Washoe County's January 28th Strategic Planning Meeting wasn't so much a planning session as it was a carefully orchestrated performance. County Manager Eric Brown paraded his loyal appointees before the commissioners in what amounted to an elaborate puppet show—department heads and direct reports dutifully describing a county running like clockwork under Brown's exceptional leadership and planning for the future.

The charade of commissioners directing the county's future course? Pure theater. At Washoe County, the ship sails only in the direction Brown charts, regardless of what elected officials might prefer. These are the same Brown-selected officials who crafted Commissioner Alexis Hill's presentation to the Nevada Legislature's Senate Committee on Government Affairs—the one where she boldly claimed a 40% reduction in homelessness, a figure so dubious it deserves its own category of creative accounting.