It's already an uphill battle for people to engage to understand and navigate the public records process, and citizens feel powerful powerless when denied a record if they don't have a lawyer to help them fight that.

Under the fee schedule, you're considering just a few hours of staff time is going to quickly become prohibitively expensive for Carson City residents or local media outlets that are running on tight margins.

We're also concerned about the intimidation factor of paying a deputy $34 an hour to watch you while you view videos of Body Warren Camera other public records.

This might sound like a fiscally sound idea to balance the budget, but the trade-off we're seeing is shutting down huge pathways for average citizens to ensure that their government is doing what it says it's going to do.

We are all better off with transparency and accountability and checks and balances.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Michelle.

Mr.

Rybar Good morning, Drew Rebar.

For the record, I'm also a candidate for Nevada Assembly District 40, which is here in Carson City.

I if y'all want me to represent you in the legislature, this is what I'm about.

I'm a long-term businessman.

Never worked for the government.

And now you guys want to charge people to get these public records.

How do we get our government back under control?

Charging people for the public records that they've already paid to create through their tax dollars.

You're all elected to represent the people.

Thank you very much, Drew Rebar Assembly 40.

Thank you.

I don't have anyone else signed up for opening public comment.

So just in case, do I?

Okay.

So thank you, Mayor.

Hope Sullivan, Director of Community and Economic Development.

Um, as this board knows, since 2014, the city had been using a third party vendor to provide building um permitting and inspection services.

Friday at noon, we transitioned to an in-house team.

And I'd like to introduce the leadership of that team.

First, to my left is Cecilia Rice.

There's only one word to describe Cecilia Rice, and that's exceptional.

Cecilia is overseeing the permit text and the development coordinator.

She handled the entire recruitment looking for one characteristic customer service.

She's moved her office downstairs where we discovered after the fact it's painted burnt orange, but we're gonna fix that.

And so but she's downstairs so she can be more hands on.

She spent last week training her new team over at the EOC, and she's making sure the customers who are meeting the frontline staff have a positive and productive experience.

Some of you may know Mark, he's a 36-year resident of Carson City.

In the early 2000s, Mark was the owner and general contractor of Carson Country Country Construction.

More recently, he worked with the City of Reno as both a building inspector and plans examiner.

Mark has taught continuing the education classes as part of the International Code Council preferred provider program.

He has 31 international code certificates.

Um certifications, including Master Code Professional.

So he's one of 24 in the entire state of Nevada, and he's a certified building official.

In interviewing candidates for building official, we had three panels comprised of primarily local professionals in land development.

When the panels came together at the end of the day, Mark was the clear choice.

So I live not too far from downtown.

Some of you, I think Stacy would remember.

I used to be out at uh out at Mexican Dam.

And so we've since moved into town.

So uh thank you very much for the opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, yeah, welcome.

And and you've already started work, and we have great expectations.

Might as well just put that out there.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, hope.

And congratulations, Cecilia.

Thank you.

Okay, do I have anybody else?

No other public comment.

All right, we're gonna move on then to agenda item six, our approval of our minutes.

Did any members have any changes?

Oh, except a motion, please.

Supervisor Giomi.

Yeah, move to approve the Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting minutes for 15 January 2026 as presented.

I second.

I have a motion in a second for approval.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

Let the record reflect it was unanimous.

Thank you.

We're now gonna go to uh the floor and we'll do our length of service certificates, and then um the fire department will come and do uh a special presentation too.

Okay, we'll talk to Todd.

Okay, all right.

Wow, 25 years.

Shoot, I wonder if I can ask for 25 more.

That's not starting this off, right?

Because I'd love to ask for more time because we have great employees.

So how about Brenda Torres, our judicial clerk?

Is this a typo?

She doesn't even look old enough to have too many.

Did you start?

It's 27.

Oh my gosh, Brenda.

Well, well, we are getting a few more at least, aren't we?

25 more.

25 more.

It worked after all.

Thank you for your service.

Sorry, Judge Melanie's probably got sorry, Judge.

Judge Tatro also needs to come up here because I'm sure he has some kind words to say about Ms.

Torres since he was the one that actually hired her.

Anyway, Brenda started in 1999 as a part-time clerk and loved Carson City so much that she graciously gave her service to full time.

She has worked in every position in the clerk's office.

She current currently works in the civil division, and she's responsible for small claims, justice court cases, landlord tenant cases, and temporary protection orders and extended protection orders.

And I can say that her customer service skills are amazing.

We typically get people coming in at 4 58 on Friday evenings to file for a temporary protection order.

And Brenda, although she's been working long, long days, Monday through Friday, she is there with a smile, and she's there to assist these individuals.

And we really appreciate it.

We love her.

And Judge Tatra.

Brief.

But I will say that one of the reasons we hired Brenda, you volunteered for a short time.

She volunteered, worked for free, and she was so good with people.

And you could tell that she was one of those, is one of those kind, caring, compassionate people, a very sweet person.

And her her care and concern always affected the customers at the counter.

And a lot of people don't come to court because they're happy.

They come for other reasons.

And Brenda's one who's always been comforting and caring and rushing us to hurry up and help them.

So thank you, Brenda.

Okay.

Oh, now we're we're moving down into weakness because this one's only 10 years, right?

But that means I get to ask, see?

Even though she volunteered to an E5, so the pressure's on here.

How about Houston Bernston, our firefighter paramedic with 10 years?

And beautiful kids.

Right?

Well, you don't get the certificate if you don't say how many more years?

I've got a long time, probably about 20 more.

Yes, we are on a roll today.

Thank you so much for your service.

Really?

Thank you.

And it's it's not the number of years.

It's the work that you put in while you're here.

And so um, but in all reality, Houston definitely represents that.

It's been a very solid 10 years.

Uh Houston started with us in a wildland program, came up.

Um, he put himself through school while he was working as a firefighter with us and is now um one of our elite paramedics with the department.

Um, and anybody that's here in blue would attest to that.

Um, so to say that he takes customer service very seriously.

This guy embodies it.

He makes sure that all of his medicine, his ambulance, everything that he does is done to a T.

He's very instrumental in our EMS division and making sure we're progressive and on the forefront of medicine.

Um top of all that is a tremendous leader in the station.

And as we'll see here in a minute, this is kind of Houston Bernston Day.

He's also tremendous firefighter.

So um, we're very lucky to have him, and congratulations on tenure.

Thank you, Chief.

All right.

10 years.

How about Michael Freeman?

Right.

Oh my gosh.

Are you working at the Aquatic Center?

He's working on a new program I was listening to uh yesterday.

We're very lucky to have Michael.

Thank you for all your efforts uh at the pool.

Thanks.

You never steal anything, Mayor.

So I've had the uh pleasure of working with Mike for nine of those 10 years.

Being an aquatics manager is not an easy job.

Sounds like a really easy job, but it's really not.

I've had the uh I've managed an aquatic facility uh for five years, and it was like I was ready to move on and do something else.

But I've never met anybody who is as passionate about aquatics in the community as Mike.

Um he wants nothing more than just to provide access to health and fitness and aquatics for kids and for adults.

And so I think that this community is super fortunate to be able to have somebody who's as passionate as he is uh and devoted.

He's been in aquatics always, right?

So his first job as a lifeguard, moving all the way up to being the manager here.

So um just like to thank Mike for his time, and I'm looking forward to many more years with him in uh in aquatics.

I I think uh Mike is a little superstar, and I heard yesterday all about his passion for third graders to learn to swim because safety is so important, and so what a rock star we have at our swimming pool, and maybe you'll see more news coming out about how you can participate and help that program along.

So thanks.

Um how about our fleet services for 10 years here too?

Bruce Rutherford, come on up 10 years.

20 more?

Okay.

Okay, you know, it's a good day in Carson City.

They're all saying yes, that they're gonna be here a lot longer.

Thank you so much for all your good work.

It's very appreciated.

So, Bruce is our foreman at Fleet, and anybody who's been to Fleet and goes there, sure, quite often.

Um, something like that.

But Bruce is the first guy that you run into, and he's the one that's gonna check you out.

He's one of our ASC certified master technicians.

He we they made a change in front here a little while ago to where he's gonna check you out.

And if you got minor issues, he's gonna take care of it, get you back on the road rather than disrupting the work of their other mechanics.

So that's kind of how things have been flowing.

It's been going real well.

Um, Mike's always Mike.

Bruce.

Yeah.

Bruce is always always flexible, um, especially recently due to all the illness we're having and people having time off.

Bruce has come in on his own time to keep things going because even though people are out sick, got time off and whatnot, people are still playing adult bumper cars and needing service and things break and just needing service all the time.

That the shop never shuts down, no matter how full or least amount of staff they got.

These guys are in it every day, every night with us during snowstorms, uh, natural disasters.

We can always rely on these guys.

Thanks, Bruce.

Thank you so much again.

Stay up in your how about is there a family, friends, co-workers, and others that want to jump in the picture?

Because you know, we like those full pictures of celebration.

Come on up and jump in the picture and celebrate with them.

Yeah, there's more.

Oh, there she goes with the flowers.

There's Max.

Yes, can you believe that?

Oh, you know, supervision.

I'm gonna come down this away.

Okay.

We're looking that direction.

And thanks to all the families too for supporting this staff.

Yeah, hooray.

Look at that.

So let that thank you.

I think uh I'll let this clear for just a moment and then we'll move on to our next agenda item.

Um I think you're gonna lead this one.

Okay, let's talk about this.

Start off the chief officers up here with me.

And our city manager.

Thank you, sir.

All right, good to go.

All right.

All right.

So this morning, uh very proud to present um two awards to two of our firefighter paramedics.

Um this morning they're going to receive uh the medal of bravery.

And so the medal of bravery is an internal award that the fire department issues out to its members, and it goes through an actual awards committee.

That's all internal.

It's uh nominated by their peers.

Uh the medal of bravery is an award.

It's our second highest award.

And it's an award that we give out uh when a firefighter knowingly puts themselves in danger in order to save a life.

And so that's uh what we're gonna be recognizing this morning.

Um, I'm actually gonna read the nomination because I think it's really good and it it paints the picture.

So this was uh written by um a captain that was on an incident, and uh and uh he submitted these firefighters.

So on the night of August 16th, A Shift was responding to reports of a working structure fire.

Eric Hopper, firefighter on engine 51, heard the dispatch state that one person was unaccounted for, and the RP was on scene, unable to get him.

Hopper took the information, put his mask on while en route, prepared for a possible search and rescue scenario.

Engine 51 was the first to arrive on scene and was met with a fully involved garage fire with extension into the living quarters.

As we made our way to the A-side entry, we found the front door open, and it was emitting heavy black smoke.

Fire was spreading to the kitchen nearby and had already vented from a skylight in the roof.

Hopper put his face to the floor trying to get a visual on somebody nearby, but the visibility was too poor to see me think.

At that time, truck 50 arrived on scene and it came to a stop.

Houston Bernston quickly exited the firefighter seat.

Just like Hopper, he masked up and was ready to work thanks to the information relayed from dispatch.

Houston and Hopper married up at the front door, and I gave them the go-ahead to make entry and begin search ahead of the hose line.

Twenty feet inside the structure, they located a down victim in the hallway.

Working together as a team, they successfully removed the victim to safety where medical care was rendered.

From the initial on-screen to victim removal was one minute and twenty two seconds, which is very impressive, very impressive.

In recognition of their courage and quick actions, I would like to nominate firefighter paramedic Eric Hopper and Firefighter Paramedic Houston Bernston for the Medal of Bravery.

Their actions on a well-involved fire set the tone and showed what the fire department is capable of when faced with adversity.

They were well prepared for the moment and rose to the occasion to meet the needs of the public.

Their decipher decisive actions gave the victim the best chance of survival.

And so what's very important about that is that they made the choice to go in in front of the hose line.

You know, it's like firefighters.

Yeah, we we train and we put ourselves at risk.

That's part of the job.

But there are those instances where they have to rise above the normal normal operating procedures and uh go above and beyond to save a life.

And that's what we're uh recognizing here today.

So um to start off with, we'll have firefighter paramedic Eric Hopper come up.

Congratulations, Eric.

Next.

He's new, it's okay.

Yeah, probably.

There was a reason we selected him.

Uh now back up to the stage, firefighter paramedic Houston Burnson.

It's been a while since I've done this.

Uh Chief.

There we go.

Second movie.

Well done.

Thanks, sir.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Thank you and congratulations to you guys.

Appreciate it.

We need lots of blue in here.

Oh, yeah, and the fancy.

Can we start reading all these notes back here?

How are you?

We're gonna sing you.

Yes.

Okay.

We'll let people clear for just a moment and then we'll come back on to the agenda.

Okay.

We're now gonna move on to agenda item seven C.

This is a discussion only in a presentation by Mr.

J.

How many years for you?

Uh almost 28.

Twenty-eight?

Yes.

Oh, you I'm telling you the subconservancy, they needed to drag, yeah, drag a few more years.

But also, I'm assuming you'll introduce your replacement.

So uh Mr.

James, the floor is yours.

I'm great.

For the record, Ed James with the Carson Waters Subconservancy, my uh last day here.

Um it's been a real pleasure.

I just want to say the years I've worked here to meet everyone, and uh you can ask for a funer job.

I mean, there is so much to be done, and it's been a real enjoyment.

Um it's not a day of work when you're actually enjoying what you're doing.

I want to introduce Reed Cousins.

He's taking my spot.

He'll be, I think this is your third week or second week.

Third, yeah.

Third week, so he's just starting for the 28 years coming up behind.

But uh Reed Cousin has a wealth of background, knowledge, and he's gonna do a great job and just an interesting side note.

His first job in the water resource field was working for CWSD as an intern.

We brought him on to help with the Department of Water Resources, and he went over there to help with some stuff that we were trying to gather and information, and he got hooked and stuck with it, and is really done and has grown in the position.

So you'll see a lot from him, and you'll be great.

Um he's gonna be an asset to this whole watershed, so thank you.

So, with this, I want to give you a kind of an update of a report that we've just been finalizing.

It's called the 30 year drought and water sustainability plan.

This was a grant that we received from emergency management to look at where are we with the water supply for drought supply and also sustainability as we move forward in this watershed.

