A Very Quiet Exit …

Gee wiz only a few weeks ago Dana Searcy was busy cutting a ribbon over at the Nevada Cares Campus and now she’s no longer with Washoe County, supposed to have resigned. Really?

It looks like the story of Dana Searcy’s quiet exit from Washoe County isn’t quite the tidy “career transition” narrative the county would like you to believe.

Searcy, who served as Division Director for Housing and Homeless Services and ran the Nevada Cares Campus, reportedly went missing in action shortly after the State of the County event on September 2, 2025. According to our source inside the county, what followed was a string of “closed-door” meetings with Human Resources and the interim county manager — and former Searcy “bestie” — Kate Thomas.

By the end of it, Searcy was “encouraged” to resign, and as has been reported, did so.

We remember when former Commissioner Kitty Jung complimented Searcy for ‘training herself while on the job’ at a commission meeting when the ‘success’ of the Nevada Cares Campus was being discussed, what success, can someone show us some number that check out.

Officially, she resigned — maybe to settle into that new, rather pricey home she just bought as we learned from our inside informant and Washoe County Assessor records. Conveniently, her husband still works for the Washoe County School District, so at least one paycheck keeps coming in.

But behind the carefully crafted narrative, whispers are growing louder. Our source tells us that during former County Manager Eric Brown’s tenure, Searcy operated under a standing order: “Dana gets what Dana wants — no questions asked.”

And apparently, that directive stuck, until his departure.

Once Brown retired on June 30, 2025, the questions began. Numbers tied to homelessness funding, outcomes, and program performance reportedly started to raise eyebrows — and not in a good way. Suddenly, Searcy’s authority was no longer unquestioned, and neither was the data she was feeding to commissioners.

Now she’s gone, the county’s being tight-lipped, and the department she once ran is pretending business as usual.

Which brings us to another question — if Searcy truly had that much unchecked power, where was the oversight from the head of the Human Services Agency Ryan Gustafson? Was he leading, or just taking orders? Taxpayers pay Gustafson a whole lot of payroll annually and is he a watchdog for them or the county - it is a legitimate question that needs to be asked.

Something here smells less like transparency and more like a cover-up with a press release.

Searcy may not talk to Picon — but we encourage our friends in the media to knock on one of her two front doors and see if she’ll open up.

Because this isn’t just a story about one county employee stepping down. It’s about what Washoe County doesn’t want to admit — that when the spotlight fades, accountability often disappears right along with it.