When Guardians of Information Become Censors

In a departure from their trusted mission, Washoe County staff have revealed a disturbing mindset that threatens the very principles of public discourse and documentation.

Within internal communications from 2023, a county employee's statement suggests a calculated strategy to suppress public commentary: "I agree, and again, if the commenters know their word aren’t going to be memorialized in writing, it’s possible they might stop making so many comments in the first place! On can hope, anyhow … “ Let that sink in. The institution traditionally celebrated as a sanctuary of free expression is contemplating silencing citizens by manipulating the record.

These are not just words, but a potential assault on transparency. Taxpayers - the very people funding these salaries and institutions - are being viewed as inconveniences to be managed, not voices to be heard.

Library Director Jeff Scott appears to be engineering a subtle form of public suppression. Suggestions to truncate, paraphrase, and effectively dilute public comments reveal a bureaucratic arrogance that should alarm every resident of Washoe County.

The irony is brutal. Libraries - traditionally champions of intellectual freedom, protectors of the unfiltered word - are now proposing to sanitize and minimize public input. They want to reduce citizen testimony to "a very basic sentence or two," effectively erasing nuance, passion, and the democratic right to comprehensive public record.

Their commentary about Bruce Parks - a citizen with every right to speak and be accurately recorded - is particularly galling. Whether one agrees with Parks or not, the principle remains: public commentary deserves full, faithful representation.

Picon has written much of Republican Party/Central Committee Chair Bruce Parks and he has called our publisher in the past. However, Parks is a resident of Washoe County and has a right to make public comment and we are surprised a county employee would write, “Going even a step further, pretty much every paragraph could be cut way down to just a very basic sentence or two summarizing what was said. New DA Brandon seems to be pretty particular – like Herb was. I don’t know how he’d feel about this, but I can tell you from experience, Bruce Parks isn’t going to stop picking apart every sentence.”

Hey, county personnel if you are incorrectly reporting what Mr. Parks said then you need to fix it, he has a right to a correct record. Wouldn’t reporting it correctly in the first place save you a whole lot of time?

This isn't just about one meeting or one set of minutes. This is about the fundamental contract between government institutions and the public they serve.

Libraries should be bastions of unfiltered knowledge, not echo chambers of bureaucratic convenience.

When have county employees been empowered not to like the public the very people they serve?

Taxpayers aren't interruptions in an employee's day. They ARE the day. They ARE the reason the job exists. Every meeting, every record, every interaction should center on genuine public service - not bureaucratic eye-rolling or strategic suppression.

These employees seem to have forgotten a fundamental civics lesson: In a democracy, you don't just tolerate public input - you welcome it, preserve it, respect it.

The public isn't an inconvenience. The public is the point.

Washoe County Library Public Records Picon recevied.