So, overall, we're going to talk about the regional water system and sustainability summary, some historic flows in the Carson River, groundwater pumping, runoff changes, the USGS model that is currently being worked on, talk a little bit about wet and dry years, the Alpine Decree, conjunctive management, and then potential mitigation strategies and some key takeaway points.

So the project ban in 2023, it was funded with emergency management.

Um CWC hired Loomis and Associate to do an analysis of the nine major water purveyors upstream of Lahontan.

And the focus was really mostly up above Lahontan of flows going in, and I'll talk a little more why we focused on that with a partnership of the USGS.

They had developed an upper and middle Carson model, and we wanted to update those with more information as we can move forward to see what the impacts would be for the next 30 years as groundwater and growth occurs.

What I wanted to talk a little bit more is that this report is more of a reference material.

It's not a water master plan.

It really is just to provide an overall picture of what's going on in the watershed itself today.

Conjunctive management is something that is new to the state.

Um it was in 2017 that the Nevada legislature allowed the state engineer to start looking at conjunctive management.

So before that, we had surface water law, and then we had groundwater law.

And really the two were managed separately by the state, but we know they're interlocking when you look at water supply.

But they were always managing those two separately as they move forward.

And over the years, the state has allowed a lot of groundwater development, and those groundwater developments are being pumping more and more and impacting surface flows.

On the Humboldt, it got to the point where the lower watershed, which are in Lovelock farmers who had surface water rights, were no longer getting their water because there was so much groundwater pumping upstream that was actually drying up the river.

And so those farmers were in a need of it, and they were actually suing the state and also the other farmers upstream.

And the state has been working on that, trying to resolve that.

Well, the this concern came down to Churchill County because they're in the same situation, they say.

We're at the bottom of the watershed, we got a lot of development going upstream.

What is happening to us?

What is the impact and is it going to have an impact on us?

And of course, we, CWSD, we work with all the entities.

We wanted to make sure and look at where the water pitcher is so we can avoid litigation and working and try to resolve the issues before they become a problem.

So a little background, there were nine water purveyors, and what Loomis found out is that each of the nine water purveyors had adequate water supply or water, water rights and water quality and quantity to meet their future growth for the next 30 years.

Minden and Gardnerville ranchos will probably exceed their well capacity, and we'll have to put some new wells in the future.

I will point out, and uh Supervisor Horton knows this that this is not talk about system constraints.

So as you start moving water, even though you may have well capacity, it may not be in the right spot.

You're gonna have to move things around, you may have to put other wells in.

That's a water master plan that you're gonna have to work on.

This was really just looking at the overall picture as a broad brush perspective.

But basically, it looked like the water purveyors had the water rights needed.

Um the Silver Spring Mutual Water Company and Stagecoach, GRD, are projected to have adequate water capacity and water rights to meet their limited growth.

Well, what's really gonna limit them is water supply itself.

Um they are in kind of an enclosed basin, and there's only so much water available to that area, and so those are the one entities that if they're gonna grow more in the future, they're gonna have to find an outside source to come to their area to enhance water development and growth.

So this graph here, this was out of a 2023 study that the USGS published on the original Middle Carson River.

And I will tell you that when they presented this, these two graphs is what got Churchill County up in arms.

Because they looked at this and they saw that this was a at the Carson City gauge, the water year mean daily mean daily flow is coming here, and you could see the line that the water levels are dropping off.

And so Churchill County interpreted this as that this was an impact that all this development upstream of Lahontan and the Carson Gauge in Carson Valley was impacting their water supply.

And they were quite concerned about this.

If you look at the Fort Churchill, you'll see it was also dropping off, but then kind of levels out.

And that's because Carson City and Lyon County had a lot of irrigation that is no longer there, and so that water is not being diverted, and so that kind of flattened the curve out.

When I saw this, I thought, well, wait a minute.

The amount of water going down is greater than what's being pumped upstream.

So there had to be something else with this study.

And so we talked with the USGS about how they gathered information, and we asked them if they had looked upstream coming into Carson Valley of what the impacts are.

They had not, but they did give one of our staff calculations of how to do it.

And so we did the same analysis and see what happened on the West Fork and on the East Fork.

And you can see by this dark line that there was also a drop in flows.

So what we're seeing is not only are we having some impacts due to groundwater pumping and others, but Mother Nature is also impacting her overall because basically upstream of the Woodford Gauge and the Gardnerville gauge, there's very little development, very little storage or anything else.

So this really does show you what Mother Nature is providing.

And we are seeing an impact as we go through.

This was also collaborated with some other studies we did, so we did see these trends.

Sorry.

Can you just for um the public the little dots?

Can you just tell everyone what they're seeing?

Sure.

So what this shows is on the uh Y axis is discharge and CFS.

So this what they did was they took the year and they took the daily, the mean daily flows in that given year.

And so then that puts the dots there.

You could have done total acre feed or something.

This is just one way of just um providing the data sets.

But this just says on the average, like in 1940, there was about 110 CFS that flowed that year round the mean average coming down the river.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes.

So one of the things is we also looked at flows.

This is at the Carson City gauge, and you can see the upper, I'm talking to the upper left graph.

And what they did was from 1940 to 2018.

And they kind of then put a line halfway through.

And you can see that the flows in the Carson have always fluctuated in the year before 1979, you had wet years, you had dry years.

This is something that you always had to deal with.

And since we have limited upstream storage, this is what we have to plan for, and this is where the Alpine Decree came in, how to allocate flows.

But note after in 1980, we have a lot more extremes.

The magnitudes have changed.

We have a lot higher flows and lower lows in a sense.

And that is something that is dealing with that Mother Nature is providing.

This is basically what's coming into our system.

And so, as we plan, how does that meet our demands?

Now, most water purveyors do not use surface water.

Um, Carson City is one of the few that does, but most of the water purveyors do not.

So this really is impacting our ag communities.

And so as we go forward, how is agriculture going to be dealing with these changes in flows is something we're dealing with.

The other question that came up, and this is if you look at the lower graphs, the East Fork, this was on the Gardnerville, DRI did the study for us, Dr.

Lux.

And what she did was she took the data set again from 1940 to 2009 and split them in half.

And she took what the fraction of the flows were in each given and the average of each month.

So this is not a hydrograph.

This is just taking the flows and saying how much was on the average in October in that one period and compared to the other period and move forward.

And you'll notice that in March, we have a change there that we are seeing a lot more water coming off today in from 75 to 2009 than we did historically.

And then if you look at June, we're seeing the reverse, that there is less water now available than there was historically.

We are seeing a shift in runoff patterns.

And so more water is coming off sooner, and this is already occurring.

This is not climate change or anything else.

This is what Mother Nature is giving us today.

So there is already activities in those watershed and climate that's causing this to run off quicker.

Now, the impact again is most agriculture users start in April.

But if that water is already shifting up earlier and coming off sooner, they can't utilize that water.

So it does go down to La Houghton, which helps off the farmers down there, but it's going to make it drier.

So late in the summer, you're going to see less flows available.

This is something that the farmers are going to have to start dealing with.

Are we going to see more groundwater pumping in late summer because they no longer have surface flows?

This is the overall picture that we're trying to look at too.

So again, just reference material for what's happening.

But the water purveyors, we met with every one of those and said, okay, what is your projection of growth as you see in the future?

We're not talking about personnel growth, we're talking about water demand growth.

And so they're a little different on that because historically, if you look at what even in Carson City, what you used 20 years ago, you're using less water today than you were 20 years ago because of water conservation and other things and that.

But there's still, as you grow, you're going to use more water.

And so we wanted to get a good handle on it.

Some of the earlier studies we were involved with, people used to say, well, figure 3% growth for 20 years.

Well, the problem is 3%, compound interest, it gets really high, so after you get out 20 years, it doesn't make sense.

And so we really wanted to have a more practical approach of what kind of growth do we really see.

And you can see as we go through the different counties, mostly in Douglas County looked at 0.54%.

Indian Hills see themselves growing, but then eventually they're landlocked, so they're not going to be growing that much more in the future.

And the same with Carson City.

Carson City, you can through, you see a little more growth, but near the end, it's not going to be growing as much just because of your geography of the area.

Lyon County is we expect to see the largest amount of growth.

They have a lot of land, and you do expect to see quite a bit of growth.

Stagecoats and Silver Springs, they have a growth there, but again, they're starting off at pretty small.

So even though you see 0.43%, that's only about 50 connections in the future for Silver Springs.

So if they really want to grow beyond that, they're going to have to bring another water supply in to go beyond that initial 50 some growth units.

So let's talk a little bit about groundwater pumping and the different groundwater basins.

So this here is the top left is Carson Valley groundwater.

This is in Douglas County mostly.

And you can see that over the years from 1987 to present, we are seeing more groundwater being pumped.

That increase is due mostly to municipalities.

You've seen a lot of growth out there.

I've already said that municipalities are using less water today than they were historically.

The one thing you have to remember with the groundwater pumping in Carson Valley is now Carson City is taking almost 3,000 acre feet a year.

So if you didn't have that 3,000 acre feet coming to Carson City, you'd actually see a reduction or slowdown in water use in Carson Valley.

The biggest thing that impacts Carson Valley is ag production.

They have a lot of wells out there.

They have what they call supplemental wells.

So when the river goes dry, they can turn on their wells.

So in dry years, you'll see pumping going up significantly, and then in wet years you'll see less.

And so that's why you see with the total line at which it's the top, a lot of flexibility or functions going through this because of the amount of water being pumped by agriculture.

But municipalities do see some growth going on, but not as significant as people thought.

When you get in Eagle Valley, which is Carson City's basin here, the driving force is the municipality.

That uh blue line is what the municipal uses, and just you can see the purple line above it, there are some other other uses, some irrigation, some domestic wells, but really it's driven by the municipality.

What's going to be interesting is when you get into next year when the quill plant comes on, you expect to see less water being pumped.

Um you also saw from the early 2000s to you know 2015-17, there's a reduction.

Again, conservation has changed.

Um it's kind of interesting is a little bump up you see in 2021 due to COVID.

Um people were staying home, and when they were staying home, they were using more water.

It's kind of interesting on that.

But uh we are now seeing that trend changing, and then once the quill plant comes on, we will see less water being pumped from Eagle Valley.

Uh Dayton Valley, um, it's really kind of again a fluction.

Um, you see that the domestic is a fairly large user.

They're just under 2,000 acre feet.

The municipality is the light blue line, and the purple is irrigation.

And so, again, the total pumping in the Dayton Valley area is really a function of agriculture.

We need the peaks, but you do see a kind of a trend going down.

We have less agriculture out there, so they're not pumping as much.

And the municipalities are using again less water because of conservation.

Then we get into Turchill Valley groundwater basin.

This is where the Silver Springs is located.

Um, you'll notice the green line there.

That green line is domestic wells.

The biggest user in that valley is domestic wells, it's not the municipalities.

They have over 1,600 domestic wells in that area.

Um state engineer, these this data came from the state engineer.

They assume one acre foot per dwelling unit.

The reality, if you go out, there's probably less than a half an acre foot.

So even though it's looking, you know, it's going up, it's probably going down.

The one thing about Carson Valley is the perennial yield, the amount of water you can take out year after year safely, is 1,600.

So if you look at the blue line, you're already at 2500.

So there's a concern there.

But again, the biggest user being domestic, if you don't have 16, it's actually 800.

You're probably within range of the perennial yield in Churchill Valley.

But the municipality out there owns over 4,500 acre feet of water rights.

But as I've gone out there several times to let them know, you may have a lot of water rights, but it's paper water, not wet water.

And so that's really what's going to limit the growth out there.

Runoff changes.

So one of the things we wanted to see is what is happening to the runoff as it's going through the various watershed and different gauges.

And so we looked at the East Fork at Gardnerville, the West Fork, the Carson City Gauge, and the Fort Churchill.

And we did look at trends analysis from basically 1960.

And what I did was I took a 20-year moving average.

And the reason is because if I didn't do that, you'd have numbers all over the place because every year is so different.

So you're trying to smooth it out.

But even smoothing it out, you can see that we had a very wet period in the 80s and early 90s to early 2000s.

So Mother Nature really does fluctuate, and there are wet long periods and there are drier periods.

And we are actually currently going through a drier period.

But you can see the trends there.

The one thing though is this one is probably an easier one to read because this one really kind of shows you what the trends look like for the different gauges.

And if you look at the East Fork, October through March, and the reason I broke these down is October through March is the non-irrigation season.

So basically the farmers are not allowed to take water.

This water goes to Lahontan.

This is the call really on this on the system is the Newlands project.

April through June, typically you have the irrigation has started, but there's usually enough water in the system that there's no long that they can meet the farmers' needs, and there's still water going into the Newlands project.

But then when you get into July and September, the flows have dropped, the river's on regulations, and basically the hunting is not entitled to water, it's the farmers upstream.

And so that's how we broke this in.

You can see that in October and March, the East Fork, we're seeing a slight increase of flows.

The West Fork had a slight decrease.

Carson City Gauge, we saw a slight decrease, and Fort Churchill saw a slight increase.

April through June, we saw a decrease in flows at the East Fork, West Fork, and Carson City, but we saw a slight increase at the Fort Churchill.

And then in July, we're seeing a decrease at the east, west, and Carson, but a slight increase moving forward.

Now it was pointed out that these are trend lines.

Do they really statistically mean anything?

So we did look at a statistical and what we calculated what we call the P value.

And this is the probability that your data set is not impacted by when you started and all that.

There's actually a probability that this is actually an indicator of what's going on.

Of all the different trends we saw, only three of them came out that had a P value less than 0.05, which statistically is what you're looking for.

And this showed that on the upper left is the East Fork.

We are sawing a decrease, probability coming through basically July Suit September.

The West Fork was on the left.

We're also seeing a statistically decrease on the West Fork.

What's interesting is we're seeing an increase on the Edford Churchill gauge.

And again, a lot of this is that there is so much less agriculture going on at Carson City and at Lyon County that those are so they're no longer diverting those waters, and those are trends are seeing increase going through.

So what we were trying to do with the USGS is looking at okay, where is the trends coming through?

Because as we look at growth, and we're seeing more groundwater pump in the future, what's the impact to the flows to the to Lahontan and the concerns downstream?

