Rumors …
Rancho San Rafael Wedding Venue.
Rumors might be a song by Fleetwood Mac, but they are also the tidbits that have started every journalism investigation since aliens were building the pyramids. However, recently, Picon has been getting a lot of pushbacks for our stories, with folks telling us that we are going too far picking on candidates and politicians, who frankly, leave much to be desired. Picon has to press that everything we write is based upon a public record. As much as we would love to just be another smutty podcast talking about how COVID-19 is fake, it just is not the case.
We know, not everyone can Joe Rogan. Picon wishes.
Now, media in the loosest of terms have never been loved by folks who have questionable ethics. The former Clark County Public Administrator’s trial recently took place in August 2024, the case of the slaying of Las Vegas Review Journalist, Jeff German, reinforcing the fact that media is never safe. The jury returned a guilty verdict, after deliberating for two days. Several hours later, the same jury sentenced Telles to life in prison.
On the other hand, our dear old Governor is apparently surprised that Little Ms. “Believes you can wash away cancer with saltwater and baking soda” turned out to be a snake oil saleswoman. That is almost the same as being surprised Jeffrey Epstein was a creep after using his private prplane to go to his Island…. not that we are saying anyone in Nevada did that.
As many of our viewers know, one of the top stories that have gotten Picon all riled up since we started is Trackergate. Not only was Trackergate the precipitant for Commissioner Garcia, who was never tracked, to finally actually live in her District 3, not just constructively or as KUNR called it, “on and off again since 2020”, but Trackergate showed citizens just how much Northern Nevadan politicians tolerate and facilitate discrimination, sexual harassment and the misuse of public dollars.
Picon has reason to believe that McNeely, the star of Trackergate, isn’t going to be naming Somersett’s own social media influencer, Robert Beadles as the culprit. If he does, we also won’t be surprised, but Picon continues to ponder- why track these people? What possibly could former Commissioner Vaughn Hartung and City of Reno Mayor Hiliary Schieve have done to warrant such a thing to public official who have a vastly different right to privacy than us local folk.
Ignoring the many “rumors” Picon was sent for a second, we took a deep dive into media archives. We didn’t want people to see us as only favoring the victim, or only investigating concerns of the citizens to rile up politicians. Ironically, the “rumors” we were sent, kept seeing larger kernels of truth leading to some serious “allegations”. Many of these rumors started from previously reported public investigations.
Everyone forgets that in 2016, the Reno Gazette Journal reported: Probe found Commissioner Hartung violated sexual harassment policy, code of conduct (rgj.com)
The investigation, conducted by an outside lawyer, looked into a complaint that Hartung had “engaged in conduct that was inappropriate and/or of a sexual nature toward an employee.” The lawyer found that two out of several complaints made by the employee were substantiated. The other complaints, including that he lunged at the employee with a clenched fist and engaged in inappropriate touching, were not substantiated. Picon must stop here and ask the difference between substantiated and true and what burden of proof was used as the standard during the investigation.
Apparently, and according to “rumors” Vaughn’s behavior never stopped. Picon was even told that Vaughn’s behavior got worse, with him openly threatening the women he harassed who had other family members working in county related offices. Of course, these are all rumors from women who refused to go on the record. Maybe these allegations were what led to a tracker being put on this “Father of the Year’s” car. Though this is just a stab in the dark, but, it also explains why the Washoe County Government was so willing and eager to turn a blind eye to allegations against the CEO of Karma Box, Grant Denton. Despite the multiple calls against him for abuse and harassment, Washoe County chose to “limit the scope of their investigation” to the confines of Karma Box’s contract with the county, or in other words, how to make sure the county can’t be held liable for his actions. It is unclear why the District Attorney didn’t just investigate him for misuse of governmental funds, harassment, stalking, and sex crimes, but hey, who cares about complaints against sexual harassment? Apparently, a request during an open meeting is not enough for any law enforcement agency to put their friendship with Denton aside to investigate him.
We know Mayor Schieve can’t put friendship aside for the purposes of investigation. Not only did she allegedly turn a blind eye to her buddy, Grant’s use of a City loaned office as a sex pad, but she also kept Andrew Clinger employed with the City of Reno. Picon does not ignore that Clinger did fail up and is now making more as the University of Nevada, Reno’s Vice President for Administration & Finance, but we will never forget Mayor Schieve’s statement Schieve Statement - Clinger.pdf (gray-arc-content.s3.amazonaws.com) and how she conveniently was absent for the September 2019 vote on the $300,000 that was given to two of the victims. Women who accused former Reno manager of harassment to get $300,000 (rgj.com)
What is weird is that Kate Thomas, who worked directly under Andrew Clinger and had texts chains that, “reveled in the fact that Mrs. Gescheider was not going to be around much longer.” Lawsuit Reveals 'Crazy' Text Conversations Among City Leaders (thisisreno.com). Mrs. Gescheider was one of the recipients of the $300,000.00 settlement with the City of Reno.
