r/ourtownreno

At the Winco in Spanish Springs with this bearded man not liking a local wearing a 🇲🇽 Mexico jersey ahead of the big game against England …

@sydneylouisse was enjoying the UNR drone show from above when a firework then stunned the crowd in that area by TMCC starting wildland fires last night as shown in this video …

A Tesla electric semi shown here in a promotional photo is being widely reported as the type of vehicle involved in the Dayton crash which killed a married couple in a vintage Volkswagen Beetle this past Sunday morning at the intersection of US 50 and Traditions Parkway, marking the first fatal crash involving the company’s newest model.

National news outlets are reporting the semi involved was a 10 ton Tesla semi truck, being produced about 30 miles away from the deadly crash. The semi driver was reported uninjured, while a third person with life threatening injuries was flown by Care Flight to a local hospital.

The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office initially reported “preliminary statements obtained at the scene suggest the driver of the semi may have fallen asleep.”

Following a slew of one star public reviews and community outcry, a City of Reno Memorandum from today indicates Kurt Stitser with the Eddy has withdrawn a letter of intent to lease and/or purchase Believe Plaza and the adjacent Reno Redevelopment Agency parcel.

"Reno Municipal Code (RMC) section 8.23.012 currently designates City Plaza as a “public plaza” under the jurisdiction of the City’s Parks and Recreation department. RMC section
5.13.040 designates City Plaza as the City’s default location for First Amendment expressive activities," the document from City Manager Jackie Bryant indicates.

"Both code designations present legal obstacles to leasing and/or selling the property for commercial activity. I explained these challenges to Mr. Stitser, and he subsequently
withdrew his request.

The RDA parcel adjacent to City Plaza is not affected by these codes.

Should Mr. Stitser wish to modify and resubmit the LOI to only include the RDA parcel, it will proceed to the Reno Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB) to review and make a recommendation to the RDA board for consideration.

Mr. Stitser followed the current LOI process when submitting the LOI.

Due to several Council member requests to change the current LOI process, staff is working on an updated policy to
include Council’s feedback."

The website https://www.futureofbelieveplaza.com/ set up by the Eddy following community anger for any takeover of the plaza remains active.

The plaza is used by community activists, protesters and skateboarders as well as major public events such as right now as Artown kicks off.

Liberty Dogs is responding to an employment discrimination complaint by a former employee indicating, “we are aware of the concerns raised by a former employee.”

The statement attributed to its CEO, retired Major General Ondra L. Berry, added: “While we cannot discuss individual personnel matters with due regard for employee privacy, we take them very seriously and are addressing them through the appropriate human resources process. We remain committed to a workplace culture grounded in accountability, integrity, and support for our employees and the people we serve.”

An employment discrimination complaint filed by James Riley with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission has a date of an alleged discriminatory act on January 26th 2026.

The document indicates Riley was hired by Liberty Dogs in August 2025 and left in April 2026 with his final position there noted as facilities manager.

"I experienced a workplace environment that became increasingly hostile and raised concerns regarding discrimination and retaliation. I observed a service-connected veteran employee being treated without dignity and appearing to be targeted due to a known disability. This treatment contributed to that employee’s resignation. Additionally, I experienced repeated verbal threats from my direct leadership regarding the security of my position. These actions created fear of retaliation and discouraged me from reporting concerns internally. Due to these conditions, I felt unable to safely continue my employment,"
the details section of a disability discrimination alleges.

“I honestly have no idea why I was treated this way, I (was) really good at my job in which I excelled at in the shor(t) time I was there including getting promoted from Maintenance Tech to Engineering Manager and then t(he) title changed to Facilities Manager, I also received 2 substantial pay increases in this short amount of time,” a section underneath “I believe I was treated this way because” indicates.

“I joined this organization because I believed in its mission to serve veterans,” Riley wrote to Our Town Reno in a subsequent email. “Unfortunately, my experience led me to conclude that the organization's practices did not align with the values it publicly represents. Over time, I developed serious concerns about its commitment to the veterans it exists to serve.”