So the USGS was taking some of the early middle Carson model and the upper one and looking at those and running this data set in here.

Unfortunately, due to the government shutdown and other things, the data sets, they were not able to complete this.

They gave us some preliminary data, but they realized there's a lot more work.

You can actually see at the Carson Valley pumping data.

There's an error in the source data.

We got that fixed.

And then when you go over to the middle, what's kind of interesting is you're like the blue line is steady state when nothing else increased.

This is how much water would be pumped.

And you can see that the brown line, you can see it going up and then drops down below the blue line.

That's when the quill plant comes on.

There's enough potential water being used by the quill plant, the offset what's pumping at Carson City, that also for the overall, because this is middle Carson is Carson and Lyon County, that it actually shows that decreasing, and it's kind of interesting.

The data set shows that by the time you get to 2050, you're the same as you be across.

So the quill plant does have a huge impact on the overall water picture of the area.

This was some of the model runs.

They were trying to see how much impact do those flows coming through.

Again, there's some glitches in the model.

I actually pointed out too that the early years, the amount of impact is greater than what's being pumped.

So again, there's some errors, and we're working with the USGS to make sure that the modeling effort is going to be up to date and really provide some good documentation.

I feel that by the time they're done with this, it will be a good indicator of what's happening.

It's not going to tell you what's happening at your individual wells, but give you a general trend of what is the impact we might see downstream to our downstream users.

The good news is we're not seeing a huge impact down there.

So as we move forward, we're making sure we're not as situation like they are in the Humboldt.

They're going to have to find 30 to 40,000 acre feet to mitigate the impacts from upstream users.

So we're not there yet, and if we are planning correctly, we will never get there.

Just walking about the wet and dry years, one of the things we looked at, what is the impact of droughts and everything else?

And the more we looked into, we realized the Alpine Decree is really a good decree for allocating surface flows.

It really does a good job of wet, dry, average.

It was based on over 50 years of litigation, but based on also the historic practices.

And so it had wet and dry years.

Now we know that the impact in dry years and extreme will be on irrigation irrigation users, which could cause more groundwater pumping, and that's something that we'll have to evaluate in the future.

All the major water purveyors currently meet their water demands, even in dry years, because most of them aren't taking groundwater rights, but even Carson City has enough surface water rights to be able to utilize their induction well year-round through the irrigation period and then the water they were able to purchase from CWSD in the winter time.

Places that may see some shortages, water shortages, we do see those.

The Johnson Lane and Ruinstroth, basically in the pine nut areas.

They're recharge, not from the river, it's from the pine nuts.

And so there's a potential impact that they're going to have to look at.

And that's something that Douglas County is going to have to evaluate in the future.

Some additional work.

Those are some additional studies that are going to have to be done in the future.

So again, with conjunctive use management, it came out in 2017.

State engineers looking at it.

So what they're doing today on the Carson, because of the data we looked at and all that, they don't see a need to go back and say, okay, every we're going to go back to day one with groundwater started and move forward to try to figure out what the impact is.

What they're saying is we don't see a huge impact today.

So what we're doing is every time someone comes in with a new water right application, they're going to evaluate it to see what the impacts will be on the surface flows.

So as you move forward, you're going to have to look at that.

This is currently not considered in a lot of water management plans.

So as they move forward, every water purveyor, as they look at new wells and locations and water, they're going to have to consider this impact as they move forward on that.

It's already happened in Carson City.

You have a well at uh Fuji Park.

Uh Carson City wanted to move some groundwater rights to that well.

The state says we're not going to let you do it because of the impact to the river.

And the but Carson actually said, hey, we have some water rights in Clear Creek.

We'll mitigate those pumping, and they did.

They offset those, and you were able to move forward with that.

So it's already happening today, especially being monitored.

But already there's solutions that are occurring that's actually meet those needs.

So one of the things that we looked at is what is potential mitigation in the future.

We have the three periods I looked at, non-irrigation seasons.

So again, any water going in the river is actually going to La Hontan.

So if you're in impacting that, you're going to have to mitigate those impacts in the future.

We could release water from the upper reservoirs.

There's not much water, but we're not talking about a lot of water either.

The overall flow in the Carson is over 280,000 acre feet.

We're talking maybe growth of a thousand acre feet.

So they're manageable numbers, and that's the thing as we look into.

Also, with the use of reclaimed water, that can be also mitigation.

Early irrigation season, you have most entities also own surface water rights.

They've acquired those over the years.

They could use those as a mitigation.

Again, reclaim water or even purchasing other surface water rights.

And then the late irrigation season again, you could look at mitigating your impacts, looking at water pumping, changing where you pump water from, and also surface dedication.

A lot of this is going to have to be coordinated with the Federal Watermaster and the Department of Water Resources, because they're ultimately going to have to decide that.

Key takeaway points.

Uh regional water system sustainability, entities are looking in pretty good shape.

Everyone has a little constraints, but they're all working on those.

Um if there's going to be growth in the Silver Springs area, a new water source will have to be brought forward into that area.

The flows on the river are changing, and that's something we have to adapt to as we move forward.

Groundwater pumping has increased, but not as much as people thought.

There's gonna be an impact, but we're already managing those.

Conjunctive management is a wave of the future, and so you have to be prepared for that.

And then if we have wet dry years, water is already allocated through the Alpine Decree.

So that's an overview.

Uh, we appreciate your time, and just hopefully, as a documentation, you can as you move forward, as you guys develop your water resource management plan, it's something again to add into your analysis.

So thank you.

So, Ed, I I just have a general question.

Is there anything that you think that Carson City should be doing to um ensure we continue to have water for the next 20 or 30 years to meet our needs?

Is there anything you recognize or think that this board, because we already are doing the quill water treatment plant.

I think we took that big leap to to protect water.

Is there anything else that you see that we're not addressing that we should be putting on our strategic plan or our goals for the next few years?

If you asked me that question 28 years ago, I would say yes, but you've been already following those plans.

Um your staff has done a great job of preparing for the future with the upgrade to the quill plant and other plans you've been doing and with water conservation.

You really are ahead of the curve.

You actually have your infrastructure there.

Um there's gonna be some issues, some small things you're gonna have to work on, but the overall plan, you're in a much better situation than some of your neighbors, but we're better off in the whole as a watershed than some of our other watersheds in the neighbors, too.

So I say that um your staff is already dealing with it, and your planning process has done a really good job uh meeting the demands of the future.

So you're good.

I really appreciate that.

It's it's important that the public understands too, because often everyone's always asking me, why are you approving projects?

We need water, we need water.

But I think it was interesting also they say, why are you conserving?

If you have all the water rights, mayor, why do we conserve?

And and I think it's um interesting to see in all of your slides and things that the objective is to have water for the next 30 to 50 years, right?

And so often I I joke with this board or the public that we really do in Carson City plan and then execute the plan, and it takes all those facets, which includes conservation of water, so it's to allow us the ability to be sustainable.

So thank you for the charts and the information, and hopefully it will help the public, maybe just a teensy bit.

Water's a little more complex than my my simple statement here, but it will help.

Well, I think the important to realize is that you have the water resources, but we live in a desert, and you don't want to waste it.

Right.

And I think that's the key is being water-wise, it's just fiscally responsible because if you have to less water the tree, a move around, because moving water is very expensive, and that's the way you're keeping your cost down.

But it's also we live in the desert, and we should always remember that.

Thank you.

Supervisor White.

Thank you.

Uh first of all, a big thank you to Ed for uh keeping track of what's going on with our water resources and and you know, keeping us as a community uh in line with what we need to do.

Um springboarding off of the the mayor's comments.

We do get those inquiries from constituents that uh are concerned about water.

Water should always be a concern, but I would encourage our constituents to read this report.

Um it's not as dry and dead as most government reports uh that we receive.

Um and it points out most specifically on pages 32, page 44, 46, and 51, the steps that Carson City has taken uh to put us in a good position on water.

And um that's that's really what I had to say today.

Just I'm encouraging our constituents to read this report and inform yourself.

And thank you, Ed.

Yes.

Appreciate your work.

Supervisor Horton.

Ed, I wanted to take a minute and thank you so much for everything that you've done for the region, not just our community, but for all.

I know you put your heart and soul into this organization, and you've done an excellent job.

And I I couldn't explain all the things that you've done.

You and I both been through the mill a little bit on it.

Um, but man, thank you so much for all that you've done.

I I don't think people realize the effort that you put into this and the benefits that we've reaped from this organization.

So thank you again.

Thank you.

And I hope you enjoy your retirement.

I know you will looking forward to it.

Starting at 5 01 p.m.

or do you get to get out at noon?

We'll see if this guy's nice to me or not.

One time only.

Did you want to add anything to this?

Well, thank you, Reed Kesans for the record here.

Thank you, uh, Mayor Bagwell.

Just really pleasure to be here.

I look forward to getting to know all of you better uh through this process.

And like Ed said, you know, I think Carson City has positioned themselves quite well.

Um, you know, water is the key is really just management and and monitoring.

That's that's about all we can do because we don't actually uh have a say in how much water comes down year after year.

So uh good job.

And uh, you know, I'm really here filling some pretty big shoes.

So um if I call you with some questions, I hope you have some have some grace for me.

Thank you.

I just think it's amazing to explain to people how long it takes to effectuate a plan, right?

And so it's like darn, it's not an instant gratification.

And so, wow, we're gonna put millions and millions into the quill water treatment plant.

And my goodness, how many years it takes to get that accomplished, and then to finally recognize, but that's to secure our water for 30 years or 40 years.

And so I'm really anxious for quill to be completed and come online.

And so thank you for even showing the slides and and trying to let the public understand that that decision we made years ago.

Here's what it will impact in future years.

So thank you for that.

Um, Supervisor Shouti.

Ed, it has just been a real pleasure working with you, a privilege.

I've learned so much uh serving on CWSD board, and I appreciate not only your knowledge, but your ability to bring the many different perspectives and positions together and um just facilitate some wonderful discussions.

So kudos to you and read, welcome.

Um your interview was amazing.

You have such a knowledge base.

Um, yes, big shoes to fill.

Uh, I see you filling them.

And um, we just uh are looking forward to working with you.

Um, and so I'm happy retirement.

Okay.

Supervisor Giomi.

Uh best for last, maybe, huh?

Ed, I don't know about that.

But I, you know, I I will say that I the the value in the Carson Water Subconservancy District is the level of cooperation that occurs uh among the counties.

Uh, we're talking about an organization that uh involves six counties um and two states.

Um it's the lesser known uh coordinating agency to the to the TRPA, really.

Uh I mean everyone has heard about TRPA and very few people um have heard about CWSD if you're not in the district.

Um and and the you know that the it hasn't always been um you know uh sunshine and butterflies.

I know you've been through that, and I think that to me is the biggest credit um to you personally is to bring those counties together in a cooperative way so that we're working together for the betterment of not our community alone, but for the watershed.

Um and that's really what CWSD is about.

And I know you give credit to the people who have served over the years, but it takes a leader to push those people in the right direction, and that's what you did.

So thank you for that.

Um read, uh you do have big shoes to fill.

I think you're already just you know a shoe size below Ed.

It won't take you any time to get there.

I have all the confidence um that you'll be there in in due due time.

So again, thank you so very much for sharing this information with us in the public.

Thank you.

I'll get to work.

Yeah.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

Boy, they just making you work right down to the last minute, huh?

Getting our money's worth.

Thank you, Ed.

Okay, we are gonna move on to our consent agenda.

I didn't have any requests for any items to be discussed.

So, Supervisor Geomi, a motion, please.

Uh move to approve the consent agenda consisting of item 8A, 9, a 10A, 10B, 10C, and 11A, all as presented.

I have a motion and a second for approval.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

Let the record reflect it was unanimous.

Thank you so much.

We're now on to agenda item 13A.

This is another uh discussion only and presentation, our annual report from our emergency uh manager.

Uh John, take us through this, please.

Hi, good morning.

John Back at all for the record, emergency manager for Carson City.

So I want to thank you, Mayor and the board for the opportunity to do this.

This is the first presentation to you on this type of effort.

I created a report after the first full year on the job, and it went up through the chain.

I'm not sure if you got an opportunity to see it or not.

Uh, we reflected this year, it's more of a 16 month period to put it on an annual basis.

So you have the full report in front of you, but wanted to cover a few important things from you.

When I came on board, the primary focus was to get compliant and make sure we were meeting all the intent of federal and state requirements, but also whatever the board and my boss wanted to be done in the community.

So PTE is planning training and exercise, a big focus on that from the board, our elected and appointed officials, as well as our departments, and then from there, the community to make sure they're prepared in their own efforts.

So a lot of workshops, a lot of workshops, not just fire season, but working with the community on floods and helping each individual have their own self-preparedness, should they be impacted.

We do this through PoEDI in emergency management.

It's called planning organization equipment training and exercise.

It's how we apply for grants, and it's how we have to reflect to the state and federal government on the efforts we've done in our jurisdictions.

So we've got lots of different grant opportunities that have been awarded from emergency management performance grant, the Homeland Security Grant Program, and then some mitigation grants.

But we've all watched TV and we're aware that these grants could be going away.

So making good use of our money, especially why we can get it now from the federal level, but also investing through our own organization.

We've had a few EOC activations.

The Seahill Fire was the most recent one, followed immediately by a planned event, Nevada Day, which has been very successful coordination with the Sheriff's Office and the other response organizations in the community.

Planning is a huge part.

If we have good plans in process, that's great.

But it's the planning process that really helps us out.

Our hazard mitigation plan was just submitted to the state a couple weeks ago, and a couple of the board members, both Supervisor White and Supervisor Shuty participated in that process.

So thank you for that.

The animal emergency response plan was brand new to this community, and it came about from helping Washoe County with the Davis fire.

We're pretty good at the day-to-day household animals, our pets, but when the livestock and the large animals have to be transported and managed, it's a different effort.

And then uh the mass casualty plan that we worked on community-wide is also completed.

Lots of training with ICS and position specific classes, but also the community training.

We had a great exercise that some of the board participated in with most of the directors, the integrated emergency management course, IEMC.

That was four days at the fandango, supported that with four counties and the tribe to help get us all engaged.

