development projects and nothing more.
I was so shocked and confused to see this on the agenda (to be accomplished through multiple interwoven agenda items) that I reached out directly to City Manager Jackie Bryant on Friday for clarification. I’ll have more on that below, but first I also want to draw your attention to another resolution on the agenda, concerning those surprise City staff layoffs that we just just heard about less than two weeks ago.
PREVIEW: The July 23 Reno City Council meeting
The full agenda for the July 23 Reno City Council meeting can be found here. To comment on any item, you can speak in person (the meeting starts at 10am); submit an online form at Reno.Gov/PublicComment; email comments to Publiccomment@reno.gov; or comment live via Zoom (register here).
The agenda is packed, so be sure to read through it for items of interest to you. I’ll be highlighting two resolutions in particular.
Item C.1 - A Resolution to implement a Reduction in Force (RIF) for Fiscal Year 2025/26, as necessary
We already knew from City Manager Jackie Bryant’s recent comments to the media and the draft agenda for this meeting that Council would be discussing the recent sudden layoffs of eight City staffers. I was expecting to hear what positions these eight staffers held and why they were deemed the most expendable (rather than, say, the last employees hired), along with some indication of where and when to expect future layoffs, but this item is giving us both less and more than that.
It’s giving less, because at least in the Staff Report, I’m not seeing an explanation of this first round of layoffs—which departments and why. It’s just providing a general overview of why the budget situation is so dire—inadequate revenues, increased contribution rates to the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS), and service-related expenditures (which we already knew from earlier budget discussions).
And it’s giving more because this resolution would pave the way for the City Manager to move ahead with even more layoffs as she deems necessary. The Staff Report indicates that any future layoffs would be governed by standard procedures and protocols involving the City Charter, Civil Service Rules, Collective Bargaining Agreements, seniority, etc. And the resolution itself states this:
The City Manager, or designee, is hereby authorized to make all approvals, sign all documents, and take all actions necessary and appropriate to carry out a reduction in force for all funds and departments, as may be appropriate.
This kind of resolution suggests a fiscal emergency. And yet according to the Staff Report (page 3), this technically isn’t one. If it were, then the City could unilaterally reopen the Collective Bargaining Agreements that apply to 1,239 of the City’s 1,472 full-time equivalent positions. Since it’s not, the labor contracts with all these individuals can only be reopened “if both parties agree.”
And yet the Staff Report suggests that it would be impossible to get the represented staff to the table “by mutual agreement,” making “Reduction in Force” the only option:
This could be a good time to revisit This is Reno’s recent series, ‘Employees are our biggest expense’: An investigation into how local governments have increased employee expenses.
There’s something about this that doesn’t sit right with me. I mean, if we’re going to be facing an unlimited number of staff layoffs (please read the full Staff Report, which refers on page 3 to a “slow and prolonged fiscal erosion”), I would think City Council should play more of a directive role in the overall approach—i.e., whether to thin the ranks of multiple departments, or perhaps ponder the elimination of entire administrative areas. It just doesn’t seem right for City Council to simply approve a resolution to enable the City Manager to make those decisions behind closed doors, if that’s what’s being proposed here.
And if we’re in such big trouble, and the financial forecast doesn’t look any less bleak, shouldn’t we be having some serious conversations about what has to go? More and more, I find myself thinking about redundancy of agencies—like the fact that the City of Reno, the Downtown Reno Partnership (DRP) and EDAWN all have Economic Development arms trying to attract business to Reno (including downtown); or that the City of Reno, DRP, Riverwalk District, and downtown casino entities all devote considerable resources to planning downtown special events. Is that necessary, or is there room here for the City to pare back its own role?
Do we need to reconsider how we’re allocating lodging tax revenues or capital project surcharge fees? Is it time for a major sale of underperforming properties like the Reno Events Center, Downtown Reno Ballroom, the former RTC Citicenter transit site (currently being rented to the DRP), and others? Even when owned by the Redevelopment Agency, surely those properties cost the City something, too, right? When do those conversations happen?
I won’t belabor this point, since I want to get to the Boards and Commissions, but I just find this whole approach to staff layoffs disconcertingly opaque.
Now let’s talk about this surprise resolution to make significant changes to many citizen Boards & Commissions, including the Neighborhood Advisory Boards (NABs).
Item C.4 - A Resolution to Overhaul Citizen Boards, Commissions, and Committees & Narrow the Scope of Neighborhood Advisory Boards
The fact that City Council will be discussing Boards and Commissions on Wednesday isn’t a surprise. What does come as a shock is that the next action that City Council might take could permanently overhaul, eliminate, and reconfigure a whole slew of these bodies, without any additional public conversation.
Recall that the last we heard on this subject was a sequence of two events: First, on June 4th, City Council voted to direct staff to draft up a resolution that would enact a 12-month pause on most City Boards and Commissions in order to conduct an extensive process of analysis, discussion, and community feedback (see image below).
