Cinder-fuckin-rella
Picon realizes we are the Cinderella of Media in Washoe County. We get to sleep in the cinders while Mark Robison at the Reno Gazette Journal goes to the ball and hangs out with all the lords and ladies. He’s a pal of the Washoe County communications team. While we submit public record requests and wait weeks for results, Robison only needs to send an email and pretty much receives immediate results.
To prove our point on October 1, 2023, we submitted a public records request asking for all emails between Mark Robison and Washoe County staff for the month of September 2023. Picon was asking for 30 days of emails, fairly simple, direct, not complicated. What did we get back, after waiting 38-days for a response, “there were no records.”
Were we surprised, you bet we were, Robison had written four articles in September featuring Washoe County departments and one article was covering the controversial CHAB meeting on September 11, 2023. You’d have to be a total dolt to not realize that there had to be communications between Robison and Washoe County. We guess Washoe311 thinks Picon are total dolts. At that CHAB meeting Teresa Bacon called out the Cares Campus management and employees regarding her treatment while at the shelter. Nevada Liberty featured Ms. Bacon in a video, and Robison covered parts of the meeting in a Reno Gazette Journal article. Teresa Bacon was later ejected from the Cares Campus. After a few comments on social media, Washoe County investigated themselves and discovered they had done nothing wrong regarding their treatment of Bacon and her being asked to exit the shelter. Hey, Washoe County, how about an independent investigation, you know, one not done by county employees reviewing their own actions.
Picon had contacted Commissioner Mike Clark for a comment for a November article, while chatting with Clark we brought up our latest ‘turn-down’ of public records from Washoe County. Clark mentioned he remembered some media updates he receives as a county commissioner, and commented he saw ‘something in writing’ from RGJ’s Robison asking for information from Washoe County in the September media updates.
Commissioner Clark called us on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, and told us he was getting 87 emails from Washoe County with September communications between various county employees and RGJ’s Robison. Eighty-seven and we were told on November 8, 2023, that there were no records. Clark went onto explain to us that the county told him there were no records due to our mistake in our record request. Apparently Washoe311, is now blaming their error on Picon. WOW. How about just searching for Mark Robison and we’re fairly certain that would have done the trick.
On Thursday, December 28, 2023, Commissioner Clark shared the 87 public records with us and it doesn’t take Prince Charming to figure out why Washoe County didn’t want anyone to gain access to the records since we question what other reporter has this kind of access at Washoe County. While Picon waits weeks, Robison can get his records or answers to his questions quickly and usually the same day, or at the very least acknowledgement of his request.
What is Picon doing wrong? We will not follow county propaganda, we don’t believe homelessness has been cut by over 40% in Washoe County. We don’t buy into Reno has cut the unhoused population by half. Robison needs to have a close relationship with the county in order to gain access to information he needs for reporting because he is funded differently than other employees at the RGJ. Robison is partially paid by Gannett, but he relies on donations from the community to keep him reporting, just read his Greater Reno Facebook page. Surprisingly, the RGJ who claims to be transparent does not publish who is contributing to keep Robison employed. The Nevada Independent, who also relies on contributions, does. Why doesn’t RGJ do the same?
Are we angry, heck no, however we are disappointed, this is government, and it should be transparent. Before records are released, they are reviewed by the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, and Assistant District Attorney Mary Kanduras is in charge of reviewing the records. DA Kandaras has been extremely helpful, and we have no finger to point, since Kandaras is not doing the actual query, she must depend on the employees at the county who pull the data, and they ultimately report to County Manager Eric Brown. Commissioner Clark, who reports he worked with DA Kandaras to gain access to these 87 records, indicated to us, the county is saying since we didn’t provide Mark Robison’s email address in our original request, that is why the mistake was made. We think that’s a lot of bunk.
Picon has been asking for public records from Washoe County since 2021 and rarely have we included an email address since many times we have no idea what the individual or business entity’s email address is. The query should be simple and not need an email address, this is again smoke and mirrors from Washoe County, and after reviewing the records we understand why they attempted to deny us access to them. The county rolled the dice and thought we might go away if we were told there were no records. Frankly, it would have worked since this was an exercise to investigate the closeness between county communications and Robison, and really not news, but now it is. Washoe County created their own mess. It was serendipitous we called Commissioner Clark for a story commnt we were working on and he offered to reach out to DA Kandaras.
Clark went on the record with us to ask us to advise our readers if anyone has had a problem gaining access to public records in the past or future to reach out to him at meclark@washoecounty.gov and he will inquire of the ‘powers that be’ at Washoe County.
Clark commented, “2023 was my freshman year as a commissioner and 2024 will see a different Mike Clark and I’m not planning on taking no for an answer from Washoe County. I want some questions answered as do residents I talk to.” Clark went onto comment, “Mark Robison is able to get Washoe County to answer his questions faster than they do mine and I’m elected.”
What do we plan to do with the records, post them off and on.
Washoe County, we’re not going away, we will continue to fight the good fight for public records, and you can stall us, deny us, keep records from us, but the truth will come out, it always does. In the words of “The King” Elvis Presley, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away”
