Rebuilding Trust in Local Government with Respect and Decorum

Sierra Nevada Ally

By: Noah Glick

November 2, 2023

Earlier this year, Washoe County Commissioner Mariluz Garcia had enough of what had been months of disrespect from the public during county commission meetings.

“Three minutes to talk about an agenda item, address the body as a whole, no personal attacks, no relevant statements, no unduly repetitious comments. These are basic rules for respect and decorum. However, these rules are not being followed,” she said at the end of the July 11 Board of County Commissioners meeting.

She was referring to a recent trend of residents acting hostile during public meetings. Many hurled insults and interrupted proceedings from the crowd, others harassed and intimidated county staff, and many commenters leveled personal attacks rather than policy critiques.

“It’s not about me, you can throw all the punches you want at me,” Garcia continued. “But your attitude and your behavior in chambers day after day for the last six months…this is not okay. Our community is better than this.”

Garcia noted that public servants were resigning rather than dealing with the harassment from community members. But, this is not just an issue in Washoe County. It’s nationwide, across elections offices, city councils and even school boards.

Kurt Thigpen was elected to the Washoe County School Board in 2020, and resigned the following year due to medical issues he was experiencing from stress, due in large part to negative treatment from the community.

“I received a lot of harassment behind the scenes, folks reaching out to me on social media,” he said. “My address and phone number had been doxxed. And so it just got really scary there for a while.”

During Thigpen’s short tenure on the Board, he was dealing with COVID-19 mitigation issues, including masks and hybrid scheduling, in addition to false claims about critical race theory being taught in schools. However, he said community members weren’t coming to meetings to talk about these issues, or to propose solutions, but rather to intimidate and threaten staff.

“Somebody brought a gun into one of the board meetings, which has been well documented. And we had a safe room at that point that we would go to if something were to happen,” he said.

The impact of this lack of decorum affected more than Thigpen and his own health. He said he witnessed a staff member break down in tears over fears of what could happen at one of these contentious meetings.

This rise of vitriol toward public officials – and the subsequent rise of resignations – also has an impact on the ability of government to function. At one point in 2021, the Elko County School Board had five of seven seats vacant due to resignations, and the board had to cancel an October meeting due to threats of violence.

“You can see it all the way from people not wanting to show up at a school board meeting and doing public comment, to our Elections Department(s) not having enough people to run an election, or a school not having enough people to open the school, or the Planning Commission may not be able to actually function to make sure development is happening,” said Sondra Cosgrove, history professor at the College of Southern Nevada.

With an election year fast approaching, Cosgrove said it’s critical that elections departments are fully staffed and workers feel safe.

“I know Joe Gloria, who was at the registrar of voters here [in Clark County] resigned because the stress was hurting his health. But it was not just him. It was also you know, people who just work in the office, the people who are making sure your voter registration is taken care of,” she said.

According to reporting from the Associated Press, more than half of Nevada’s top election officials, as well as several staff members, resigned between the 2020 election and 2022 midterms. And a University of Chicago study found that more than one in four Americans feel so alienated from their government that they believe it may “soon be necessary to take up arms against it.”

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar championed a bill in this year’s legislative session that makes threats and intimidation tactics against election workers a felony. That bill, SB406, was signed into law by Gov. Joe Lombardo in May.

While new policies can be passed and offenders can be admonished or punished for their actions, what else can be done to bridge divides in this hyper-partisan and divided political culture?

One potential solution is called the Dignity Index, a project of UNITE, a collaborative effort with the goal of bringing people of walks of life together to solve problems.

“What role can we play in addressing the toxic political divide? And people will say, ‘Well, the problem is, obviously immigration.’ And other people say, ‘No, the problem is, obviously, the national debt.’ ‘Well, actually, the problem is abortion.’ The actual problem is the contempt that bubbles up when we have discussions about areas where we disagree,” said Tami Pyfer, Chief of Staff & Vice President of External Affairs with UNITE, during an Oct. presentation to the Washoe County Board of Commissioners.

The index scores public speech on a scale of 1-8. Lower scores (between 1-4) reflect divisive language rooted in contempt, while higher scores (between 5-8) reflect language grounded in dignity. The group presented its work to the Washoe County Board of Commissioners in its Oct. 24 meeting.

Pyfer told commissioners that the index is designed to be a check on our own behaviors and language. For example, referencing people as “MAGA Republicans” is at least an automatic four, because it shows contempt toward a person or group of people.

Pyfer said people should disagree all the time, but the way we do it matters, and she outlined a handful of ideas to keep in mind while having hard discussions.

“First one is to be curious, not furious, find out why people think the way they do, that’s a seven,” Pyfer said. “The second one we’ve listed here is regulate, then debate. When you start to get upset, pause and take a breath before speaking…listen to hear, not to respond…challenge ideas, don’t attack people…[and] acknowledge knowledge. When someone else makes a logical or interesting point acknowledge their point.”

After hearing the presentation, Commissioner Garcia acknowledged that she could also do better in how she responds to criticism and debate. She shared a personal story of a time she had to bring her daughter to work due to a snow day, a day where dozens of commenters showed up to speak out against Drag Queen Story Hours at county libraries – something that wasn’t on the agenda that day. Her daughter asked her, ‘Why do so many people hate drag queens?’

“And my response to her, I rated myself as a three. My response to her was, ‘Baby, there’s a lot of people in this world that hate things that are different than them, and things that they don’t understand.’ What I should have told her as I was walking up those stairs is, ‘They are feeling this way because of their own lived experiences and backgrounds. But guess what? Mommy has a meeting with them. I’m meeting with two people in the next couple of days, I’m going to sit down with them, I’m going to hear their perspective, I’m going to listen.’ And that’s what I should have told her,” Garcia said.

Commission Chair Alexis Hill wrapped up the meeting saying she would like to add language in commission rules around dignity, inspired by the index.

Former Washoe County School Board Trustee Kurt Thigpen also hopes to see better civil discourse from residents, so more people feel empowered to serve, rather than scared.

“We as a community need to make a concerted effort to welcome diverse opinions, and not tear each other down for those things, because it’s everyone’s right to come and give public comment. All I ask, and I’m sure other people ask, is that you do so respectfully, with civil discourse in mind,” he said.

“That’s what democracy is all about.”