Tone and Decorum: Garcia Now Taking Suggestions from Consultants, Not Constituents

We urge you to listen to the Special Meeting yesterday. Oh, and we have a question. Are we just paying County Manager Eric Brown not to show up. His office is all but empty at the county so we’re giving him a check because?

After hiring outside consultants to evaluate its County Managers Office leadership dysfunction, Washoe County got exactly what it paid for: a detailed Raftelis report outlining what many residents have known for years—there’s a breakdown in trust, communication, and strategic priorities at the top.

But instead of focusing on the actual substance of the report—like rebuilding credibility or creating a strategy that doesn’t resemble a bureaucratic scavenger hunt—Commissioner Mariluz Garcia had a different takeaway: Let’s move commissioner comments to the end of meetings. Because obviously, the real problem here is the order of the agenda, not the disconnect between elected officials and the public they serve.

If Garcia gets her way, residents will now have to carve out their entire day just to hear their elected officials offer end-of-meeting monologues. Yes, that’s right—one agenda item, likely moved to the tail end of a 6-hour meeting. Because nothing says "accessibility and transparency" quite like a scheduling strategy that discourages civic engagement.

We’d like to remind Commissioner Garcia (in case the consultants didn’t include this in their PowerPoint) that her paycheck comes from the very people she now wants to make sit, wait, and wonder if the coffee in the senior center is still fresh.

This isn’t the first time Washoe County leadership has flirted with these performative tweaks. Let’s not forget Commissioner Alexis Hill’s ill-advised decision to eliminate public comment from the beginning of meetings—an unpopular move she quietly reversed once reelection started peeking around the corner. Public pressure worked then, and residents should keep that energy now.

Here's the deal: tone and decorum are fine goals. But they're not achieved by rearranging agendas like a bad game of Tetris. They’re earned through respect, communication, and genuine public service—not by sidelining the public to the end of the meeting like an afterthought.

If the County really wants to fix its leadership image, it might start by listening to constituents before consultants.

Oh, and hey, why don’t you ask Commissioner Garcia to explain the Washoe County Tax Rates by Distrcit to you.

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