And we did an earthquake scenario to help us all be better prepared.

The community engagement.

This is the best part of the job.

So I'm not always in my office because I'm in other departments.

I'm in the households of people in our community doing small forums in Lakeview to the single ladies of Comstock Trailer Park, meeting with them on Mother's Day to talk about their self-preparedness in their community.

It's the fun part of the job.

So I like to tell people I get to do this, and it's a great opportunity.

So Alert Carson is a new platform that was created about a year and a half ago.

Public Works is a huge user of it to notify the public of the water changes.

We just had a water presentation.

So for flushing wells or doing irrigation projects, they're made aware.

But Health and Human Services used it to notify the public of the mosquito abatement projects that they were doing so they could be prepared.

FIRED uses it all the time for the wildlife suppression activities if we have a big event for wildfire, but also their mitigation efforts up in the hills around us.

And then using it for event notification like Nevada Day has been a big success.

Individual preparedness is the big focus.

So if FEMA has big impacts to where they go away or there's drastic changes, things are gonna fall to the state, and then from there to the local government.

And the state does not have the type of resources that local governments have.

So when we look at this, we want to make sure everybody has insurance.

They have a plan, they have their go bag, and then they exercise their plan.

So we've made this super simple for all these workshops that we do.

So the community is aware.

Most of us go away for a weekend, they plan a bag and take it with them.

It's that same type of effort that need to be prepared for should they have to evacuate.

That's been the structure that I've utilized as I've gone through our efforts in this community.

So I wanted to thank you, and I hope you get a chance to read the entire report on the effort you've allowed me to push forward in this community to help not only our organization, the county, the city, our residents and our departments to be more prepared.

Any questions?

Does anyone have any questions?

Appreciate that.

I will say that the uh Lisa and I participated in the four-day exercise at the fandango, and and I think it was certainly illuminating to be able to watch something, begin as a simple project, and you know, woo, we kind of did that pretty good.

And then it got more complex, and then it got more complex, and it was like, wow, now it's really complex.

But to, and and maybe it even fits with something that's going on right now.

And I had a few emails from people, but even a snow event, like we've just been experiencing, and that how can people be prepared?

So I don't know if there's something that you can put together for people to say, how are you prepared if you're in your house for three days and can't get out?

I don't know.

I just think that's an event that we're seeing experienced right now, and we can not as a city come and plow out every driveway or every road quickly to get people.

So I just throw that out as a future idea that that if there's something we can do from your perspective to help people have their I hate to say it because I do not like snow shoveling, but what can we do or what should we do?

And if they're stuck in their house, I mean, are are there things that the community should be doing?

Help your neighbor have a neighbor that knows you're in your house.

I don't know.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And that is spot on with the presentations I give for an all-hazard approach.

It doesn't matter what the hazard is, so that they're prepared.

Snowfall in our community is one of those hazards.

And it's called you're the first responder.

And it's to help them understand what they need to do, what they need to have, checking on their neighbors, checking on someone that might have needs that we don't necessarily have, so that they know their neighbor, they can help them as well as themselves because our responders are going to be doing response work to the incident, to the scene from law, fire, and public works.

So are you prepared to manage yourself and your loved ones for the next five to seven days?

Five to seven days.

I love it.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Um, Supervisor Shuty.

Uh, thank you.

I would like to add to that also, not only what are you doing to be prepared, but what are your responsibilities?

I've seen a couple of people in the last, you know, yesterday and this morning, you know, walking in the street because the sidewalk is covered with snow.

And we as a community, we talk a lot about what is community, and we look out for each other.

And as homeowners, as business owners, we have a responsibility to clear those sidewalks to help keep our neighbors safe.

So I would love that to be included as well.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Supervisor Giomi.

I I appreciate that uh John called out that you're the responder program because I I think, you know, in my experience, one of the one of the most consistent comments I've heard about people who have suffered through some kind of a disaster, whether it be a minor disaster or large scale one, I think Kenny and Dan would agree, is the belief that I never expected this to happen to me.

I I don't know how many times I've heard that, and yet we've all seen disaster after disaster that happened to people who are just like everyone sitting in this room.

Um, the the reality is you don't know when something is going to happen to you.

So that program that you have where you're the responder uh really is important because it calls out the fact that you have to be your own advocate and you have to take some responsibility for yourself because what's an emergency today when we're sort of at rest regionally is um probably not gonna be an emergency that you're gonna get a responder at uh if we have an earthquake.

Um, you know, if you've fallen and maybe broken your wrist, you're gonna get an ambulance.

Deputy may show up to help.

Um if there's an earthquake and that happens, you're not gonna get that help.

Um, and I think it's um awareness for people to understand that um yeah, you it can happen to you.

It will happen to you, statistically speaking, at some point in your life or someone you love.

Um, and you need to be ready for it.

So I I really applaud you on that program because I think um it is the most impactful, especially if you can get the message through to the people, and that's the real challenge that I know you face.

Um and uh one more comment.

Uh, you know, we I I've been involved in emergency management in fire response.

Um, and uh quite frankly, the city has had um really um good performance out of the people that sit in your role, and we've had adequate performance, and we've had excellent performance.

And um, a plan and a program is only as good as the person who's leading it and the person who's pushing it forward.

And you're the right person in the right place, and you're doing a great job.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate that.

Great.

Okay.

I don't see any other questions.

So thank you so very much.

Okay, it is um 10 till.

So we're gonna take a recess um because the next item might take a little while.

So we're in recess till just like right around a couple minutes to 10, as fast as everyone can uh use the facilities.

Board of Supervisors back to order.

We're now at agenda item 14A, but I'm also gonna open 15A, since these are both very similar um agenda items, and so it makes sense to open them and take public comment and everything on both items together.

So we're gonna start with the sheriff's presentation, please.

I appreciate it.

Um thank you, Sheriff Furlong, for the record, and I'll just do a slight introduction here.

Um the reason we brought this forward today is exactly as the mayor uh has indicated, that they these things coincide.

And when it comes to that transparency, it's best that the board see all of the these things at one time.

And so I appreciate Mr.

Holland and and the board um taking this opportunity.

Um this is about labor.

This is totally about labor.

This board, um I don't want to use the word struggles, but it is a good word.

How do we make ends meet in this community?

How do we staff our community?

How do we get our roads done today?

Our streets plowed.

How do we get to those emergency services that are required within that limited constraint that government has those funds that are available?

And so we have to look at all of those opportunities and prioritize.

Um over the the past several years, and I emphasize years, we have seen um uh and recognized that public records requests do create a I'm gonna call it a new workload indicator on government services.

Those are challenging and they are increasing.

Um I have uh to my left here um Miss Marquez.

She is the manager of our civil and records division.

I think that a uh, and I'm gonna vacate my spot and bring assistant sheriff Gonzalez up here who oversees those functions.

It is important from a law enforcement perspective, as we discussed the law enforcement side, that um any on any given month, we expect that law enforcement is gonna respond anywhere from 1,200 to 14, 1500 calls for service a month.

Of those, about 40 to 47% of them are gonna require a law enforcement activity or action.

Um all of our activities are going to be processed through our records division, of which there are only two employees at uh serving all of those functions.

So added workloads really mean something to both this board and to uh the services that fire police and public works responds to.

So with that, I will turn it over to um uh Miss Marquez, and she can she can dazzle you from here.

Great.

As less, I like that.

Um I'm Kristen Racquez, I'm the civil and records manager over at the sheriff's office.

Um I know that there's been some questions regarding the change in fees.

Um so we're here to talk about that.

Um when we talk about records, uh records fall into two categories, and we're talking documents and media.

And I think media is the new up and coming thing that we're seeing more and more requests of.

So um documents are police reports, 911 calls and citations, um, and media includes things like body cam, dash cam, traffic cam photos.

Um we've split up the fee schedule into two separate categories, and and we're calling them as far as records requests or routine records requests and and research records requests.

And when we reference these two, we're not talking media, we're not talking video.

Um routine records requests are uh requests that consists of readily available documents that do not have significant or complex redaction concerns, they don't require significant staff time to research, they don't see large amounts of data, and they do not include video records.

So, an example of what a routine request would be is I want all the 911 call logs for every time a C CSO deputy responded to 123A Street between 2023 and 2025.

Those are readily available.

We have those, we can produce them fairly quickly.

Um research requests is where we start to talk about when we're gonna uh fees will be collected for those kinds of requests.

Research requests consists of record requests that have significant or complex redaction concerns, require significant staff time to compile the records, requests for broad categories of records, or any other requests that require significant staff time.

And this is a real example of one of the requests we've received this year that would have qualified for a research request.

It was they wanted every report for every death in Carson City from 2017 until present for anyone that was 70 years or older, and or included a firearm.

Um we don't have the means to run a report that that makes that uh data easily available.

What that means is we're running reports for the entire calendar year and looking for anything that was related to death, and then looking at the age of who the individual involved was, and then reading the narrative to see was there a firearm component.

Um, those are extremely uh time consuming tasks.

And like the sheriff had said previously, I only have two staff that are dedicated to doing that.

Um I've taken on a lot of the workload as well.

Um, but we we have a lot of other functions that were required for us, you know, processing paperwork for the DA, those kinds of things that are our uh priority as well.

So um we started tracking the the public records requests starting in late July um through December 31st, and our office processed over 600 records requests, which is about 200 hours of labor on top of what our already regular duties are.

Um and so of those 600 requests, we kind of try to see what would be a routine request, uh, what would be a um a research request.

And about 80% of the requests that we receive would be uh routine records requests, which would mean that they would be free to the individual requesting them.

Um and then everything over that the research requests, about 20% would be um would fees would be collected for them.

And it's those things that are asking for you know all the deaths.

Another one that took us a long time was they wanted every male incarcerated from like 2015 until present, who was a white male from 19 years of age to 31 years of age and was in jail for you know 180 days or or less or something like that.

Um those those are all the kinds of research requests that we're getting.

That that's not readily available information.

Um records requests, uh, our main concern when we're doing them is the privacy of all individuals involved.

Um we have a lot of uh governing bodies, so you know, Nevada revised statute of the Constitution, those kind of outline what what is redaction and why we do redaction.

So examples of things we redact that are pretty common, personal information, so your date of birth, your social security number, driver's license, addresses, those kinds of things.

Victim information, we're required by law to protect them.

Uh juvenile information, we're required by a lot to protect them, and witness information.

So when we're talking about a piece of paper, it's a little bit more cut and dry.

Uh it's the same format every time we do it.

We know what to look for, but when we start to introduce those video records, that's when things get complicated.

And that's why we've kind of broken those out into their own fee schedule.

Um as standard, a standard report can take us anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to print out, redact, review.

You know, we always have a second set of eyes to review it.

Um however, body camera can take up to four to eight hours to process, one hour of body cam takes about four to eight hours to process.

And that equals about one hour per every 10 minutes of body cam.

Uh and when I speak to our partner agencies, that that's pretty uh standard across the board.

Uh so why does it take four to eight hours to redact body cam?

Fair question.

Uh this is just due to the sheer volume of information that can be contained within a single video.

Uh first, deputies have multiple devices assigned to them.

So for one one hour incident, you can have a one-hour body cam and a one-hour dash cam.

So that's now two hours of footage that we're having to reveal.

Um this means that for uh every instant, there'll be multiple videos.

Uh, body cam redaction requires a frame by frame review and can include things like blurring faces, um blurring screens to include in car camera for the patrol vehicles, uh cell phones, uh, muting audio from traffic, not just the traffic that that's occurring on the video in front of you, but things that are happening across town.

So if somebody across town is getting pulled over and they're running that driver's license number, that's gonna have feedback on the current video you're watching.

Um we also want to make sure that we're muting uh for social securities, date of birth, those kind of things.

Ummuting audio due to the sensitive nature of a conversation.

Uh conversations that are that are taking place.

Um an example of something that we would need to redact is if there's juveniles involved in it.

Um, any kind of a sexual assault things that are being talked about, that that's not something that we openly want to disseminate to the public.

Um, and although we do have the technology and tools to assist us, and and you know, technology has come a long way, uh, human quality control cannot be replaced.

So for all the redaction that we're doing, once we finish it, that four to six hours, we're watching it entirely start to finish.

And and I'm having somebody else do that, or somebody else is having me watch it just to make sure we didn't miss anything, because we understand that once we do put it out there, the internet is forever, and and we don't ever want to release any kind of information that it is uh is considered uh redactable or personal, or uh we want to make sure that we're protecting all individuals involved.

So the fees that we propose, the the fee schedule has been developed based on the labor cost to perform the work.

Um $23 an hour is is the entry level hourly rate without benefits for a sheriff support specialist.

Um and that's a the position I'll be performing these tasks.

Um I've done some research from our partnering agencies, and we are on the lower end of the fees being charged.

Um, Washoe County is at 25.6 cents per working hour, Reno Police Department's at 34 per working hour, and Las Vegas Metro starts at 85 per working hour, and those are for the body cam fees.

Um backlogs for uh neighboring agencies also range.

So some agencies have the staffing to be able to have a dedicated unit.

Um, and those they have six dedicated staff members and and they have a six to nine month backlog.

Other agencies that do not have a dedicated team, we're seeing they have year backlogs of five years.

So if you want to get a copy of your body cam, you're looking at 2031 now.

Um we are trying to prevent that.

We work really hard.

Um, we're obviously not as big as some of our our surrounding um counties, which you know helps us, we don't have as many.

Um, but uh we're really trying to work hard so that we don't have a huge backlog.

Um like I said, with the proposed fee schedule, about 80% of the records or the requests we received for in the last five months would be considered free for routine requests, and the rest would be charged.

Um, I know that there's a few different questions, so if I didn't cover anything, I'm I'm happy to discuss.

Oh, and sorry, lastly, I should have started with this, but I didn't is we had a we had a proposed fee in here for viewing, and we're happy to just strike that entirely.

Um I don't know if anything else needs to be done other than just say that.

What you're specifically talking about.

274 in your packet.

Yeah, it's uh body worn or vehicle camera video fees, review and redaction fee and viewing fee.

It's uh for staff time.

We're happy to strike that.

So the viewing fee.

Yeah, so if you want to come in, yeah, not all not all videos are we can disseminate, but you can always come in and view them.