“Liberty Dogs was established by the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation (DCDF) to honor and support two communities close to the hearts of its founders — disabled military Veterans and loyal canine companions,” the organization with an address at 1215 Damonte Ranch indicates on its website.

It has had recent training and an upcoming one starting July 8th, for what it calls its wellness program which is “no cost for eligible US Veterans.” It also indicates it will have a Liberty Service Dog Training and Placement program launching this summer.

The bull at the center of a Reno rodeo racism controversy has had its given last name dropped in its profile, after MoPuWe wrote on the Reno subreddit last week “Since when are we doing blatant racism at the rodeo?”

Nick put together with what was the last name previously sounded out a racial slur.

In a statement released to local media today a PR official for the Reno Rodeo said it “does not condone racism, discriminatory language, bullying or language intended to demean any person or community.”

It also indicated these names are assigned by stock contractors, and that “at this time we do not believe the name was intended as a racial slur. That said, we understand the concern about how the name may have sounded over the PA system.”

Big Bend Flying 5 Rodeo, the rodeo stock contractor in question, is based in Ritzville, Washington, with that bull having used the full name at another recent rodeo in Oregon.

Aaron Sims, 33, who lost several local election campaigns, is now formally facing a felony theft charge, after allegations were made against him two years ago that he stole nearly $20,000 from the Rural Nevada Democratic Caucus organization for personal use.

In this Our Town Reno photo, he was being interviewed for his failed 2022 run for Nevada’s Senate in the 16th district.

He turned himself in last week after being formally charged in a criminal complaint by Senior Deputy Attorney General Melissa Rosenthal.

Two members of the Democratic Caucus had filed a police report in 2024 accusing Sims, who was then the organization’s chair, of stealing donations for his own use. Expenses under scrutiny ranged from restaurant bills to gas fill ups, entertainment expenses, general merchandise, paying off his personal credit card as well as paying for plane tickets, hotels, personal care items and medical supplies.

Sims has said some of the purchases were “maybe too personal,” and that he mistakenly used the organization’s card rather than his own.

He was asked to resign from the organization in 2025.

This is from our Substack which is a recap of our recent reporting, plus additional content, you can get via your email here: ourtownreno.substack.com

Starting tomorrow, a former star student reporter Amanda Avilla will be at the controls of our social media, as our main coordinator and co-founder goes mostly off the grid for a full gap year, for some surfing, bike riding and working on two books, with one tentatively called from the Warlords of West Africa to the Trolls of Northern Nevada, a Reporter’s Journey (guess which ones are more spiteful?)

Reporting is not easy, wherever you do it, however you do it, with attacks against reporters coming from all sides in many forms, but this team believes it’s important to document our changing lives, and that’s what we’ve been doing with our experimental, social media and hyperlocal driven initiative looking out for Reno’s underdogs since 2016.

Thanks to our many generous Substack, Facebook and Instagram subscribers and other donations we’ve received recently we will be able to pay Amanda on a daily basis to keep the community informed through all the crowdsourced content sent via messages on our social media and our contact page https://www.ourtownreno.com/contact

Amanda has already been the talent behind our website’s recent makeover at ourtownreno.com and new graphics across our social media which have given our feeds a more unified look.

We are currently looking to hire and train another local reporter to back up Amanda on days she isn’t available.

Our coordinator has been at it for ten years pretty much every day volunteer documenting the 775 from #randomreno to #sheroesofreno, from the trivial to the terrible, from the delightful to the dismal, from investigative reporting to street photography, with plenty of important citizen contributed content to curate as well.

While we will remain active on all our channels, we might have fewer Substacks, fewer articles, fewer social media posts over the next few months, but we are still very much here with Amanda, a talented photographer, writer and multimedia producer, ready to receive all your new messages, photography, content, questions and concerns to relay to the community at large.

With your many contributions, from wildlife photography to crashes, fires, the weird, the sublime, the worrisome, the awesome, alerts and tips we can pursue, we will keep being a monitor of this community’s pulse.

Our timing might not always be as fast for the next few months as it has been in the past, but we promise we will remain diligent in pursuing our mission to document this beautiful region always with the #helpeachother mantra and waving flags against looming storms.

