A Meeting Between Anti-Sweeps Advocates and the Mayor
A week of protests, which included a tense and then defused showdown between anti-sweeps advocates and Reno police, culminated in a longer than expected meeting Thursday between Mayor Hillary Schieve and a small group of protesters who had been occupying a small patch of grass across from City Hall.
We tried to get post-meeting comments from both sides, but got little so far, other than “it was productive”, and that a working relationship seems to have started between the City of Reno and the advocates. Meanwhile, the NCC VOA-run compound is at nearly full 600 occupancy capacity for its current iteration. The new Washoe County, Karma Box-operated 44-tent mini legal safe camp at the top part of the site is set to open next Thursday. Sweeps of smaller riverside encampments are still being reported, while new encampments are propping further east in Sparks and into Storey County.
The most public part of the week were the dozens of comments surrounding the sweeps, or “targeted cleanups” as police call them, at the most recent Reno City Council meeting. There were some allusions to “cancel culture” fears as well as historical lessons.
Initial public comments stretched over two hours, from the 11 minute mark above to the two hour 26 minute point of the marathon Council session. The final comment in the morning section was by JW who we profiled in our own feature. During her comment, an advocate who played the lead role in defusing tensions with police, Lily Baran, played heart wrenching audio from a woman being swept which we had previously posted a video of.
We also posted the below June 7th day of minidoc on the confrontation between police and the advocates. The next morning, before the crack of dawn, five of them were given citations to appear in community court, while new notices to vacate the patch of grass were issued for the next morning. The advocates then decided to pack up their tents, and use daytime protests and lawn chairs instead of the 24/7 approach they had been using.
Our podcast this week had two episodes, one a longer audio documentary about the confrontation with police and the other on a new initiative to build a mutual aid community garden in a sideyard in downtown Reno. Follow or subscribe to the Our Town Reno podcast wherever you get your podcasts to hear from thought leaders, those experiencing life without stable shelter, change makers and heroes of Reno. We now have our own linktr.ee where you can find our podcast as well, and other categories of our reporting.