Disparity in Outcomes - AKA It’s All About Who
Alex Woodley School Board Trustee Campaign Fundraiser 2024.
Picon needs help understanding why a public outcry in 2020 called for Scott Kelly to resign as a school board trustee, but in 2024 Alex Woodley seems to be escaping the same uproar, and demands for his resignation.
Scott Kelly went through a nasty divorce. This Is Reno went into great detail regarding his divorce, fake Facebook accounts, a GPS tracker on Kelly’s ex-wife’s car, an extramarital relationship with a stripper, along with other allegations, all not a good look for a Washoe County School District Trustee and back in 2020 when this scandal hit, Kelly was running for reelection to his school board trustee seat.
Fast forward to 2024 and the City of Reno Code Enforcement Director Alex Woodley, allegedly retired from his job. Woodley says he decided it was time to retire, but we have it on good authority his retirement happened on the day as he was confronted with the fact the City of Reno had randomly discovered sexting on his city issued phone. Just look at the letter of resignation provided to the Reno Gazette Journal.
Alex Woodley’s Letter of Resignation to the City of Reno - October 9, 2024.
At the October 9, 2024, City of Reno City Council meeting Mayor Hillary Schieve announced they had an attorney-client meeting at noon. The council took their break for the meeting and when they came back Vice Mayor Naomi Duerr was leading the meeting but Mayor Hillary Schieve, and Interim City Manager Jackie Bryant were missing from the dais.
Mayor Hillary Schieve discussing the Attorney/Client Meeting at Noon on October 9, 2024.
The resignation letter is dated October 9, 2024, and received by Bryant at 1:18PM.
This timeline is fairly easy to follow.
Noon: The attorney-client meeting with the city council. Informing the council about Woodley’s sexting and we’ve got a pretty good guess they discussed the fact the City of Reno needed to confront Woodley and terminate or ask for his resignation.
1PM: When the council returned to the council meeting Bryant and Mayor Hillary Schieve must have been meeting with Woodley since they are both missing from the dais and returned to the meeting later.
1:18PM – When Alex Woodley resigned, and we think that conflicts with what Woodley told This is Reno, “his position at the city had become very political and it was a good time to retire.” Good time? The ultimate question is why Woodley was allowed by Mayor Schieve and City Manager Jackie Bryant to resign from his position; most employees for an infraction such as sexting on a company cell phone would have been walked out of the building. They would not have been afforded the dignity to retire, to save face, and save their reputation.
The Reno Gazette-Journal has a milk-toast article about Woodley’s position as a Washoe County School Board Trustee. Woodley has announced he will not be resigning, but no difficult questions were asked of Woodley. We were surprised because Siobhan McAndrew has written many hard hitting articles about the Washoe County School Distrcit.
What would Picon have asked?
1. What makes you different from Scott Kelly? The RGJ reported on August 26, 2020, “School Board President Malena Raymond issued the statement after details about Kelley's divorce were made public on Tuesday. Raymond said following individual conversations with other board members, she and Trustee Angela Taylor met with Kelley and asked him to resign. His actions clearly lack integrity and call into question his trustworthiness," Raymond said.”
It would have been informative if RGJ had asked Woodley why School Board President Beth Smith is giving Woodley an “sexting hall pass” and not asking for his resignation. The RGJ might have reached out to Smith, questioning why when her mentor Malena Raymond, who asked for Kelly’s resignation, why the now that Smith is in Raymond’s former position as board president, she giving a sexting hall pass to Woodley?
2. Woodley is still the darling of the Democratic Party of Washoe County, we stopped by their office last week, and while it is awash in a blue haze of Harris/Waltz signs, there were a couple of Alex Woodley School Trustee election signs still hanging around the office. When Kelly was “outed” for bad behavior in 2020 one of Wanna Be Mayor Councilmember Devon Reese’s posse wrote an opinion piece taking the Democrats to task for continuing to support Kelly. Why didn’t RGJ ask Woodley about his relationship with the Washoe Dems? Will they continue to support him.
3. Back in 2020 Councilmember Devon Reese decided to have a dust up with Kelly on social media, on one of Kelly’s fake Facebook accounts (David Jeffrey), talk about political theatre. Since Woodley left the City of Reno, Reese has been mute. Now we know Reese will hide behind the attorney/client meeting, and this being a Human Resources issue so he couldn’t comment. But Reese, Miguel Martinez, and Kathleen Taylor are all candidates, and they should be asked to comment on what they think about a City of Reno employee sexting on their city phone.
Scott Kelly’s Fake Facebook account for alias David Jeffrey (Kelly had other accounts also).
4. Better yet, Why didn’t the RGJ contact some of the people who spoke in support of Woodley appointment back in 2022?
At the very least the RGJ should have contacted Reese, Kathleen Taylor, and Miguel Martinez asking if they think Alex Woodley should remain a school board trustee. After all the trio are asking for our votes, hence at the very least we deserve their transparency.
2022 Public Comment in support for Alex Woodley being appointed to the Washoe County School Board.