RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — An incumbent on the Reno City Council who has been elected citywide prior is now trying for the first time to get re-elected in his own neighborhood — Reno's Ward 5.
Three other candidates are taking on incumbent at-large councilman Devon Reese, who was appointed to the at-large seat in 2019 and won the at-large election in 2020.
But with the pending elimination of the at-large seat and creation of Ward 6, Reese faces a new challenge of getting approval of Ward 5 voters only. The district, in pink in the map below, covers northwest Reno and includes communities like Somersett and Verdi.
Reese faces Brian Cassidy, Sheila Browning Peuchaud and Tara Webster in the Ward 5 election. The top two vote-getters in the June primary will advance to the November general election.
All four candidates chose to participate in News 4-Fox 11's Know Your Candidates 2024 series. We asked all candidates several questions, including about affordable housing, downtown revitalization and more.
Click the candidate's name to watch their full interview.
Brian Cassidy
Cassidy, the owner of Junk King Reno, said he moved to Reno from southern California about 10 years ago because they wanted to move to a smaller town. When asked the most pressing issue facing Reno right now, Cassidy said two — public safety and seniors.
"It's public safety. It's seniors. I don't think we're supporting our seniors enough. I mean, these are the good folks have built our city for us and they are the history behind it. I'd like to see more resources, we're giving a ton of resources to homelessness which (I'm) all for it. And we should be doing that. But I think we should be doing an equal amount to our seniors. But again, I'm all for public safety and police and fire. And I think that's our backbone to this city, because if we can't have a safe city, then we can't have a vibrant city," he said.
Devon Reese
Reese is a lawyer with the firm Reese Ring Velto who has been on the council for about 5 years. He touted the creation of new affordable housing units in his tenure and other steps taken to make the permitting process more efficient for developers.
"We've been really focused on things that help us to get plans through permitting and processes more quickly. We've been talking a lot about how do we incentivize the kind of housing type that we need, whether that's through density bonuses, that sort of thing. But also, we've really tried to make sure that the housing stock we have stays in an affordability component because it doesn't do us any good to get more housing if the housing we already had falls off of the affordability matrix," he said.
Sheila Browning Peuchaud
Browning Peuchaud moved to Reno in 2015 to become a professor at the UNR Reynolds School of Journalism. She's been a journalism educator for almost 20 years.
"As a citizen, I have been concerned about sort of a lack of transparency coming from Reno City Council. It feels like a lot of important public issues only come before the public eye once they're already sort of a done deal. And I don't think that that's the way democracy should work. And so I'm running to really bring an emphasis on democracy and transparency and ethics to Reno City Council," she said.
"It's really important to me that I'm not running against anyone. I am running for my ward, my Ward 5, and I'm running for my core values of transparency, commitment to service and, making sure that we're building a Reno that really works for the people who live in Reno."
Tara Webster
Webster works in the nonprofit sector as an outdoor science advocate. She currently serves on Reno's parks commission and is a volunteer with multiple nonprofits and mutual aid groups.
"The first reason (I'm running for office is ) that I really think that we are lacking some compassion with our current city leadership. And we need some fresh voices, fresh faces on the dais. The next reason is really just it's so important to me to bring the community into a lot of the decision making process that I think that they're getting left out of," she said.
"From what I'm hearing on the street is a lot of people really do feel like they are not heard, that we have a lot of development coming in that folks don't want. And, it's impacting everyone's way of life."
To help voters make informed decisions this election year, News 4-Fox 11 is publishing and broadcasting dozens of interviews with candidates who will appear on the June primary ballot.
In fairness to all candidates, they were asked a series of similar questions. We are posting the full interviews online so voters can watch their responses in their entirety.
Visit our Know Your Candidates 2024 page to view the tentative race preview schedule and meet other candidates.