Flashforward and Kate Thomas was able to somehow get a Temporary Protective Order against now Commissioner Mike Clark for workplace harassment for inclusion of a Facebook photo her mom posted. Oddly, the last version of the packet that Picon received doesn’t have the photo, instead there are a bunch of Court documents indicating that Ms. Thomas knew about and facilitated the toxic environment in the City of Reno City Manager’s Office. It is unclear how it was found as workplace harassment, but it would have been better for now Commissioner Clark to raise his concerns directly with Human Resources, though knowing what we know now, we doubt they would have stopped what has happened now.
Now, during the “Dark Ages of Harassment” for the City of Reno, Washoe County Commission Chair was a Special Events Manager at the City of Reno and good friend of Schieve’s. The Commission Chair even voiced her concern when Kate Thomas moved from the City of Reno to the County over their previous spats.
Now, this is all beginning to make sense, as Picon has received numerous complaints about a toxic work environment in the County Manager’s office. When we normally get these complaints, sometimes we refer out to attorneys we know, and sometimes we even send the best scoops to our local should-be Pulitzer Prize Winning journalists, like Anjanette, Alicia, Bob and Nico. And sometimes they don’t know the scoop was from us. Whether it is City or County government, elected officials have been put on notice to treat their staff better and be ethical, while staff are on notice to blow the whistle. We have seen some great things change, including the ousting of people like former Sparks City Manager Neil Krutz, the lawsuit of Amber Howell which we hear is about to get wild, and City Council Member, Devon Reese’s “not” ethics violation.
What we haven’t seen yet is local government addressing discrimination in a way that makes the government as diverse, inclusive, equitable and accessible as is the goal. Now, we aren’t talking about the “woke” gotcha term that both liberals and conservatives like to fight about. We are talking about the fundamental liberties that are afforded to the people, to include the freedom of association and freedom to practice their religion.
Recently, Chair Hill, a Democrat, screamed from the mountaintops that she has a line, and it has been crossed. Now, Chair Hill is totally okay with having the Satanic Church give the invocation at county meetings, but whether this was just to get her name in the press is unknown as we haven’t seen any other potentially controversial groups, or even any non-white majority run of the mill religious group give the invocation. However, Chair Hill will smite you if you dare to come to the Commission Chambers in anything she finds repugnant. For instance, when the big, bad, now Commissioner Clark wanted to award the Coalition of Clubs $10,000 from discretionary funds for the Reno Toy Run, the board approved outright. Until Ben Margiott posted on X (Twitter for us old folks). In his post, Margiott caught glimpse of an unidentified, motorcycle club member who isn’t on any of the boards, wearing a “bent cross” on his leather. Now we could give you a whole history lesson on how we apparently let the Nazi’s take a prehistoric symbol, but we will let you inform yourself: The ancient symbol that was hijacked by evil (bbc.com).
Sadly, what was ignored is that fact that though motorcycle clubs get a bad rap, the Hells Angels, much like punk music didn’t originally embrace Nazism. However, this isn’t the article to talk about the history of the Hells Angels and WWII, instead this is: Hell's Angels > Air Force Historical Support Division > Fact Sheets (af.mil)
Instead, on July 16, 2024, Commissioner Hill had the audacity to ask point blank if the Hells Angels and coalition of clubs support Nazism, then voted to rescind a gift to the Reno Toy Run from discretionary funds. Ironically, the person she asked was Troy Regas, the prevailing party in the Ninth Circuit Case that found that there is a freedom of association for federal probationers. Now, we don’t know why the target would be with freedom of association for someone who claims to love DEIA. But it gets worse.
As Hill’s buddy on the Reno City Council continues to lead the charge to make it downright impossible to do business in Reno Small business owners perplexed, outraged by City of Reno's proposed changes to business license codes (thisisreno.com) Hill’s own staff are being completely ignorant to religious equality.
In August, a local Hindu family’s children got married at a county facility. Traditionally, the bride and groom participate in a wedding ceremony rite where they walk around a sacred fire seven times, or take seven steps together, while reciting a vow for each step. The ceremony is also known as saptapadi, which means "seven steps" in Sanskrit. The ceremony is to link the couple together for seven lifetimes. However, instead of working with the family on how to have a significantly reduce fire indoors or even given an outside option. The family even offered to ask the Fire Marshall to be present, but the county refused. It was only at the very last minute that the county finally offered to allow the ceremony on the deck outside…. despite it being fire season and more of a risk to be outdoors than indoors with a sprinkler system. In the end, the religious leader presiding over the ceremony stepped in and created a modern American twist by using a candle. The staff on hand were smart enough to not cause a fuss, you know since it is a religious action protected by the First Amendment. I don’t know about you, but that kid deserves a raise, and should maybe give the county and city officials a crash course on how not to violate the Constitution.
It's a shame that the martyrs of DEIA Commissioners Hill and Garcia are nowhere to be found helping the family out. Of course, we are sure that should they read this article this will once again, “be the first time” they’ve heard of this “curveball,” just reinforcing that these commissioners either don’t know their community or frankly don’t care.
Of course, there will be no article written about how horrendous it is the county initially refused a religious rite, at least not from the Reno “can’t rock the boat” Gazette Journal, or Nevada “needs everyone needs to donate” Independent. For them, these stories don’t connect with their ad sales that are barely keeping the paper afloat. There is even a rumor that the paper might in fact be for sale, and yes, Picon would be interested in buying.
Hey, Gannett hit us up.
