Sparks “Soldiers of My Old Guard”

Picon’s staff have a weird combined formal education and among all of us we are the kind of people you would have wanted to have played Trivial Pursuit with back in the day.

On April 20, 1814, Napoleon walked down the steps of the Fontainebleau Palace and delivered his farewell, and we thought the portion important to our narrative, “I shall depart. But you, my friends, continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought; it shall continue to be the object of my desires. Do not lament my fate; the only reason I have allowed myself to survive was so that I could further serve our glory.”

Napoleon’s words very much remind us of Mayor Ed Lawson today, losing one of his “old guard” fomer Sparks Councilmember Kristopher Dahir.  

Lawson’s accent to become Mayor of Sparks after Mayor Ron Smith passed away in August 2020 was not a surprise. He gathered his troops around him, Sparks City Manager Neil Krutz, and Councilmembers Abbott, Anderson, and Dahir. Thus, becoming Lawson’s “old guard.”  We realize Napolean held his “old guard” together for twenty years, Lawson didn’t even make it eighteen months, due to the firing, by the city manager, of newly hired Sparks Fire Chief Mark Lawson in December 2022 and Krutz’s infamous YouTube video.

Mayor Lawson lost Neil Krutz in September 2023

And Kristopher Dahir today.

Residents attend the swearing in today of the “new guard” Joe Rodriguez Ward 5, who has no affiliation with Mayor Ed Lawson. "Oorah!"

Picon Staff