Um and so we have to assign staff time to do that.

Uh and so uh we're trying to come up with uh a better way that we can view it that's a little bit more efficient for us and efficient for the person watching it.

So you're suggesting removing that?

Yeah, entirely, we'll strike it from the fee schedule.

I'm sorry.

No, wasn't no, that wasn't in the late material.

The material was I didn't see it.

Doesn't mean it wasn't.

Oh do I have late material?

Okay.

So can I start with when did uh body cameras and that really come to be in the Carson City Sheriff's Office?

Because I'm trying to really lay the foundation of the why.

I think that's really important for people to understand that one, we want to provide public records.

So I want to start with the baseline of it's important, it's something.

Uh I think I heard testimony from this morning that someone got up, right?

It's something uh I think I heard testimony from this morning that someone got up right that's a way that people can do a check and a balance on their on their government and I believe in that but I'm interested in how we balance two objectives right how do we provide the public records that people should have but how do I also set the right fee if it's appropriate um to when I have large and onerous projects that come in right that's like oh my goodness this might take 40 hours and then therefore the people are not doing the tasks that they should be doing right and so do we charge on those ones and so I thought is is body cameras really the huge transparency change and people really want to see videos and what so when did that start?

Daniel Gonzalo Assistant Sheriff for the record I believe the law went into effect in 17 and we went to body cameras in 18 and then I believe we went to in car cameras in 22 you were using them before that.

Because I when I was still department you guys were using body cameras um maybe they weren't mandated.

They were not mandated but but you guys had them right I'm not we had specialty units that were assigned body cameras it wasn't out to all of patrol detectives investigations division.

Right.

And and then creating all those public records is that um can you talk to me a little bit about the redaction software and things is that not potentially keeping up so you're forced to do a frame I think I heard you say frame by frame and that you actually watch that body camera the whole time to make sure you've got it redacted.

So is this really and you want the transparency but on the other hand it's giving you a different consequence that you weren't expecting which is now I've got hours and hours of staff time to give a public record.

I want to let Kristen speak of the IA uh the programs of redaction but I think one point to point out here is that this is your if you're a victim you're gonna get your information through discovery with the district attorney's office this is somebody who's not related to your incident and that's why so much redaction is you're not a party of this agreed um Chris Marquez uh they the public records request once a case is closed and adjudicated um people can request whatever they would like um and so we do have technology we do have um axon which is our platform for our body cams and they have a redaction studio tool and uh the tool is very helpful uh but it's not perfect and and sometimes you know technology can be overly helpful when it doesn't need to be and sometimes it it can't process what's going on so a really good example of that is um you can blur things like faces or screens uh but sometimes it can't capture uh it won't blur the whole face or it won't excuse me it won't blur if your reflection in the window you can still see the person's face um a kid drives by on a bike uh it's not always capturing that um so uh it's things like uh driver's licenses it will blur the face of the driver's license but it won't redact out the name and the driver's license number and where they live so although it's very helpful it's not perfect so it's really good at getting us started but once we kind of dive into it we realize oh it missed this it missed that and so again our office's priority is always the privacy of everybody any kind of information that's on that um and again we don't we don't always know where it's going I mean anybody we get requests from research institutes and people wanting body cam for incidents and they live across the country we it's not always necessarily staying in our community and it's not always necessarily being um used by the victim or or the other individuals involved and and so again we we just want to make sure that we're really careful on what kinds of stuff we're releasing especially since it it's gonna go on the internet and and we transmit it through email or or and a download link.

So once it's it's out there it's out there forever.

So I I really want to clarify and make sure that we as a board understand who can obtain records for free.

Because I I think that some people believe this is going to start charging everybody and it's not but I really want to make sure on the record who is obtaining free records.

So as long as long as they're uh there are routine requests, which um those are those are your they don't require a bunch of c compiling of data and that kind of thing, and they're not including videos.

Um the first 10 hours is free.

Uh doesn't matter who you all doesn't matter who you are.

Um and then there's also NRS and um and don't call me on them, I can get them to you specifically.

I can't rattle them off the top of my head.

But things like victims of domestic violence.

They are entitled to a copy of their report.

We get it to them within 10 days and it's free of charge.

There's certain there's certain laws and regulations that require us to provide free reports for victims.

Um and so it we could probably put a list together if if that would make you if we could include it in the fee schedule um that outlines that kind of stuff.

But uh again, routine requests, first 10 hours is free for anybody uh victims of crimes are are kind of a separate um section, and they they most of the time it's free.

So one of the things, and and I just bring that up because what I don't want is a member of the public that should get something for free, because we have to post these in a conspicuous location.

So I'm assuming at the front desk when you walk in or into the record section in the sheriff's office, it'll be posted.

So I don't know if you can have just another sign or something else that doesn't necessarily have to be a part of this policy, but that those that are entitled to those reports can request them and know that those are free because I don't want anyone not to receive a service they're entitled to.

And so potentially that's just a function of a process that you could do to make sure that Madam Mayor, let me jump in real quick.

This is Todd Reese, uh deputy DA.

Now we're talking about these records, these records as being provided as free.

And now I just wanted to clarify what we're really talking about is the is classifying these requests as routine records requests where the first 10 hours of staff time is free.

Now, to the extent that you wanted a record on a flash drive, there would be a small charge for the flash drive.

That's not changing, it's an existing policy.

To the extent that you wanted uh hard copy of the record uh and it was you know met the policy of being more than ten uh ten dollars for the hard copy, uh, there would be that small charge as well.

Um those would still apply, but uh you know, for the majority of uh the time if you're requesting a um police report over the over email or you just want a hard copy of your police report, that's maybe 10 pages, those charges wouldn't apply and the record would be free.

Good.

I I I I just want to I just want it on the record because I don't want anyone to think anyone in this board is interested in stopping people from obtaining records, because I don't think that's what this is about, or pretty sure I all of us want the public to be able to access records, but um I think the the crux of the discussion or concerns from documents that I've read from the public and from public comment that we heard even this morning, the issue is whether or not it's legal that we can collect a fee for this activity, and then a different discussion is whether it's appropriate for us.

That that's two different standards.

But so, Mr.

Reese, whether you uh you're on the hot seat, um, because there seems to be uh two schools of thought here um from public comment received that we can't charge, and then can we?

So can you give us what made you think the answer is yes?

Sure.

Um and Madam Mayor, just at the outset, I I do want to uh uh highlight your your comment that whether you should charge the fee is not a legal matter.

That's entirely up to the board and to the and to the sheriff.

Um but legally can you charge the fee?

Uh I can I I can speak to that.

So I did review um the uh statutes uh NRS chapter 239.

I reviewed the legislative history, I reviewed um other um municipalities fee schedules around the area.

I reviewed um uh the uh AG's manuals and training materials uh recently.

And the law changed in 2019.

Um there was a bill going that went through the legislature uh uh SB uh 278, I believe.

287.

287.

Okay.

To SB 287 that I got it here in front of me.

That uh went through the legislature.

And as part of as part of that, the as part of that, there's a large uh uh discussion about um what fees, what fees should be charged and you know really what language should be a part of the uh public records uh fees provisions.

Um as part of that, um the um extraordinary fees provision, which used to exist uh was eliminated.

Uh uh NRS 239 uh.055 used to provide that um extraordinary fees could be charged in the amount of 50 cents per page.

That was eliminated.

Um now some of the language, some of the language in the uh legislature did suggest that um you know the measure would eliminate the authority of the of an entity to charge additional fee for providing a copy of the public record.

Um when extraordinary use of personnel or resources is required.

However, the uh legislatures did the legislators did explain that.

And they said that they were concerned about the large uh either large requests or um uh time consuming requests.

Uh and they said that where you have those extraordinary or where you have those um uh time consuming requests, you can charge uh the your your actual costs.

And uh the legislators legislators specifically pointed out that it was the not only the actual cost of production, which would be um uh you know the cost of the paper, the cost of the media, the flash drive, but also the cost of the labor to do uh and to do the work requested and to produce the um to produce the records.

Um so with the legislators guidance, uh you know, we do think that it is legal uh for uh the city to charge a hourly fee for staff time for those requests that are um uh extremely time consuming or require uh staff to do research uh into uh you know what's being whether we have the records and you know what uh whether we have the records and then you know also what uh uh records should be produced.

Um I just have two more, and then I see Stacy has some questions.

So um Ms.

Hicks, can you tell us how you ascertained the fee that would be done for the records at $23 an hour?

What mechanism did you utilize to determine that dollar amount?

Thank you, Mayor, for the record.

Stephanie Hicks, deputy city manager.

Um thank you for opening item 15A at the same time as this one.

The city is proposing to also update our public records request fee schedule to be consistent in both methodology and cost with the sheriff's office.

Um as the sheriff's office indicated, the position in their office that typically fills out or completes these records requests is at the A302.

And so to be consistent across our fee schedules citywide, we are proposing to use that same rate um for fees.

In uh large largely, I would say that requests that come um to the other city departments are often filled out and completed by individuals that are higher pay grades than that, but we felt that it was fair to be conservative and and um and have that fee schedule match the sheriff's office.

So that we don't have any danger of charging someone more than the actual cost to produce that record.

I think that's the other piece if I if I recall the legislation, it really aims to say you can charge the actual.

So then my last question, because I don't see it in any of the material, um, is I see it in one direction where it says we will estimate for an individual how much it's gonna cost and collect that money, and then if we're if we overcharged them, we'll refund it.

What I'm interested in, what if the opposite happens?

You start to do the project, you estimate you estimated it was 200.

You get into the project and you go, oh my goodness, this project's a lot more intensive looking up every single death certificate or something to see if there's a gun.

Uh and it's more so I didn't see anything in the policy do you stop and call the individual to ask them if they want to reduce the scope to stay in the 200 we're gonna eat it and say guess what we only refund if we were wrong but we don't get more money.

Well what's what's our policy going to be for that's going to be the same answer in both Kristen Mark has um I think after the quote once you start doing the research it would be pretty apparent right off the bat, oh we bet off more than we can chew this is really gonna after you do probably the first report you're looking at and it takes you an hour and you know there's 20 uh we would probably contact back the the requester and say hey the first one we're looking at 200 reports or 100 reports for simplicity um one took one hour.

We're looking at more like this do you want me to collect you know up to 10 hours of, you know, if it's a routine request that what would be free to you or do you want to us to do up to what you paid for and see if that answered what your question was.

If if that wasn't what they wanted, we would work with them to kind of narrow the scope of what exactly they are looking for.

Because sometimes we receive some pretty broad things that and they're looking for something a little more specific.

So our goal is to always work with the individual requesting the records um and and so uh after we did a little once we started it we would definitely get into contact with them and explain kind of where we're at and what we're thinking it's gonna be I'm gonna guess that's certainly a part of any process anyway when you talk to them about the potential fees that they're gonna be paying is to reduce scope.

Correct yeah to allow them to reduce the scope yeah in their record when they come in in person it makes it a lot easier you know what exactly are you looking for because uh you know we we talk the talk every day right but not everybody not every person in Carson City under understands this we're not always talking apples to apples.

So sometimes just sitting with them and asking what are you looking for what do you need it takes a lot or alleviates a lot of the workload that they think that they want.

So um and if we ever give them something and they need more it's just as simple as hey I was actually looking for ABC instead of XYZ um but when the emails are when we're doing bigger research requests and and they're from you know research institutions and things like that, that's typically when those scopes are bigger and it's a little bit more difficult to get into contact with the original requester.

So thank you.

Good okay.

Supervisor Giomi Okay I have a bunch of notes may not be in any kind of order here so um I I'm gonna start with the most um recent one that you discussed uh do we really want to be in the business of refunding money?

I mean that that adds a whole nother layer of effort by the finance department to process a refund check and the backup that goes with that and the audit trail that has to go with I mean do we really want to do that?

It seems silly to me to take that money ahead of time and then have to spend more money to give it back it's contrary it's it's the exact opposite of what you're asking to do here.

So I I that doesn't make sense to me I maybe there's another way I I mean I get the concern is that someone says I want 5000 documents and you do all the work and they say well never mind I don't need it anymore.

That's the law and I understand that happens but okay just making a comment I I'm not sure I like that.

Todd has the um the legality of it been adjudicated is there case law the legality of it has not been adjudicated.

There are there were cases on the uh pre-2019 uh right law there are not any cases that I was able to find either uh from the Nevada Supreme Court or pending in the Nevada Supreme Court uh that currently address the um you know uh 2019 changes uh that doesn't mean they're not there that just means that I'm not aware of them and couldn't find them right now.

So the opinion that you have is your opinion and I assume the district attorney's office opinion relative to the legality of this.

And why would the folks that disbelieve what you're saying um at least one of which is an attorney come to a different conclusion than you and I mean I know you can't answer for them but I guess I'm just trying to you know because that they felt very strongly that this is not legal and you sound like you feel very strongly that it is legal.

And I mean, I know you can't answer for them, but I guess I'm just trying to, you know, because that they felt very strongly that this is not legal, and you sound like you feel very strongly that it is legal.

The I I I will say that the uh the language is subject to multiple interpretations.

Um the interpretation that uh I've given you today, I think is the most reasonable interpretation.

Um but um, you know, uh other people can take different views on the language that the legislatures used, uh and of course the courts will ultimately figure out who who's right.

Um, you know, I I'll be honest, I would have vastly preferred that the court have already weighed in on this because I we would be happy to abide by uh however the court adjudicated it.

Um but the court hasn't, so we've done our best effort at what we think is a reasonable interpretation given the language of the statute and the language of the legislative history.

So if if we are sued for this, um I would interpret your comment to mean that you felt we had a reasonable chance to be successful in defending that suit.

Yes, if you're asking me, uh I I do think it probably would be you, so yeah.

I I I I do think that I could stand up in court and give a reasonable defense of the position we've taken.

Okay.

Um give me a sec.

The um I I I would like to see um I would like to see a clear delineation of what who gets what for free.

I I don't like that that's not in here.

I I generally speaking, I I don't like to restate things that are allowed by law.

Right.

Uh and I understand that concept, and we don't typically I mean you don't have to put in a policy that you can't run a red light.

That does not make sense.

