The Fernley City Council spent about 40 minutes at its tentative budget meeting on April 2 questioning and discussing a key portion of the city’s proposed reorganization that would eliminate the city manager and deputy city manager positions and replace them with a chief operations officer and a chief development officer. The discussion focused on how responsibilities would shift, how the new roles would function, and whether the changes would reduce outsourcing and improve oversight.
No decisions were made, but the council indicated a willingness to explore the matter further with more details during its final budget process.
Fernley has been without a city manager since last May, when Ben Marchant resigned during budget discussions. At that meeting, the council voted 3–2 to defund the city manager position, a decision Mayor Neal McIntyre later vetoed before Marchant offered his resignation.
The council interviewed two city manager candidates in January but did not select either one. Since then, Mayor Neal McIntyre has proposed the reorganization without a city manager, and at the April 2 meeting, Finance Director Robert Carson presented the plan to gauge the council’s interest.
“So if you guys agree to this tonight in principle, we will start working on the job descriptions, how everything maps out, the policies, what you're going to be included on, how the mayor's going to work with you, how it's going to flow through everything,” Carson said. “I don't think all those details have been worked out just yet.”
Councilman Ryan Hanan asked whether the two new chief officer positions would be appointed the same way as the city manager by the mayor with council confirmation. City Attorney Aaron Mouritsen said the council could require confirmation but recommended against it, saying the roles are intended to be executive-branch functions selected by the mayor. He said council oversight would still occur through annual public evaluations and through budget authority. Requiring confirmation, he said, “muddies the waters” between the branches.
Councilman Albert Torres said he was on board with the idea, comparing it to two chiefs of staff and splitting up the span of control. He also advocated for keeping mandatory council involvement in evaluations, saying earlier attempts to raise concerns about the former city manager were blocked at six and twelve months, contributing to the problems that emerged later.
The reorganization proposal also includes new positions for a grant administrator and a public information officer. Torres also suggested the city consider contracting out public information work, saying the grants administrator will be fully occupied with major projects and that outsourcing PIO duties could save money.
“And there’s a lot of PR firms out there that would love our business,” he said.
Councilwoman Felicity Zoberski said she initially believed the grants administrator could handle both grants and public information but changed her view after considering the workload. She said a full-time grants administrator should be searching for grants “day in, day out,” and a dedicated PIO should be fully engaged in social media, news outreach and community groups. Carson said the intent behind the PIO position was to expand communication capacity the city currently lacks and provide consistent outreach to nonprofits, the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations.
Carson added that the PIO was proposed because the city does not currently have the staffing capacity to push out the amount of information residents expect. He said the role would be forward-facing with community groups and responsible for press releases, social media and outreach the city cannot currently sustain.
Carson said the reorganization also includes creating a parks and recreation superintendent to supervise four dedicated parks employees and help the chief operations officer with maintenance and other planning. The goal, he said, is to prevent deferred maintenance and avoid large cost outlays to get parks back in working order.
Zoberski asked whether supervisory staff would have the expertise to create departmental plans, such as a parks or cemetery master plan, without hiring outside consultants. Public Works Director Barry Williams said planning would be a coordinated effort between supervisory staff and the chief operations officer. Some outsourcing would still be needed, he said, but the new structure would reduce it.
Zoberski said she would feel more confident in adding leadership positions if the city could handle more work in-house. Carson said recent hires, including engineers, a SCADA specialist and an electrician, have already reduced outsourcing costs, and dedicating supervisory staff to specific areas would give them the capacity to take on more planning and technical work internally.
Carson walked the council through the proposed organizational chart, noting that appointed positions remain unchanged. The chief development officer would oversee planning, building and the city engineer. The chief operations officer would oversee public works, utilities and the new parks superintendent. He also outlined how utilities and parks staffing would be organized under the new structure.
During public comment, resident Alisa Rhyno asked whether the city would use a recruiter to fill the new chief officer positions or consider internal candidates. Mayor Neal McIntyre said no decisions have been made and that internal promotion is possible, but discussions would not occur unless the reorganization is approved.
“If this passes, then we’ll sit down and talk about those positions,” he said.
Carson told the council he didn’t have answers for many of their questions because the purpose of the discussion was to determine whether they wanted to move forward. Without committing either way, council members indicated they were interested in hearing more details before making their decision.
“That’s why we’re having this conversation tonight in an open meeting,” Carson said. “The mayor will solicit your information and your input and talk to you about this. It’s not like we’re just going to come do it and come to a decision and then present it to you. It will be done in coordination with you all.”
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