Local lessons for November and Beyond?
With Nevada and Washoe County now notoriously slow for handling mail-in ballots, this could put us in an unfavorable spotlight come November if the Cortez Masto / Laxalt standoff is close with Senate party control in the balance.
Other lessons learned? It seems distrust and lack of confidence in the system has many on the left skipping the voting while it pushes many on the right to vote for insurgent, rock the boat, candidates. On the Democratic side and in non partisan races, establishment backed candidates with deep local roots did well, while more innovative newcomers fell short.
Commentators are wondering whether Eddie Lorton can increase his base to compete with Hillary Schieve in a repeat of the 2018 mayoral showdown, but a more salient question might be where the other votes will go, including those for Jenny Brekhus if that’s indeed the final. We believe more of those will choose to vote for neither or for Schieve rather than for Lorton, tipping the balance for her third term.
We are reluctant to draw hasty conclusions though as who knows how many mail-in ballots remain. Some media pundits were too early to say two “Save WCSD” candidates would make it to November for School Board District B, but as seen below incumbent Ellen Minetto is now back in the fold. Westlake, who writes on her bio page “public school curriculum is getting further and further away from basic, educational fundamentals and leaning more and more towards political agendas (which simply have NO place in schools). Teachers are becoming social crusaders and pushing values and ideals that should be addressed in the family setting” is now barely in first place but can probably count on most of the Reyes voters come November. Anti “Save WCSD” proponents fear that with Jeff Church already on the school board, having one of their challengers elected in the run-offs could create further havoc at future meetings.
Our main feature this week highlighted Elvira Diaz and her ongoing efforts to get more people to vote locally.
As part of our #keeprenogreen series, we put the spotlight on a young local beekeper with tips on how to start your own bee hive.
Our podcast is in the same vein with lawyer Louis Bubala explaining his involvement in protecting surrounding wilderness.
Our social media included the below shared video of an interaction with an aggressive downtown Reno ambassador. Judge for yourself. Meghan Archambault with Reno /Sparks Mutual Aid who filmed the incident on June 14th outside downtown Reno library involving a neighbor in dire need of compassionate assistance later wrote to us: « [The man] was clearly not well. The biohazard “all over his face” as she put it appeared to be open sores of some type that were infected. I saw no syringes or needles, used or otherwise. I want to know how she knew he was shooting meth, and how helping him entails loudly announcing that he urinated on himself. There’s no compassion, only judgment.
Bill Sims was with me, and witnessed how cruel they were, and how he was much less agitated once we gave him some water, snacks, a bag for things he wanted to keep, and helped him with sorting and throwing away. I wish I could’ve stayed the whole time but at least I was able to get between them and him for a bit."
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