But here I view this document as not only a fee schedule, but an instructionary document, or um a document that the public can understand what they're entitled to for free.

So I I'm not sure I can support this until that is in here.

Um can I ask why you would have to redact um pictures of someone who are driving by in public?

There's no expectation of privacy in public.

What is the need to redact someone who may be walking by a dash can video on a public street?

Uh not necessarily adults, but juveniles.

Um still just for there's no no, it's not the law.

Yeah, people absolutely not the law.

There's no expectation of privacy in public, regardless of your age.

Correct.

Um there is um images of peace officers are not um are not public record.

Um that's one of the biggest things that we redact is images of police officers, and that was what I was talking about, and the reflection of cameras and stuff like that.

Um we you're right, you there's no expectation of privacy or there's no expectation of privacy in public.

Uh however, uh we do err on the side of just being overly cautious juveniles um were wary of that kind of thing.

Um it would be mostly like if they were standing in like their garage or something like that.

Um there's just a wide variety of things that we see.

So if you're you know, there's a citation, you're standing in your garage, they pull over in front of your house.

I I would blur out your garage and you.

Um those kinds of things.

It's still unnecessary, but um, yeah.

Um we just like I said, our our number one goal is the privacy of individual.

Because I don't think the public should pay for work that doesn't need to be done.

I understand.

And you mentioned a couple of instances of work that I don't feel needs to be done.

Um, and I don't think we should be charging them for that.

Um Todd or or Dan, what is our legal exposure if we don't redact something that by law is required to be redacted?

And conversely, what ramifications are there if we redact something that shouldn't be redacted.

The law provides a uh essentially a good faith um uh good faith protection for us.

As long as we're acting in good faith, uh then the law provides that we don't have liability for either providing or redacting um material.

So if in good faith we've looked at looked at the video, and we believe that this shouldn't be redacted.

Um then it can be released and we're protected from uh liability from the person who's in the video.

Um if we over you know quote unquote over-redact, um, then that's more where we can work with the requester.

If the requester feels that we're over-redacting and wants to really kind of point out and say, hey, you know, these things really shouldn't be redacted, and they have a bearing on why I'm requesting the video, then they can come back, they can come back to uh the CCSO or to the city and say and and work with us to uh discuss that particular redaction.

In general, whenever we provide a redaction, we do provide a legal citation that says this is why we're redacting uh the material.

Okay.

That's helpful.

And if they argue that the redaction shouldn't have been made, would we charge them again to unredact?

Um that's a question I don't know that we've uh thought about, but um, I mean, off off that I think that's more a policy uh decision as opposed to a legal decision, but um uh we can certainly discuss that.

Um has it is any other law enforcement agency.

Uh you mentioned some, I and I may have missed it.

Um they are charging under similar the ones that you mentioned on the record, correct?

Okay.

Um and then my last question is uh, you know, um many many years ago, um Scott's predecessor to predecessor, we're going back some predecessors, um undertook um, I mean we're talking years ago, a massive effort to digitize all property records.

Um Scott doesn't have to research property records.

Someone goes to Scott and says, give me uh every home that Maurice White has bought in the last 40 years.

You don't have to do that.

He can say, he can say, nope, records are all there, you gotta find them.

So why don't we do that?

Is that effort beyond realistic?

Is it is it too cost prohibitive?

Is it then you don't have to answer that question is to give me every murder that was occurred by a gun on the third Tuesday of the fourth month of the ninth, you know.

I mean, you get what I'm saying.

We have digitized all the case reports, I think all the way up until 2004.

We're about two years shy from when Tibron went went live.

Right.

The issue is we put that out, it's every social security number, it's every rape.

It's every and so well.

I guess I I understand what's there.

I guess what I'm asking is have we ever looked at what the cost would be to pre-redact those items.

Has that ever been investigated?

Just asking the question.

Because then you you take away the need and you say, here you go, here's the records.

Take a look.

If you do the research, just for clarification, like Kristen broke these often to do two different things.

You have these routine, which is a paper record.

A lot of this that we're talking about redaction is media to put uh uh stuff out um that hasn't been redacted.

We just put a every body camera out there and never be able to pull that back.

And so not talking about that, not talking about that.

We have never I was using the example that she mentioned where she said, please get me every I don't remember because there were two examples that were not media examples.

They were not media examples.

Yes, with the deaths with a gun and uh whatever it was, uh uh incarceration.

Yeah.

Um so I I'll be here three years this year, and and not three years, no, we have not.

Um I we take reports there's probably anywhere between seven and ten thousand reports taken a year.

I don't know what the manpower would look like to pre-redact all that and post that online.

And obviously not all seven of the seven to ten thousand of those reports would even be uh public record, uh they could still be open investigations on that kind of thing.

Um I I don't know the answer to that, to be honest.

Um, I could probably try to see if other neighboring agencies do anything like that.

We we have geared toward a uh public records request portal.

Um so it will make it a little bit easier because right now we do everything through email, which is good, but it could be better.

Uh, but no, we we haven't ever explored that option in the last three years that I've been there.

I mean, perhaps there's a way with software, at least from a point going forward, that as you close a case and it it's no longer open that it gets redacted at the time of closure.

I can't I I'd be I'd be very surprised if there weren't some software out there that would do that, because all of your data is in identified cells, right?

The social security numbers always in the same place.

Um, and it would seem to me, I mean, at least uh I guess it could be in the narrative, conceivably, it could be in the narrative, um, because a deputy might put it in or an individual might write it in, um, in which case in the software probably isn't gonna work.

So um okay, I I think I think I'm good for now.

Thank you for indulging me.

Supervisor White.

Thank you.

Um I'm a little unclear on uh how the end result of this fee schedule idea is gonna work.

Um are we gonna have two separate fee schedules?

One for Carson City General and one for the Sheriff's Department for the record, um, Stephanie Hicks, deputy city manager.

We would, I mean, as this was proposed, there are two separate fee schedules.

Um, I think currently, you know, there are already fees that the sheriff's office has that are different from the rest of the city for the types of records that they provide.

But again, our goal is for that methodology and for the costs to be consistent.

So even though there are two separate fee schedules, we would be doing it the same across the city.

Um the proposed motion would allow uh the sheriff's department to raise their fees on their own.

Would that trigger a domino requiring or prompting the city to follow suit and have this sort of discussion that we're having today on uh raising the city-based fees?

Any changes to the city's fee schedule would have to come back to this board because you're approving that or potentially approving that today.

So we would not be making changes unless they come back to the board.

Well, I I understand that, but my question is are we more or less because we're setting up a policy to try to mirror one another?

Are we setting up a situation where actions of the sheriff dictates actions of the city now having to likewise raise the fees?

And and point well taken.

I I see where you're going with that.

I think that um, you know, as if that occurs, I think we would have to discuss that and coordinate.

As I indicated, the majority of the people on the city side that are responding to these records requests, their hourly rage wage already exceeds that of the baseline that we're setting.

So you know, we are trying to maintain being conservative on this.

So uh, you know, we'd we would have to coordinate if if that was a decision that the sheriff's office made.

So we don't want that.

As to the sheriff's department changing the fees.

When I look at this proposed motion, it says authorize the sheriff to adjust the fee uh for increases to actual costs, on and on and on.

Uh what I don't see in this agenda item is the policy and the method that you will follow to accomplish this.

What what I see is an open door.

And frankly, um today's discussion that we're having in this room right now is a sort of discussion that needs to take place when these fees are increased.

So I ask, what policy are you putting in place to regulate how and when you raise the fees, why you raise the fees, and how the public will be informed that the fees have been changed we do have an internal policy procedure.

It just was not attached to the board action of of creating this fee schedule for the redaction of the media, but we do have an internal procedure on what can be released.

There's a step-by-step guide of uh because we get a new employee tomorrow, what can be released and what can so we do have internal mechanisms already in place.

So not not about what can and cannot be released.

I'm talking about adjustment to the fee schedule.

What policy and methods do you have to regulate that?

So I guess your question is what stops us tomorrow from raising it to 25 dollars and then next week 27 dollars and next week's.

I'm not asking what stops you.

I'm asking where's the policy that regulates it.

Let me take a step back for a second and ask and uh answer a question that you also asked with the policy question, which was how would the public be notified?

The NRS does provide that when uh fee schedules are established or when they would be changed, that they're required to be posted and uh uh uh posted and so that the public can see them so that the public can be informed about what the fees are.

So before any any fee could be changed, it wouldn't need to be posted uh so the public could see it.

Um as far as the policies uh behind that, uh you are correct, the policies are not here with with the material.

Um the you know it the the policies I'm gonna say, you know, it's it's more I I can't fortunately I can't comment too much on the policies.

That's for the the departments versus the DA's office to really develop.

Um I I think that if if they were you know if you approve the fee schedule, then that would have to be developed.

Let me ask a oh, go ahead.

Uh I can circle this.

Yeah.

You're asking us to approve something today, and you're telling you going to tell us later how you're gonna do that.

I'm I'm not giving that wide open door to anybody.

Um as to Stacey's questions about um redaction.

You used the example that you would redact somebody that was standing in their garage, happened to be a neighbor across the street from a traffic stop.

That you would redact that.

So what you're saying is you would redact a potential witness.

There are certain um NRSs and NACs that protect witness information.

So potentially if they were a witness, um, and I think Todd can speak a little bit more to the legality of that.

It would depend on I I think what you're asking, and correct me if I'm wrong.

Um, you know, if somebody were asking or accused of a crime or involved in a in a dispute, and they were requesting the video to see who might be witnesses.

That if somebody's involved in a particular case, that information can be requested either through their uh through the case, through their uh public defender if they're a defendant, um, through a subpoena if they're suing the city or suing somebody else, or through um uh the DA's office through the discovery process again if they're involved in a case.

Um the public records request are generally uh referring to people who are uh not associated with the case who are requesting information about a particular uh case or a particular document or other information.

Well, and and I think when when you talk about not connected to a particular case, uh I I would suggest that perhaps uh a person within the media that's doing uh investigative reporting would certainly be interested in who's redacted as a witness.

And I'm I can't dispute that.

They they may very well be interested.

Um and that's where I think uh the uh process to work with the requester comes into play.

If the requester feels that something was redacted that shouldn't have been redacted, uh of course we would encourage them to contact us and say, hey, you know, this really doesn't need to be redacted, I'd like to see it, and then we can work with them through that process.

And you know, at that point, I'd imagine the DA's office might get involved and determine whether or not that should or should not be redacted.

And if it should, we'll provide you know more of the legal legal citation.

If it shouldn't, uh then we would uh direct the department that it should be unredacted.

Thank you.

Maybe you can help me just a little bit on the question, because there is two different things.

So 15A is the city's general policy to charge and fee schedule, those always come to the Board of Supervisors to establish, to change, to update going along with supervisors white's question.

Can you tell me what authority the sheriff as an elected official in a sheriff's authority?

Where does his dip, does his different that he can set some fee?

I think it's important that we understand the the difference.

So he would have the authority to establish uh policies that would apply to the CCSO.

So I'm gonna put them on the spot because it's just the way it goes, Kenny.

Um so while you have a policy and what was recommended here is that you could do up to 10 percent.

So taken with today's discussions.

Uh would you be all right if we just struck that?

Because the objective is we're bringing the fee schedules together in this particular case, not all your other fees, because those are ones you do, but this particular one, we're trying to keep married with the general charge for public records.

So I'm just asking in this case if you would be okay with whenever this I need to bring a fee schedule update, and the city brings the fee.

Is that all right with you?

Because it's really I don't want to step on places where where it's your authority, but it's a we really want the schedules to match.

So we don't want you to be increasing it, and we're not, I think is the objective.

And how often does this 10 percent is that annually that he could do it 10 percent?

I I'm I'm interested in your help.

I want to help you get your fees if necessary, but we want to make sure that it doesn't become onerous and stop records either.

Thank you for the record, Sheriff for long.

Obviously, the goal here is the goal here is to provide the service to the people that are requesting these services and to have the labor force available to provide that so that it can be delivered.

Um I do enjoy working with the city.

I always have.

Um that's I think that that's a um a necessary function of the sheriff.

Um I think that the reason I don't think I know that the reason we are here today is because other fees are being addressed.

And so I I can tell you that I I enjoy having policies that are consistent and practices that are consistent, so that no matter whether you go to Mr.

Holan's office or to the city manager's office or to the sheriff's office, there is some level of consistency.

Okay.

So I'm just suggesting or asking that you wouldn't have a problem if we struck the hour that the up to 10 percent you could increase it.

You'd just bring back your fee schedule whenever it's appropriate to bring back fee schedules.

Where are you referencing that?

So would it be in the motion?

Just read.

I move to approve the fee schedule as presented, period.

Is that correct?

Yes, that well, yeah, with the well, and striking potentially the viewing fee.

We want to get rid of authorizing the sheriff to increase it 10%.

Correct.

Well, can't we?

And here's a here's an aspect that just came to my mind.

Uh when we talk about in this motion authorizing the sheriff to increase actual cost.

Suppose your high paid 25-year employee report retires, you put a rookie on that desk.

Should we be talking about reducing?

Oh, because the NRS says we can't be way over either.

This is the lowest fee.

I think we put that on the record already, but let's do that.

This is our lowest entry position.

Yeah, 20%.

Step one we aren't charging any of them at the $23 an hour is that.

It's the minimum hourly fee of the for the job classification.

I absolutely agree with you, Maurice.

Yeah.

Can I ask a quick question?

Sure.

You can ask lots of them.

Sorry, Kurt.

Um his hand was up before me.

But it's germane to what's going on.

Why not have one policy?

Why not have one fee schedule?

What why can't we put it all in one fee schedule?

Maybe Mr.

U can answer that because we've been uh having some fun debates about this.

So go ahead.

Oh, he's got his NRS pulled up.

Scary.

Well, I just wanted to hop on the record to say that I agree this is a really fun debate, and that's all I had to add.

No, I'm kidding.

Really fun debate.

Um I'm hearing lots of different things here.

And you know, one of the things that I wanted just emphasize for the record is this, and I appreciate the sheriff coming up to the witness table to speak on behalf of the sheriff's office.

You know, through our research, what we found is that you know the term governmental entity, and this goes back to a question a couple of minutes ago.