I wrote about that proposal, which came from the City Clerk (that’s an important detail) here. Then, at the end of the June 11th Council meeting, Ward 5 Councilmember Devon Reese made a motion to recall that item, saying he wanted the Mayor (who had been absent) to be able to weigh in on it (I wrote about that here).
To recall the item would be to literally duplicate it on a future agenda and re-do the whole thing, complete with a presentation, discussion, and votes. That sounded like a great idea, and that’s what we were told in June that we would see this Wednesday.
On June 11, City Manager Bryant herself said “I will reach out to the Clerk and I’ll discuss it with her about bringing it back on July 23rd.”
But that’s not what’s on this agenda. Not at all. Instead, we’re getting a NEW resolution from the City Manager’s office (not the City Clerk) that goes straight to overhauling many of these bodies—and there’s no sign of that recalled item, which covered much of the same terrain.
I was so confused by the appearance of this item (rather than the recalled item I was expecting) that I reached out to City Manager Jackie Bryant personally on Friday to ask whether this resolution was taking place of the City Clerk’s prior proposal. Ms. Bryant was kind enough to call me on Friday afternoon and I explained my concerns and was told that this item may not necessarily replace the City Clerk’s proposed analysis—but I honestly don’t see how that can possibly be the case, when they’re addressing most of the same things—and if Council approves this resolution on Wednesday, then there would be no point in conducting a separate review because they would already have authorized some permanent changes!
Let me try to lay out what these agenda items could actually do on Wednesday.
As you can read in the Staff Report, Item C.4 would accomplish several things that, if approved by Council, would go into effect on August 15th:
Repeal the existing framework that houses Boards and Commissions in the Reno Municipal Code and move their governance from a system of ordinance adoption to resolution. This is proposed as an efficiency measure to enable City Council to make changes to Boards and Commissions without requiring multiple public hearings—to which I would ask, when is there ever a need to make emergency changes to Boards and Commissions? Shouldn’t that in fact always require multiple public hearings rather than a single vote by seven people in a City Council meeting? Resolutions are like the “executive orders” of the local government world, and while they may be more efficient, they significantly reduce the amount of required public notice and engagement (this very item being Exhibit A).
Adopt a resolution-based governance model that establishes the structure and rules of “all non-mandated advisory boards” in a single document. This includes things like term limits, quorum rules, reporting requirements, etc. It would also establish a “centralized ledger” for all City advisory bodies, maintained by the City Manager’s office (rather than the City Clerk).
Standardize bylaws and administrative support by adopting the City’s standard bylaws, limiting the creation of subcommittees to those specifically authorized by City Council, and more.
Develop a formal training program for board members and staff liaisons and evaluate each board at least once every five years (there’s more to this, too).
Redefine the scope of the Neighborhood Advisory Boards to focus solely on the review of Development Projects: “NABs will no longer vote or serve as general-purpose neighborhood forums. Instead, their input will be submitted to Planning Commission and City Council through standardized project findings worksheets, ensuring transparency and traceability in how community input is incorporated into land use decisions.” This is HUGE and will be addressed more below.
Re-establish, consolidate, sunset, or modify the scope of multiple citizen bodies. The Human Rights Commission and Special Events Sponsorship Committee would be eliminated; a new Parks and Recreation Advisory Board would be created (merging the Recreation and Parks Commission and Urban Forestry Commission); the Public Art Committee would be merged into the Arts and Culture Commission; and more.
You have to read the actual 20-page Resolution for the details on all of this.
If you’ll do, you’ll see, for instance, a description of the only issues that the Neighborhood Advisory Boards would be allowed to discuss:
A few other items would accomplish the other technical requirements to adopt all of these changes, and because they’re ordinance changes, would require two readings:
Item E. 2 - An ordinance amending Title 2, Chapter 2.08, Article I, entitled “In General”, Section 2.08.010 to transfer the city ledgers listing all of the City’s boards and commissions authorized by the City Council from the City Clerk’s Office to the City Manager’s Office; and other matters properly relating thereto.
You can read the Staff Report for this one here. It appears to centralize governance of these selected citizen bodies under the City Manager’s office.
Items E. 3 through E. 9 - Ordinances to repeal sections of Reno Municipal Code related to multiple boards, commissions, and committees
These items would repeal sections of municipal code related to the Access Advisory Commission, City of Reno Arts and Culture Commission, Financial Advisory Board, Recreation and Parks Commission, Senior Citizen Advisory Committee, Urban Forestry Commission, and Youth City Council in order to establish the new governance model enacted by resolution under item C.4.
This all leads me to the question:
What happened to the whole idea of conducting an extensive analysis of the Boards and Commissions, complete with community feedback?
How could the City Manager’s office suddenly propose making all these changes without public discussion? For this, you actually have to look at agenda item C.3.
Item C. 3 - Presentation and update on the City’s public engagement review process, including community-identified preferences and feedback to inform the strategic prioritization of engagement methods and practices.