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Do you think the harsh sentencing earlier this week of Antifa protesters in Texas will put a chill on the movement locally? Here in this photo a protester carries a sign in favor of Antifa, which is short for anti-fascist, at a recent No Kings rally in downtown Reno.

One of the Texas convicted Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for moving a box of anti-government pamphlets and zines he didn’t even make himself, after the prosecution said he did this to conceal evidence in the case against his wife Maricela Rueda after she had called him from prison. He had not been present at the protest.

His wife who did attend the July 4th protest last year at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, where a police officer was shot, was sentenced herself to 70 years.

Benjamin Hanil Song, a former Marine reservist, who was convicted of the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, was sentenced in Fort Worth to 100 years in prison. 

Five others were sentenced to 50 years in prison, including two who were not involved in the planning of the protest, arrived after it started and then left when they were asked to do so by guards.

First Amendment advocates have expressed deep concern about Sanchez Estrada’s case in particular.

During sentencing, one of the presiding judges, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, called the demonstration "an assault on democracy," adding "the need to deter this type of conduct is high."

All those sentenced are likely to pursue appeals, while another defendant is scheduled for sentencing next month.

During the protest a dozen people were dressed in black outside the ICE facility, with some spray painting graffiti on a guard shed and a car, setting off fireworks and doing damage to a surveillance camera. Song who stood at a distance with an AR-15-style rifle at one point shot at Lt. Thomas Gross of the Alvarado Police Department striking him and injuring him with a bullet above his collarbone.

The Reno Rodeo did not end well for one family, with one woman’s partner being handcuffed and led outside the rodeo grounds, and then sat down and interrogated inside a fenced off area, as shown in screenshots from two videos shared by her with Our Town Reno.

As he is being walked away, on one of the videos, a male law enforcement officer is heard saying “every gang associate, every gang member, every gang affiliate …” as a woman disputes that he is related to any gang.

They say this all happened in front of of their children, after they had all gotten tickets, had their wristbands and had entered the rodeo grounds without any issue until then.

“After we had already entered the event and walked through the grounds, we were approached by members of the Gang Unit,” the trespassed man indicated today in a message relayed to Our Town Reno sent prior to the videos.

“I immediately informed the officers that I would comply with their instructions and leave. I respectfully asked why I was being required to leave after being admitted into the event. I was told that the Reno Rodeo was a private event and that I was trespassing. I questioned how I could be trespassing after legally purchasing admission, being allowed to enter, and already complying with their order to leave.

While I was in the process of leaving, one of the officers grabbed me, placed me in handcuffs, and escorted me to an area where I was detained and questioned before ultimately being released. Throughout the encounter, I repeatedly stated that I was already leaving as instructed and that I had not violated any laws or any rules of the event. I am a free citizen. I am not on parole or probation. Any mistakes I made in my past have already been addressed through the legal system, and I have completed my sentence. Today, I work seven days a week, support my family, and strive to live as a productive member of the community,” he writes.

“During this encounter, officers photographed my tattoos and documented me as a gang affiliate based on information from my youth. From my perspective, I was treated differently because of a historical gang classification rather than because of any conduct at the event. I also witnessed another individual, who was attending with his young daughter, being removed from the event under similar circumstances.

After being forced to leave, I requested a refund for the admission fees and wristbands that my family had purchased. My request was denied,” he added.

“I believe the Reno Rodeo should review the manner in which these removals were handled. If individuals are going to be denied entry based on predetermined criteria, those policies should be clearly disclosed before people purchase tickets and enter the event. Allowing families to pay for admission, enter the event, and then removing them without prior notice is, in my opinion, unfair and causes unnecessary embarrassment and financial loss.

I encourage anyone who experienced a similar situation to come forward and file a complaint with the Reno Rodeo. At a minimum, individuals who were required to leave after purchasing admission should be refunded. While private events may establish their own policies, those policies should be communicated openly and consistently before attendees pay for entry so families can make informed decisions.”