Governmental entity has used an NRS chapter 239 as it relates to you know regulating public records acts uh and and requests here in in Nevada, it captures political subdivisions and also elected officials.

There are statutory requirements that apply to the Board of Supervisors, the city as a whole, but then also to elected officials, in this case, the sheriff.

So what I mean by that is yes, there's a lot of discussion about internal policies and so on and so forth, but with respect to the legality of being able to implement and charge those fees, the statutory process is you've got to post it.

You've got to make the public aware, right?

So that in a sense also addresses, at least in part, I believe, supervisor white's concern.

Um what I mean by that is the sheriff actually has that inherent authority per statute to post his own schedule.

My understanding is that the reason why both of these fee schedules are being brought together simultaneously for concurrent consideration and review is to facilitate a couple of different things.

Number one, to facilitate uniformity and consistency, as the sheriff pointed out, it is always nice to have uniformity throughout the city.

So in that sense, I think it's you know the sheriff's willingness to come before this board and work together in conjunction rather than do it separately, you know, on his own.

Um secondarily, it's also to foster transparency.

This is what you know, sunshine laws are all about, right?

We want to provide an opportunity for members of the public to provide input, to get feedback, and to listen to concerns.

We've heard since the very outset of these agenda items being opened on the record, there are lots of concerns.

You know, I want to go back in time to what Mr.

Reese said earlier on the record, which is very true.

I think the one thing that all the parties can attest to is that as of right now, based on current research, there does not appear to be, I cannot say categorically that there is not, but at this time does not appear to be any sort of binding legal precedent that says with absolute certainty these public records fees can or cannot include personnel time.

What Mr.

Reese was saying earlier is that based on a con, and I would say a comprehensive review and research process over the course of the last several weeks, he's landed upon the determination that it is more likely than not, and we think we're on pretty solid you know legal grounds, if this matter were to be litigated, that we have a lot of defensible avenues to pursue.

Um that being said, a lot of other discussion points on the record today relate purely to policy and not to legal matters.

As for legal matters, of course, we're happy to address those things.

I would also point out, just in the I mean, if nothing else, just for as another point of consideration.

I saw, of course, the open letter that was addressed to the Board of Supervisors.

You know, one of the things that was really interesting to me and kind of stuck out in my mind is that there is, of course, an absence of a citation to any sort of case law.

And I would think that, you know, I think it was one of the supervisors, perhaps Supervisor Giomi, you had noted earlier that there's at least one party on the other side of things who also happens to be a practicing attorney.

And if you're a practicing attorney and you are lodging strong objections to the adoption of a policy, and you're saying it is quote unquote unlawful, then certainly you would provide a legal citation to binding precedent.

So to me, that's telling and probably is confirmation of the fact that all parties can agree that at this point there's no binding precedent.

It's just that there are persuasive arguments with say on both sides of the aisle.

Um I think it's also notable that you know, we're talking about 2019 changes in legislative language.

Um the Attorney General's office, of course, does not offer it's not the enforcement agency, right?

I mean, disputes when it comes to public records requests or ultimately resolved in a court of law.

I mean, that's how it works statutorily.

The Attorney General's office, however, is also that branch of government, the state agency that provides a lot of guidance and training.

And as recently as 2023, they have provided in their training manual via PowerPoint presentation, and they specifically cited to that provision in statute, and they noted based on legislative history and discussions during committee meetings at the legislature that the legislators had decided specifically not to include in that language personnel costs, whether to include or not to exclude it.

The discussion point was the difference between a routine request and requests that are extremely burdensome or quote unquote onerous.

And I think that's a lot of what discussion points are turning on today.

What's routine and what's onerous?

Of course, you know, the sheriff's office has every right from an operational standpoint as an elected official to develop his own internal policies.

That is not a requirement to be posted along with a fee schedule.

The fee schedule itself speaks for itself, and the only question here is well, are certain portions of it legal.

And I think really that certain portion we're really addressing today is is it personnel costs?

But again, to kind of wrap things up, is I believe it's it's the goodwill and the good faith endeavor of the sheriff today to coordinate with this legislative body so that we can perhaps bring some degree of uniformity in developing concurrent fee schedules.

Can I follow up with a question then?

I I don't understand if if the sheriff has the authority, why is this item here?

He can implement it himself.

So I'm I'm missing some.

And that's that's a great question, Mayor.

And and I I thought that I'd address that, but you know, maybe I'll try to be clear.

I again I I my understanding and having had discussions with the sheriff is that he wanted to bring this to the board simultaneously for transparency, for uniformity.

It's a coordinated effort in the sense that I'd say probably 95% of the fee schedule fees overlap.

They're consistent with one another.

There are some minor differences, right?

You know, to especially towards the end.

Um obviously the city, the board of supervisors, we don't have through our various departments in this this municipality the issue of having to address body cam footage, for example.

That's something that is exclusively within the realm of law enforcement.

So that's where the difference may be.

But again, it's my understanding that the sheriff wanted to bring this as an endeavor and an effort to facilitate coordination with this legislative body and not to do it wholly independently of the board of supervisors.

So to be clear, he can do it like he doesn't even have to bring this forward.

So we don't even have to do this.

Absent his desire to coordinate.

I think he can just do this.

I think I I think that is correct, but I also think that for purposes of defensibility, if you want to completely insulate action um in terms of adopting in the process of adopting a free schedule, let's let's just call this a belt and suspenders approach.

But I believe that he would be able to do this on his own accord as an elected official, falling under the definitional term of governmental entity as used of the public records act.

What are we doing about video um from a fire department drone or a public works sewer camera?

Anyone it's not video.

I I think that that's really a good point.

This is not just about the sheriff's office.

I I understand the agenda item.

When these requests are coming in, I miss Hicks um has shown me some many of our city departments are affected.

Okay.

A request that's ultimately going to land at the sheriff's office may have begun at City Hall or other departments within the city.

And so when we do offer that cooperation, that coordinated efforts, I think that that stands that puts the city in a very good position to understand it.

We're not always just talking about one department, and that's why I'm here today.

Well, and I guess that's why I go back to my original question, which I don't think Dan addressed.

I think at one schedule.

Why not have one schedule?

There's other video in the city.

There's this video.

There is security video.

There is other video in the city.

Um the records requests that we've received uh to date for video has tended to focus on the sheriff's office and body cam video.

Uh we have received records requests for uh traffic cam video and for building security video.

In general, building security video, we don't generally release because of the uh uh confidential uh considerations of of it being um government buildings and of it being buildings uh the there are confidentiality provisions for for uh security of public buildings, really.

Yes.

Um there are also uh specifically as to the sheriff's office, if there's surveillance in the sheriff's office, there are also considerations of victims and witnesses of uh coming in and out of the sheriff's office.

Um the uh traffic cam uh footage is a different matter.

Uh generally we I haven't found any uh confidentiality considerations with traffic cam yet.

But a security camera pointing at a street that may pick up a car accident is restricted.

Um I'm gonna say it would depend on the security camera.

I'd have to take a look at it.

Um so in general, we haven't run into the same uh situation on the city side with uh requests for video as we have uh on the on the sheriff side.

Um and also the the considerations of uh of confidentiality for the city side video are in general uh a lot different than that for uh body cam video from the sheriff's office.

Uh the sheriff's office uh indicated there's um uh victim uh confidentiality considerations, personal information considerations.

Usually when a police officer is contacting you, he's gonna get your personal information.

Um those concerns generally aren't present with other city video.

Um so uh to date we've taken kind of a uh video by video approach uh when it's requested.

Um I haven't I'm not aware of any sewer cam video that's been requested.

It's coming your way this afternoon.

But I'm gonna go down to public works tomorrow and see if I can uh but uh come to my house.

Fun time at a party, I'll tell you.

I um, you know, we we would take a look at that if if it was requested.

You know, Scott Howe and Clark Recorder.

Um we recently installed what a couple years ago cameras for our election observers to make it more convenient and easier for them to see what goes on.

Uh they're recorded, they're not streamed on the internet, they're not on YouTube.

But if somebody did want to make a public record request of the election uh process or the observation of the election, they could do that.

And is there anything in that video that might need to be redacted by law?

No.

So seeing someone's address related to the balance.

The law for me, NRS is they could be within six feet of observing the election.

So those cameras are 10 feet away.

So they can't see it, they can't um observe, they don't observe signature verification or private information like that.

But this is just counting deconstruction, a ballots, adjudication, duplication, just that process.

Supervisor Horton.

Yeah, thanks.

Any time.

That raised hand thing works really good.

Um I'm gonna step back a I'm gonna go back a few steps and ask a question, Todd.

Uh and it's it may be extreme, but I I'm interested in the answer.

Let's assume for the moment that a convicted pedophile comes in and as for body cam footage of an episode at the Carson City swimming pool where juveniles were incidentally captured in the video, and we give it to them without redaction because it's not required by law to redact that, right?

And we provide that, or we provide some video footage from a deputy who's driving down the street with five-year-olds playing in a swimming pool in the summertime, which happens all the time under the same circumstances.

It might not be required by law, but wouldn't it be the responsible thing to do to redact that information?

Um you bring up uh it's a great question, and you bring up uh um a good issue.

The public records act speaks not only to privileged information, uh, which you know, the attorney client privilege, uh, or confidential information, which is information declared by law to be confidential, but it also speaks to privacy issues, uh private information.

Um in general, uh the courts have established uh a test where if the um municipality can show a privacy interest and the bars use fairly low on the privacy interest, then the person requesting the information has to then show uh the reason uh the reason why he or she wants the information.

Um there's already uh kind of a balancing test, if you will, within the courts where uh that's those sort of uh privacy considerations can be uh vetted and can be considered.

In general, there are with juveniles, there are uh privacy uh considerations for juveniles where juvenile information can be uh redacted and declared private.

Now, I'm gonna say that I say that, but it really depends on the specific circumstance.

Um there may be a difference between you know a 15-year-old walking across the street, uh, you know, a hundred meters away from where a person has a uh deputy is pulled over at somebody at a traffic stop.

Uh you know, I think that the specific information, the specific example that you gave of a video camera in in a swimming pool where children are taking lessons, I would have a concern about that.

If they were incidentally captured, perhaps the request is legitimate.

Maybe there was a fight with adults, but the kids were captured on video incidentally.

Isn't there some sort of moral responsibility for us to do that?

Don't we have some sort of expectation to do the right thing?

I know it's not a legal requirement, I get it.

But could we develop a policy that says we won't release this kind of thing without redaction?

And should we explore that?

Uh Mr.

Reese.

And and I I really love where Supervisor Horton is going with this, probably a little off topic to the agenda item, but that potentially is a great another policy discussion that should occur.

Um, but I'd like to bring it back into the agenda item itself.

Um each of these board members has brought up challenges in the process that were really that's why we're here today.

Each of these requests requires an awful lot of coordination and decision making points.

Yeah.

You've each brought up very, very important points.

Why we're here today is to provide for that mechanism, the labor to be able to achieve those conversations and provide that service that's being asked for.

I appreciate every question that's been asked.

And if you noticed, you characterize one little twist and it requires more conversation.

Okay.

We're here to provide for the fee schedule.

And all of your questions have justified the necessity for a fee schedule.

We have to provide the information.

Supervisor Shuty, you had a question?

Yeah, thank you.

And actually you gave me the perfect segue.

Um what kind what is coming to mind for me is is there a need to charge and why?

Is there a need for this?

And what is the need?

And I felt that when you um, you know, in in one of the letters, um it uh imposing extraordinary fees for responding to um some such requests um in terms of of different public records, and I think you address that by separating routine from research and the why behind that.

I think that is really helpful, you know, that frame by frame review for media for body camera for the dash cans.

There are so many variables that we need to be mindful of that the expectation of privacy, the personal information that isn't appropriate to put out while still being respectful of the process of information and being able to have access to it.

So again, that need to charge and why, and then if we really want to be thoughtful and provide the information that is requested, how do we do that appropriately and correctly?

And that takes labor.

That takes time, that takes hours.

Something that was interesting in um some of the letters and the public comment and uh was um, you know, citizens are trying to access records their tax dollars pay for and engage with their local government and absolutely um that is a right, and it's important to be able to do that, but I'm not sure if anyone's citizen is paying for hours and hours and hours of public records and the labor that needs to take place rightfully so to be able to make these records available.

There lies, in my opinion, the genesis to this conversation.

How do we provide records to our public?

How can we be as how can we be as transparent as necessary, possible, just transparent and not interfere with how our government is able to run, how are you know the jobs of our city staff and um so I think this is a really good conversation and definitely complicated.

Yeah, uh I I just have to agree it's quite the balancing act, right?

Do you have a university project that's major that they're asking for information and that's going to be 300 hours because somebody's doing a research project versus your ability to provide the actual police reports to victims or to the general public living in Carson City that wants to get their day-to-day activities done?

Those researchers aren't paying the taxes in Carson City.

They're not.

And so it's a quite a quite a balancing act to do the whole thing.

And it's like I want to say it's like every fee that we charge, all of them.

It doesn't matter if it's the swimming pool, right?

We're setting policy all the time that says this much of the general taxpayer dollars will go across the system.

So we'll pay 50% in essence of a swimming pool use, but the other 50%, the user must pay.

And I look at this very similar.

Hey, if you're under 10 hours, that's the general taxpayer.

But what allows us to provide the service?

The service for the general needs, the general taxpayer, that's 10 hours after that.

Now it's onerous, it's large, and now that request is actually monopolizing the time of an employee to that one individual request.

And so it's a balancing act.

Where's that answer?

Where's the sweet spot?

I I do think the um 10 hours is that's more than an entire shift of a person, right?

You go, wow, it's eight hours plus two more, or they work straight, that's overtime if we're trying to get it done.

But um anyway, I'll I'll give it back to Supervisor Geomi, then I'm gonna take public.

Just popped into my head.

Um one, you know, we have fee schedules that establish rates for residents and non-residents.

Why not do that?

So, like some of your requests come from out of the area.

Um, let's charge them.

I have no issue charging them.

Uh they're not our taxpayers, they haven't paid for this to begin with.

I'll take that into consideration.

I mean, I'm just saying, uh why not establish a resident and a non-resident fee?

Uh that's question one.

