Four of the seven seats on the Reno City Council could have new members next 12 months — and it’ll all come down to the November elections.
It’s a pivotal second for the Biggest Little City, which is going through long-term price range issues, steep rises in housing prices and contentious political points such as knowledge facilities and Flock cameras.
For the first time in a dozen years, there’s an open race for Reno mayor. There are also two council member seats on the poll: one open and one where a 25-year-old political newcomer is difficult a one-term incumbent.
The Nevada Independent interviewed all candidates, who each crammed out a coverage survey with similar questions. Read below to see where they stand on the points and the dynamics in their races. You can click on the hyperlinks below to scroll to a particular race.
Mayoral race begins to get messy — and it’s because of knowledge facilities
Two candidates emerged from the June main for Reno mayor — and they’re beginning to go after each other on knowledge facilities.
Kate Marshall, the former Nevada treasurer and lieutenant governor, cruised to first place in the main and is going through off against Reno City Councilmember Kathleen Taylor. Marshall is a Democrat and Taylor is a Republican, though the mayoral seat is nonpartisan.
Tensions emerged last week when Taylor launched her first TV advert attacking Marshall for voting in support of a knowledge heart tax break in 2020.
“I don’t think it’s an attack ad,” Taylor said in an interview. “I think it’s a clear distinction between the different candidates.”
Marshall shot back with a letter to the neighborhood defending her vote — explaining that the board she sat on had to approve the tax break and she pushed for certain environmental guardrails — and criticizing Taylor’s knowledge heart place. She also said in an interview that the advert was “desperate.”
Marshall has long opposed knowledge facilities within metropolis limits and backed a knowledge heart moratorium. Meanwhile, Taylor was the only vote against the metropolis’s moratorium earlier this 12 months — calling it “political theater” — but has just lately said in interviews and on social media that she does not support the developments in or close to neighborhoods. Instead of supporting a pause, she requested metropolis officers to fast-track adjustments to metropolis code, despite voting against beginning the course of to change code for knowledge facilities last 12 months.
It reveals the distinguished function that knowledge facilities are taking part in in the mayoral race — one that options two candidates with very totally different visions for the metropolis.
The race is occurring against the backdrop of a precarious price range scenario. The next mayor’s time period will run until 2030, the same 12 months the metropolis price range is on monitor for money circulate points, that means Reno will have less money than it wants to comfortably maintain each day operations.
Although Marshall and Taylor have touted fiscal accountability, they have totally different approaches on how to get there.
Taylor needs to get the metropolis “back to basics.” She has criticized spending on so-called “pet projects,” such as a Fourth of July Parade, and needs the metropolis to focus on companies such as police, fire and infrastructure.
Marshall, who has never been a metropolis official, has grander plans. She has said nothing is off the desk when it comes to righting the price range ship, including workers cuts, and needs to audit every metropolis program.
Taylor raised about $100,000 more than Marshall through the first six months of this 12 months but had a vital cash-on-hand deficit. Marshall started exploring a mayoral candidacy years in the past and has stored in reserve money raised for her earlier bids for statewide workplace — which has been a source of controversy.
About 8 p.c of Marshall’s fundraising through June came from people who donated $100 or less — about 10 instances the share of Taylor’s haul. Taylor, who has acquired vital support from builders, still said that small donors are serving to energy her marketing campaign.
“I have volunteers who can’t give financially, but they’re willing to give of their time so I don’t look at it as just a dollar amount,” said Taylor, who also criticized Marshall for planning a fundraiser in Las Vegas this month.
For her half, Marshall is assured in her possibilities, citing voter analyses her marketing campaign has carried out.
“In all those analyses, we are strong,” she said. “The wind is at my back.”
Two very totally different council races
Ward 2
With its incumbent termed out of workplace, the district spanning southeastern Reno is for the taking.
Two candidates emerged from the June main: Matt Johnson, the former proprietor of a Reno brewery and present UNR worker, and Summer Pellett, who co-founded a native construction company.
Johnson was beforehand the director of the Nevada Conservation Corps, which focuses on environmental restoration, and now works on a group at UNR centered on workforce development. He said he plans to make the metropolis council his full-time job if elected. In his marketing campaign, he has touted himself as properly outfitted to deal with the metropolis’s price range disaster and has also prioritized discovering methods to cool down Reno, which is the nation’s fastest-warming metropolis.
Pellett was previously a metropolis planner in Sparks, an expertise that she said equips her to help handle Reno’s development responsibly. She also is centered on some hyperlocal points, such as avenue racing.
Although the candidates have said they are prioritizing their own file when speaking with voters, there has been some mudslinging in latest weeks. Pellett’s marketing campaign was behind a Facebook group called the West Reno Citizens Report that ran AI-generated adverts referring to Johnson as a failed businessman after his brewery closed last 12 months.
In an interview, Pellett said Johnson had despatched damaging mailers about her during the main, though she did not have copies of them.
“I just wanted to make sure people knew, and to me, it’s not negative advertising,” she said.
Johnson used the advert to fundraise, calling it a “pathetic, half-assed attempt to smear me” because “her big money donors are worried that I am going to win.”
Through June, Johnson had raised about $49,000, and about 17 p.c of that money came from people who gave $100 or less. Only about 4 p.c of the $110,000 raised by Pellett has come from these donors.
“I like to call this a people-powered campaign,” he said in an interview.
Pellett has objected to that framing, in half because she said Johnson has sought endorsements from the same people she has.
“For him to portray himself as grassroots just because he is having a very difficult time funding his campaign is kind of an odd take,” she said.
Pellett also defended her donors. When she announced her candidacy, she immediately got support from teams she knows in the construction industry — something that she said should not depend against her.
“We’re building out the inside of a veterinary clinic. We’re putting up new bleachers and lighting at all of the Lyon County high schools,” she said. “We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done here in this community.”
Ward 4
The other council race has had a much decrease profile.
City Councilmember Meghan Ebert, who has represented northeastern Reno since 2022, is going through a problem from Eddie Gomez, a 25-year-old who owns a taqueria and has never run for workplace.
Ebert, who serves full-time on the metropolis council, has long pushed for larger awareness of the North Valleys in metropolis conversations. She just lately criticized the metropolis over the delays that North Valleys residents — including herself — confronted when evacuating because of the Hawk Fire.
The fire has had a main impact on campaigning in the race. Gomez and Ebert said campaigning has taken a back seat to serving to fire victims.
Gomez has centered his marketing campaign on hyperlocal points, calling for higher roads, a stronger police presence and more neighborhood areas in his district.
Gomez said his dream growing up was to be the mayor of Reno. He had envisioned operating for workplace later in life, but he determined to do it sooner as he did more analysis into how he could signify his neighborhood on the metropolis council.
“I decided to run completely independent of [Ebert] being an incumbent,” he said.
In an interview, Ebert said, “I’m happy to see younger people get into races,” but she also said she has initiatives in the works where “continuity is good.” Ebert is presently working on changing a decommissioned elementary college into a neighborhood heart and a place to home a future UNR drone program.
“I’m looking to bring jobs where people can afford to buy a house,” she said.
Above all, her precedence is advocating on behalf of North Valleys residents, who she said have long been sidelined from important metropolis conversations on everything from transportation to infrastructure.
Much less money has flowed into this race. Through the first six months of this 12 months, Gomez introduced in about $5,000, in addition to a $30,000 loan from himself. Ebert raised about $12,000 this 12 months.
Gomez thinks “fundraising doesn’t win a campaign,” while Ebert is prioritizing personal connections.
“It’s not a billboard,” she said. “It’s face to face with community members.”