When asked if he was considering a lawsuit, he wrote back: “We definitely want to … it was extremely humiliating, people were laughing, not knowing what was even happening. We’re hoping with more members of the community stepping up we can come together and get some justice for what happened.“

In January 2025, we posted this photo of what 265 Keystone looked like then (without the overlaid photos and document) in an article about how City of Reno Planning Manager Mike Railey had written to Kimley-Horn and Associates granting a conditional use permit to develop the Ward 1 Keystone Data Center, with future overnight business operations.

More than 20 people at the time posted in opposition “with concerns ranging from increased energy and water consumption, a strain on Reno’s power grid, reduced quality of life for nearby residents and needing more clarity on local regulations concerning data centers, to counter a growing number of projects presenting as warehouses to become data centers," we wrote.

This was 18 months before the Reno City Council decided to vote for a moratorium on data centers within city limits.

Yesterday, a group called No Desert No Data NV, which includes Bree Kasper and Krista George forwarded us an email asking that the permit be pulled, alleging in the subject line that the project’s deviations from its original planning now exceed 10%, the threshold for an official review.

This is “grounds to have their permits revoked and construction immediately halted. Currently there are hundreds of community members emailing Planning Manager for the City of Reno, Mike Railey and cc'ing over 14 other City officials to hold them accountable for these deviations,” Kasper wrote to Our Town Reno.

Kasper says nearby residents “have been doing public records requests as well as deep diving into all the permits and research for weeks.”

One document titled Mechanical Design Change Permit Resubmission from February 13th by Burdette, Koehler, Murphy and Associates Kasper referred to in public comment earlier this month indicates “it was determined by THE OWNER to make a mechanical system design change that differs from the previously submitted permit documents,” then stating “we are switching to a closed-loop, chilled water cooling system for the data center whereas the previous design was refrigerant based and air cooled.”

“In the close loop system it’s not just water, it has glycol. Where does the glycol go when there is a need for maintenance discharges? Glycol is highly erosive and needs to be cleaned. The antifreeze in open or evaporative sections of the loop can evaporate over time in dry warm climates. Operators must regularly sample loop water typically from every 100 – 150 days to check concentration levels, PH, and depleted inhibitors. Which department is responsible for the regulation of this?” a document looking into “major deviation” territory asks.

Other bullet points that document raises include the power demand initially stated as 3MW now advertised as 12 MW, construction work starting earlier than the previously written out 7 a.m., with one morning in late May with work beginning as early as 4 a.m. according to neighbors, and other instances of early work noted in a letter to city staff.

The document also asks to see an updated soil test, and wonders why David Giacomin listed as a civil engineer for Kimley-Horn and Associates approving projects was appointed to the Reno City Planning Commission and then the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Commission in May 2025.

“We want the planning department to pull the permit due to the deviations, which would be cleaner than any of the other options,” Kasper wrote in a follow up email to Our Town Reno.

“We are cc'ing the other 14 officials in hopes that either Mayor (Hillary) Schieve or the legal team will be able to assist moving this forward toward that end.”

From the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to .... Virgnia Lake and Teglia's Paradise Park.

No talk of related vandalism, arrests or peeling paint here though yet.

"Okay, nobody panic, but visible algae has been reported at Virginia Lake and Teglia’s Paradise Park, and we would be grateful if you would please not drink it or swim in it," the City of Reno writes with this photo.

"These blooms are common during the summer and early fall, especially when water levels are lower, nutrients like phosphorus are higher, and water circulation is limited. While testing has not confirmed the presence of harmful toxins, the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection has listed both water bodies under advisory based on visual confirmation.

As a precaution, residents and pets should avoid direct contact with the water until the blooms subside. City staff is coordinating water quality sampling with NDEP through its Harmful Algal Bloom program.

No algae blooms have been observed at Lake Park, which has experienced them in the past.

Although the water may look different, these blooms are temporary, and they will go away as the weather cools. Again, please don't drink or go into the water."

Firefighters on the scene and more on the way to combat the five acre vegetation fire right by Hug High on this Friday evening… more coverage on our town reno Facebook and BiggestLittleStreets IG

Hope to see y’all there!