Far Far Away
Picon finds it curious that City of Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve indicated in an interview with RGJ Mark Robison that the firm the City of Reno retained to investigate Councilmember Jenny Brekhus was someone from out of the area. Schieve commented to Robison in the November 7, 2023, article, “It was decided to hire a Reno litigation attorney Brian Irvine of Dickinson Wright to find an investigator who was “very, very removed from the political environment here.” Schieve added the person was picked from out of state.
As we understand from the RGJ article, that firm is Ogletree Deakins.
The name Ogletree Deakins struck a nerve with us, memorable name, and Picon has a memory like an elephant. It took us a bit to figure out where the heck we had heard the name and then it struck us, the City of Sparks. On June 26, 2023, the HR Director Jill Valdez presented to the Sparks City Council to spend $65,000 on an Organization Assessment with Ogletree Deakins per an Engagement Agreement. Valdez went onto say, “they are a law firm with a local representative that services us and they also have national and international expertise that they bring to bear”
Say what??? Mayor Schieve assured all of us that Ogletree Deakins is “very, very removed” and yet the HR Director at the City of Sparks seems to know of them. Is it the same firm, we’re awaiting public records from the City of Reno.
But hold the phone, we have learned from a Sparks City employee that Washoe County Human Resources has also retained Ogletree Deakins in the past, if they remember correctly, it was prior to 2020.
At the June Sparks City Council meeting Jill Valdez was asked by Councilmember Paul Anderson what the process was that Valdez’s Human Resources department went through in choosing Ogletree Deakins as the company Sparks should work with, and Valdez responded “I work with a legal partner outside of the city who provides assistance when needed such as finding vendors, she has a wealth of knowledge about vendors available and different services that they provide and in working with her she identified this unique product through Ogletree Deakins.” A unique product?
With the investigation of Councilmember Jenny Brekhus being completed by Ogletree Deakins this caused Picon to wonder who the legal partner is outside of the City of Sparks that advises Ms. Valdez. The Sparks City Attorney Wes Duncan is not able to advise Valdez? How did Valdez find this woman (we know gender due to Valdez’s city council statement). Is this person an advisor or vendor locator, and does the City of Sparks pay her for her assistance to Valdez? More importantly does the Sparks Mayor and City Councilmembers know who this individual, the special adviser to their HR Director, is. Has she been vetted. We, and an investigator, did several public record requests and came up with nothing, meaning there is no record of this mystery woman/advisor, so we decided to take the direct route and ask for the name of this individual as a public record request. We again got nothing because this is not a public record, but shouldn’t it be if outside council is advising the Director of the City of Sparks Human Services Department.
Julie Torres, Sparks Chief Deputy City Clerk had advised us to email Jill Valdez for the information. Instead, we took a more direct approach and called her, four times, with no response. Pondering our next step, we thought it best to write this article and send a copy to the three Sparks City Councilmembers Donald Abbott, Kristopher Dahir, and Paul Anderson all up for reelection in 2024 and learn if they know who this advisor is to the Sparks HR Director. Are they at liberty to tell the press, or how about the residents of Sparks, the taxpayers. We included Sparks City Attorney Wes Duncan, also facing an election in 2024, remembering Mr. Duncan was appointed and not elected as of yet. Since Duncan is the ‘legal eagle’ for the City of Sparks we would think he might know who the mystery adviser is. For good measure we added in Councilmember’s Vanderwell and Bybee. We await their responses.
While calling the City of Sparks to get the phone number of the HR Director we learned from a friendly, chatty Sparks city employee, that Ogletree Deakins is very well known to government in the Truckee Meadows, they have done work for Washoe County’s Human Resources Department. The individual at the City of Sparks knows someone who works at Washoe County and told us, ‘the whole bit about the City of Reno hiring a company far removed from the political environment made everyone smile.”
Does Mayor Schieve need to take a course on what ‘very, very removed’ should mean. Is this the same Ogletree Deakins who has worked in the Truckee Meadows? This company was pitched by the City of Sparks HR Director to spend $65K on a contract in June 2023 (Valdez’s request was rejected by the Sparks City Council – perhaps one of their brightest moves this year) and has worked with Washoe County’s Human Resources Department in the past.
Ogletree Deakins is a labor and employment law firm that has more than 950 lawyers located in 55 offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Some of their 950 lawyers in one or more of their 55 offices has done work before in Reno, so our question to Mayor Schieve is how is that ‘very, very removed’ since it would seem distance the key to this story.
