The Kids Table

We are frequent viewers of the Washoe County Board of County Commissioners YouTube streamed meetings. It seems every time we tune in, we can’t help but feel exasperated by the public commenters who just won’t stop talking about the Washoe County Library. Over the last two years we often find ourselves during public comments shouting at our monitor for the public commenters to give us a break and stop talking about the library.

Assistant District Attorney Nathan Edwards has often highlighted the limited authority of the commissioners when it comes to the library, humorously mentioning, at one point, that their primary function appears to be limited to borrowing books.

The commissioners appoint the library trustees and oversee the funding for the library, and that is their role. If the residents who constantly comment want the libraries defunded, they should talk about it and stop rambling on regarding functions of the library over which the commission has no control of.

In recent years, the Washoe County Library trustees have been criticized for the lack of conservative voices. However, the tides shifted, due to the persistent efforts of Commissioner Mike Clark. Starting in January 2023, Clark has been vocal about the need for diversity for all of the appointed Washoe County boards and commissions. The non-existent efforts by Washoe County to find new individuals to be appointed to boards and commissioners became starkly apparent due to Clark talking about it at every commission meeting. Washoe County was left with basically no choice but to become more involved in finding residents to serve and just not regurgitating the same individuals. County Manager Eric Brown, during his annual review on December 12, 2023, claimed his ‘leadership academy’ was created to find people to fill these boards and commissions. Too little, too late Manager Brown, why didn’t you make that known when the academy was created. Manger Brown’s costly leadership academy is now being used to try to dilute Clark.  

During a meeting earlier this year, sometimes asleep at the wheel, Commissioner Jeanne Herman came to life and asked Mr. Edwards a few library questions. This led the library to facilitate a presentation to the commissioners about the library system’s collections development policy. The Collection Development Manager Debi Stears gave an overview of basically how books are chosen at the libraries. Stears discussed how new books are acquired, past performance of authors, editorial book reviews, etc. Stears also discussed how to challenge a book in the library curated collection to get it off the shelves. It was a worthwhile presentation and should have cleared up a number of questions the constant commenters have. Instead they were just back with the same comments during public comment since Stears presentation in August 2023. It would seem the constant complainers neglected to listen.

There are two new library trustees, Ann Silver from the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce and Giana Jacks a mother of three, and an obvious conservative. Jacks is ‘the darling’ of the constant commenters. The new trustees seem to be more independent from Library Director Jeff Scott which are good moves in a positive direction, and one of the longer term trustees is appearing to be more open to listening to people. Giana Jacks is hosting coffee meetings to talk about the library, she even has a QR Code. Why the continued comments folks?

Picon was having a difficult time understanding these commenters frustrations, so we decided to ask for public records. It took time to gain access, but we only needed to read one email and it explained EVERYTHING, we understood these folks vexation. Remember when you were young and forced to sit at the ‘kids table’ during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter – all you wanted to do was move to the adult’s table. It is the same with the residents who are speaking at the commission meetings about the library, they want to communicate with the library trustees and not with Library Director Jeff Scott.

This email is an example, from an individual who has applied to be a library trustee, she asked questions of the library trustees (prior to the trustees having their own email addresses), and she professionally cc’d copied Jeff Scott on the email. Scott answered and did not allow the trustees to do so. We tried to learn if this email was even given to the trustees, and got no response. That might be part of the problem neither side has any trust in one another, and the exchanges have become full of contempt, which Director Scott should be attempting to sooth or solve.

Back to sitting at the kids table, Director Scott needs to allow the trustees to answer residents’ questions, or he’ll never get moved to eat with the adults.