Um question two is you know, the other way we can approach this, um, you said it's about 200 hours of labor over the year.

Over five months.

So it's uh roughly 600 hours in a year's time.

It's still less than a halftime employee.

Let's just give Kenny an employee and not address this.

Let's just give them a halftime employee, put it in the budget.

Where are you gonna get that money?

I already can't fix the potholes.

I know that's the point.

Thank you.

No, I mean it is too generally.

No, I'm saying it's not just Kenny, it's across our entire system.

And you know, we get that question all the time.

Why can't you fix the potholes?

Because we keep getting peeled off all these types of issues, not not this in and of itself.

But when you take the cumulative answers in response to that, it's our job to decide what a priority is.

That's our job to decide what a priority is.

I agree.

So we are are you're asking me to decide today is it a higher priority for us to charge our citizens for something that is a public record, or is it more important for us to allow them to have access to those public records?

And we um have to cut something somewhere else.

Two hours less of the library, uh whatever the case may be.

Um I I want to compliment the two of you on this exchange because that was my opening statement.

It's challenging.

Where does this priority fall?

Oh, trust us.

How are they processed is up to me?

That's not something the board deals with.

Our policies for prior for processing these.

But you the two of you just brought this conversation full circle.

Right.

Where does this priority lie?

We're offering you the ability to, or offering the sheriff's office in my case, the ability to provide for that without you having to leave that pothole at that street.

I get it.

You're bringing forward a need that you have.

That you're trying to satisfy a way to satisfy.

You can't do it with your current staffing levels.

I think we all understand that.

Yeah.

So on this table is a consistency here that's trying to be achieved by the city.

And being, you know, separate from the city, so to speak, to share in separate.

I think that that's very complimentary to the public and to everybody who's interested in this topic.

Ms.

I still say that risk record request for residents should be different than out of city residents.

In the sixth.

Yes, for the record, Stephanie Hicks, deputy city manager.

I just wanted to kind of add to the discussion about the needs and just provide you some raw numbers.

The data that I have does not break it down into what category type of request this is.

It's just what has been received in the last um six years.

And again, it's really not even everything because some of those records requests go into the department directly.

They go directly through the sheriff's office.

It doesn't include the 660, um, the number that was given previously.

But just from the city's perspective, things that go through our public records requests in 2020, we were receiving 99 requests.

Um, in 21, that went up to 168.

22, 379 requests, 23, 423 requests.

In 24, we received 530 public records requests.

And in 25, we received 441.

Out of those, again, there are some that go directly to the departments that don't get logged in that number.

About 10% of those are from the sheriff's office.

They um are requests through them, 17 fire, 16 courts, but 57% of those actually in 25 were requests to other city departments.

So other city departments had to take the time and provide that service to to the requester.

Um, and so just from a data standpoint, I just wanted to provide you all with that information.

Thank you so much.

I think what I'm gonna do now is go ahead and come to public comment on the item we already had some earlier, but just in case somebody heard all this and or didn't comment this morning and wants to now come on up, and then we'll bring it back up here for some.

Well, it's still morning, so I'll say good morning.

Good morning.

I'm gonna talk fast.

I timed myself earlier, so I don't get cut off.

Okay.

Uh my name is Kelsey Penrose.

I am proud to be a lifelong Carson City resident, and I've been privileged enough to report on my hometown as a journalist for nearly a decade.

Through my years on the job, I can tell you that one of my most honorous tasks is getting government entities, mostly at the state, to comply with records requests.

I bring this up because I understand records law more than the average citizen, as it is a requirement for journalists to have a firm understanding of what we are entitled to when we receive government pushback.

That's why I can say without a doubt that what has been proposed here is not compliant with the law.

The decision to create these policies apparently hinges on the 2019 change to the NRS.

However, it is my professional opinion that the city aired in its reading of that change.

It already says costs that exist with or without a request are excluded, meaning normal staff time.

When it was amended, the definition of actual cost was included as were examples.

The reason is the legal premise of bear with me, a just them generis, which is a convoluted Latin term that just means of the same kind.

This follows a basic legal rule that when a law lists examples after general language, it means only things similar to the specific examples uh listed are allowed.

So when the law states ink toner paper, et cetera, it's reasonably assumed that this means flash drives, DVDs, et cetera, to copy a record for the public.

Based on this rule, there is no interpretation that lends itself to staff time worked during regular hours, being similar to ink toner or paper.

The legislature had the ability to add personnel costs at the time, but it did not.

Instead, it repealed the law, allowing government entities to charge up to 50% per page for extraordinary requests because it was being abused by entities for them including staff time.

Last year, AB 51 even asked for personnel costs to be allowed in this law, which did not pass.

Even if this were allowed, state law does not allow for the categorization of records as routine versus something else.

And the city isn't formally defining what that would mean, which leaves interpretation up to whoever receives the request, which is the very definition of arbitrary.

Finally, basing fees on theoretical estimates of staff time is especially concerning because who is determining how long a request should take?

I've had requests routinely take three or more months.

Am I meant to be paying for those three months?

If so, that would go two ways.

I would end up being forced to pay thousands of dollars for my request if it were deemed egregious.

Or the city would show that despite it taking X number of months, only eight hours of staff time were invoiced, which also opens the city up for a lawsuit by showing that they failed to provide prompt access to my request.

So I just have two questions.

How will charging the public these fees alleviate the issue of having to respond to these requests?

Because the logical answer is by deterring the public from requesting public records in the first place.

Second, the city is already required to ask requesters to narrow their requests.

What do these fees solve that this requirement is not?

Thank you for your time.

And I ask that if your staff is struggling with these requests, that you allot funding for additional staff time.

Um, do I have extra time?

I've got five seconds.

Uh, as to redaction component, it's my understanding deputies can waive their right to redaction.

It's up to them.

And also uh PC reports are pre-redacted because the sheriff's office very graciously sends them to the media most mornings.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Good job, Courtney.

Kelsey tried as hard as she could.

Good job.

Okay.

Okay.

Drew Rebar for the record ditto to what she said.

I've requested a lot of public records from Carson City, state of Nevada, a lot of different entities.

And I publish a lot of information.

US Constitution, State of Nevada Constitution, gives us all the right.

Supervisor Giomi, you are the press.

We all have press rights.

We all have religious rights.

We all have the same rights under the First Amendment.

But let's go to Article 1, Section 9 of the Nevada Constitution.

No law shall be made to abridge freedom of speech or the press.

But yet here we are, you guys have said that press media does a lot of requests.

And you want to take away their ability to get free information to disseminate to the public.

And you want to charge entities that are looking for large requests to disseminate information to the public, you want to charge them a fee.

Isn't that infringing on the press?

So I started off as a member of the press just by putting stuff out on YouTube.

I think we all know some of the stuff I've put out.

It's not always flattering.

I think what you really need to look at is increasing the budget for the sheriff, find the money, increasing the budget for the city, find the money, and fix the potholes too.

I know it's a challenge.

But we we need to be more open with our government.

Our government needs to be more accountable to the people.

Because I think we the people believe, at least I believe, the government's hiding a lot of information.

And some of the public records I've got have found that.

And so to keep the government accountable to the people, the government needs to fund the mechanisms for this accountability and not raise taxes, not raise fees.

And if I do get elected to Assembly 40, this is something that I would want to work on changing is making it more accessible to the public, having fewer redactions, because why are we redacting things that are in plain public view?

Supreme Court says it's in public line of sight, public view.

Sheriff, you're welcome to go and prosecute somebody to go after somebody for that, right?

Just like the press.

If there's something in public view, we can see it.

Why are we redacting it?

Thank you very much.

Drew Rebar for the record.

Thank you.

Do I have any other public comment?

Okay, I don't see any.

I'll bring it back up here.

Um, so I I think I have a general feeling, and you guys can correct me, of course, if I'm wrong, but I think that the policies need a little more work, some more questions that we all put on the record today should be answered in the policy, and we're just not, we're just not quite here.

So I I don't think any of us are saying no, maybe Stacy doesn't matter.

Um, whether we're gonna charge a fee or not.

Do matter.

You don't matter.

Peace out.

But um I still think there's a lot of questions that need to be answered, and the policy needs to be vetted a little bit more.

Stacy had an idea of resident versus non-resident fees.

Uh I think that should be uh reviewed by our attorneys to see if that's possible or not.

I'm not sure.

I I like the idea.

It's probably not, but it should be reviewed.

Um, but I'm getting a feeling that they should go back and do a little more work and bring it back.

I would agree it needs some more work.

Okay.

I I think we really need to insist on this idea of one single fee schedule.

We can look, we'll look at whether we just want to call it video and put it on our fee schedule or something.

Anyway, we'll look at it.

And maybe I think Stacy had a good point on that.

There's there's video matter.

Well, you do matter.

Darn it, you put them back in the picture.

Uh there's there's video across the city that may or may not need this extensive work.

And so pigeonholing uh a policy and a fee schedule to the sheriff's department is just not important because that's part of the transparency we're looking for.

So it's easy to understand for easy for a citizen to understand what they need to do to get the information that they're interested in.

Right.

And can I add that we would like to see uh clearly define what's free in the one, hopefully one policy.

Um, and I I'd also like an assessment of if as an alternative, we as a board decide that it's a priority to add a position, half position, quarter position, whatever, to address this, whether it be on the city side or the SO side, um, what that number looks like.

Because in my mind, in order for us to make uh a really informed decision, um that has to be at least a consideration.

I think you'd need an FTE, not a halftimer.

Yeah, there's a lot of things.

It's just gonna increase as we move forward.

It's just gonna get worse and worse.

Yeah, I would be sorry.

Whatever the number is, you know.

What's that?

I said whether it's halftime, full time, seven time.

I don't know what the number is, but I think over time, under time.

I just think it's important for us to have that information.

I I I don't know that that's the way we'd go as a board, but uh to me, I I feel like that provides us a clear picture and gives us an opportunity to decide a make a policy decision.

That's what you're asking us to do.

And that needs to be part of this in order for us to make uh an informed policy decision, in my opinion.

Okay.

So looking at the numbers of requests, I would be interested in what is kind of an average cost of the top 5%, 10% um of the research users.

And just so that we have an idea of what we're looking at uh financially.

Yeah, I thought I thought your um scenario was really interesting to say, let me have everybody that died from such and such a date to such and such a date that had a gun at the scene or whatever.

It's not you're actually researching for them to find those.

It's not let me why isn't it that they get to say I want all the death records for the five years and they do their own research so that you could just push the button.

Where in the law does it say we have to do the research?

And those are just questions.

It doesn't, but you see what I'm saying is why are we reading them all and finding the ones with the gun or the his Hispanic or the right?

It's like, no, here's the records, do your own research.

I mean, I'm not sure why we're I don't know, these are just things.

So I don't think we need any motions because we're just put on the record the things we'd like to look at, and you can bring it back.

Is that everybody's okay with that?

Bring it back.

Does that work?

Because we're not gonna, yeah.

Okay.

Well, I mean, Madam Mayor, I mean, if I may, just for for clarity.

Um, so if we're gonna bring this back, of course the DA's office is gonna be involved in this and coordinating with our our different clients.

Um, you know, policy and all that, of course, we'll leave to our clients and developing um, you know, as to legal angles, you know.

Of course, Todd and I, you know, we're happy to look at it.

It's just gonna be more Todd than me.

But um, I'm happy to look at it independently as well.

Um, one of those questions is to be clear was to address um Supervisor Jomey's question, right?

Whether or not a fee schedule could either um resident versus non-resident.

I guess a distinction in price, a higher price for out of state residents, and perhaps also to just prohibit release of records to out of state residents.

I I don't know if that's legal or not.

We'll certainly look into it.

I mean, I I'll just tell you preliminarily.

My initial gut feeling was you know, maybe that's not lawful, but after thinking about it for five seconds longer, you know, I started thinking about well, what about you know, state institutions like public universities?

You can charge a different tuition price for depending on residency.

And um I didn't clarify state, I meant county.

Um, we include state, yes.

Right.

Yes, right.

I mean, I just to be clear, it wasn't just it my thought is we have in-county residents for parks and rec for the landfill.

Why don't we have it for this?

We have so actually two questions then.

So county versus non-county residents, and then state versus non-state residents.

I mean, I would yeah, and we're happy to take a look at that.

Obviously, if they're out of the county, sure they're out of state, right?

Or they could be out of state.

They can be in Washoe.

Right.

If they're out of state, they're definitely out of county.

That's what I meant to say.

So we're we'd be happy to look at that, you know, as as a legal research um thing, and everything else.

Sorry, go ahead.

I was gonna say, and everything else will leave to matters of policy, and um, you know, and I just want to be clear.

I mean, lots of good discussion here, of course, and and the you know, part of it, you know, we started getting into legal philosophy, right?

I mean, and and uh, and you know, that's when I was really grateful to the mayor to kind of help bring this back on track.

Um I want to be clear just on behalf of the DA's office, you know, as much as we're involved in coordinating you know these schedules and and documents with our clients, you know, our our office, of course, we don't advocate for or against the adoption of any particular you know policy or any particular fee schedule.

I mean, Todd and I as the attorneys here, as well as the DA himself, you know, we're just heavily involved in looking at and exploring and making sure that we're on pretty solid legal grounds.

And again, we're just gonna say this as a preface again, uh, not to be redundant, but we cannot guarantee in the absence of binding legal precedent what the answer is.

It's just that based on our research as of today, we feel pretty positive on the position that we've landed on that this is the correct interpretation of the existing statutes.

So just off of the consideration of Supervisor Giome's request, uh who does matter.

Yes.

Uh in county or out of county, uh in city or out of city, however, you want that political philosophy to fly.

Um those folks, justice involved, you know, they they want the arrest reports, they want the videos of when they were arrested here in Carson City.

You certainly could not charge for that.

Right, because they're part of the case, right?

They're a party of another.

That's the right party.

Anyway, but that to me is part of what needs to be.

But I just wanted to agree.

Yes, I'm agreeing with that.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

So with that, everybody, we're all clear where we're going.

Okay, just making sure.

All right.

Then what we're gonna do is uh take a brief reset brief.

Uh, because I have a request for one.

So we're in recess for just five minutes.

Okay, thank you.