Bye, Bye, Bybee
Item E.1 RSCVA Election of Board Chair
The RSCVA Chair has to be one of the elected officials on the board, and it isn’t Sparks Councilmember Charlene Bybee any longer.
There are three elected officials on the RSCVA board Reno’s Mayor Hillary Schieve, Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill, and Sparks City Councilmember Charlene Bybee.
Bybee got sidelined by Mayor Hillary Schieve and Commissioner Alexis Hill. Mayor Schieve was looking for balance on the RSCVA board, and pointed out she gave her ‘chairship’ up early because she was busy with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Schieve’s opinion, “It always works best when we rotate equally through the jurisdictions.”
It was mentioned, former Washoe County Commission Bob Lucey served seven years as chair of the RSCVA. We might want to ask Mayor Schieve how that would be considered ‘balanced.’
Bybee pointed out the City of Sparks hadn’t held the chair of the RSCVA for twenty-two years. Schieve commented that was why she had promised Mayor Lawson, a couple of years ago when he was serving, that Sparks was next. How can Schieve promise anything on the RSCVA board?
It was sad when Bybee tried to save herself, pointing out she had wanted to finish the work she had started, and it was all but embarrassing since we all knew the fix was in. Come on Commissioner Alexis Hill does anything Mayor Schieve asks of her.
Commissioner Hill pointed out how Bybee has been an “amazing leader” and that she has “shown her commitment to the RSCVA” – but Hill was with Mayor Schieve and wanted to rotate the chair of the RSCVA and nominated Mayor Schieve to be chair of the RSCVA.
Bybee kept trying to hold onto the chair, trolling to see if someone would nominate her, no one did, and by asking Schieve if she has the time to commit to being the chair, pointing out how many meetings she will need to attend per month. Schieve assured the board; she has the time.
Schieve and most of the board spoke to have the chair rotate between the three jurisdictions. The next in line will be Washoe County. Is Schieve rewarding her friend Commissioner Alexis Hill to be the RSCVA chair as of July 2025. Guess it didn’t take a whole lot of arm twisting on Schieve’s part to get Hill onboard to throw Bybee overboard.
The big question is will Hill be reelected? Let’s ponder if Hill loses her District 1 seat will Schieve simply retain the RSCVA Chair due to continuity, because the commissioner who would assume the RSCVA seat would have only served for six-months. We can predict the set-up now. Watch your back Alexis, Schieve might start secretly volunteering on Marsha Berkbigler’s campaign.
For the RSCVA Vice-Chair Mayor Schieve nominated her good pal, Richard Jay. The board voted him in? What were they thinking.
Picon has to give Bybee a lot of credit during her chairpersonship, she tried to make the RSCVA much more transparent, but sadly during the hiring process for the new RSCVA CEO she got overly involved in the process and made too many comments about the individual who was eventually hired. Bybee’s actions is what gave Schieve and Hill the power to take her down and get the necessary commitment to support Schieve, with votes from the other board members.
With Schieve becoming the chair, we look for the RSCVA to become shutdown, non-transparent, and directed for personal gain again much like the reign of former RSCVA Chair Commissioner Bob Lucey.
A local political pundit referred to the RSCVA as “Lucey’s Liechtenstein” – we inquired why, they told us the borders of Liechtenstein hasn’t changed since 1434 and getting information from the principality is all but impossible, much like the years Lucey was chair of the RSCVA.
We know one thing, Bybee won’t be wishing Alexis Hill Happy Birthday next year.