This item, presented by the Community Engagement and Services Department, presents the findings of the City’s recent assessment of its public engagement practices. As the Staff Report indicates, this review coincided with the 90-day hiatus of Boards and Commissions administered by the City Manager, and included the online survey, meetings, drop-in sessions, and some other steps.
Pages 6 and 7 of that Staff Report directly address the “recommendations” for Boards and Commissions that would be formally enacted in the resolution under C.1. They’re phrased under this item as recommendations that are simply being “proposed” by staff. But a resolution is not just a recommendation; it’s a permanent change. How can City staff simultaneously propose these as simple “recommendations” under one agenda item but then offer Council the ability to approve all of them in a binding resolution on the very same day?
And what about Council’s prior decision to revisit their own June 4th vote to approve a 12-month review and hiatus for Boards and Commissions, a reconsideration that Councilmember Devon Reese proposed on June 11th, the Mayor expressed deep gratitude for, City Council approved, and the City Manager promised? Are we just supposed to forget that happened?
Confused? You’re not alone.
I’m trying very hard to wade through all of this, and I appreciated City Manager Bryant’s willingness to talk to me on Friday, but I still don’t get it—and I don’t think this premature resolution should even be appearing on this agenda as an action item.
Obviously I don’t have the time or space to elaborate further on my concerns about how this is all being rolled out, so I’ll just end with a list of questions and encourage you to please please contact your City Councilmembers and/or the City Manager if, like me, you have questions or concerns like these:
How do current members of the Human Rights Commission feel about its proposed elimination? What about the members of the other boards, commissions, and committees to be permanently changed by these actions?
Would residents still want to join or attend the NABs if their sole purpose were to review land development projects? Were the current NAB members surveyed to ask their opinions on that? (Keep in mind that the Ward 5 NAB never met following the election of Ward 5 Councilmember Devon Reese, and there’s never even been a NAB meeting for the new Ward 6).
If nothing but development projects were allowed to be discussed at the NAB meetings, where would residents get to discuss all of the other topics that are currently presented and discussed there? The City recently introduced “Community Forums” but they don’t happen on a regular or predictable basis at a prescribed time or place, don’t have agendas, aren’t always available to attend virtually, don’t appear to be recorded, seem largely to be held at the discretion of Councilmembers, and as far as I am concerned, seem to be a purely experimental format that might not even continue.
If there’s no other regular place for discussion of other issues impacting the City wards, then how can the city permanently restrict the scope of the NABs without introducing a reliable, permanent forum for the discussion of all the other topics addressed there?
How can City staff present City Council with a resolution that would make so many substantive changes, without first offering residents the opportunity to read, review and respond to it? Would any of you have heard about this if you didn’t read today’s Brief? And if that’s the case, isn’t that a problem?
To contact the Reno City Manager and City Council directly:
Mayor Hillary Schieve: schieveh@reno.gov
Ward 1 Councilmember Kathleen Taylor: taylork@reno.gov
Ward 2 Councilmember Naomi Duerr: duerrn@reno.gov
Ward 3 Councilmember Miguel Martinez: martinezmi@reno.gov
Ward 4 Councilmember Meghan Ebert: ebertm@reno.gov
Ward 5 Councilmember Devon Reese: reesed@reno.gov
Ward 6 Councilmember Brandi Anderson: andersonb@reno.gov
Reno City Manager Jackie Bryant: bryantj@reno.gov
Thursday, July 24: Regional Planning Commission Meeting
It was brought to my attention that the Regional Planning Commission has multiple Reno items on its agenda for its meeting on Thursday, July 24 at 6pm. You can view the TMRPA meeting page here and the agenda here.
Items include Conformance Review and/or Regional Plan Amendments for the Rancharrah Planned Unit Development; the Silver Lake to Moya Gas Capacity Improvements; and the Master Plan amendment for StoneGate Heinz Ranch.
NEWS DIGEST: The latest in local urban development
Planning commission greenlights new parcel map for Reno Revival project (This is Reno 7/17/25)
Revival project: Splitting former Harrah’s Reno to allow multiple owners is approved (RGJ 7/17/25)
Residents raise concerns about Reno Housing Authority development in Old Southwest neighborhood (This is Reno 7/17/25)
Country Creamery, Squeeze In headed to RED (Downtown Makeover 7/17/25)
Seven Magic Mountains rock sculpture not moving to northern Nevada (This is Reno 7/19/25)
Thanks for reading and have a good week, everyone.
Be sure to check out my Citizen Guide for helpful resources and links to help anyone become more informed and engaged in issues related to urban development (& more) in Reno.
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That was incredibly well written and I know being on the NABs we ( I will assume generally feeling) of feeling that the NAB are more NPB. Neighbor Planning Boards..
Reno is lucky to have you paying such close attention. So many cities, including our beloved and broken Los Angeles, have been captured by bureaucrats who seek to unleash their fringe urban planning schemes in the dark. Hope you can get your city back!