Team Storey – A Culture Of Thuggery

One of the reasons I started The Teller was to provide another side of the Recall Sheriff Antinoro story in February of 2017. Sheriff Antinoro was shouldering an onslaught of remarkable smears from Team Gilman and the Good Old Boys (GOBs) infecting Team Storey. Hell-bent on ousting our Sheriff, Storey County Commissioner Lance Gilman and his thugs pulled no stops (while dropping $160 large) trying to remove from office the man we voted in.

Commissioner Gilman and Team Storey was at the forefront of the recall effort. My sources tell me that County Officials (elected and not) pressured county employees to sign the recall petition. While on the job and in the employ of County Taxpayers. Many members of the GOB network signed the petition to recall Sheriff Antinoro.

Commissioner Gilman is not alone in his thuggish behavior. Jim Miller Sr. and Jr. used their badge and the gun to intimidate and harass folks they deemed below the standards of their tiny patch of dirt. If someone rubbed anyone in the 5 families who think they run this place the wrong way, they would feel the oppressive fist of the County punch them in the face. County Officials inspected and red tagged properties of the unfortunates. Licenses were denied. Roads went unplowed. Hippies and bikers (like the ones who fill Virginia City to the delight of Marshall McBride and other drug dealers, errr…. bar owners during the puke crawls and Street Vibrations) got beat up and run out of town. Or worse.

A Nasty Culture

This culture of thuggery was alive and well when I was a kid growing up on the Comstock. I got bullied in elementary school and finally left Storey County’s School System the day I got beat up in fifth grade. Hugh Gallagher and all teachers watched the Goober Del Carlo whip me without intervening. Hanging out at the swimming pool was baptism by fire thanks to shallow minded, mean-spirited behavior. Behavior handed down from father to son for generations.

Through it all, the County was and still is, chock full of good people. But to survive, they have to remain silent and tolerate this thuggish behavior so as not to attract the thuggish behavior to themselves. Back then, people kept their heads down out of necessity. Their business needed the permission of the GOBs to stay open or remain profitable. They, or their wives or husbands or in-laws, were employed by the county and would get singled out if they didn’t toe the line. Their kids were in school with the kids of the bullies who were carefully trained in the culture of thuggery.

Thankfully, things are changing.

Cool Comstock Classic Car Club Culture

During my 30 year hiatus in California, one of the many things I did was to join a car club. About twenty years ago I bought a 1969 Pontiac GTO and wanted to learn about my newly acquired “goat”. I joined The Northern California GTO Club. and during my 15 years with the club, I attended hundreds of car shows and outings. Hanging out with like-minded car enthusiasts and going to car events all over Northern California and Nevada was a ton of fun.

I became one of three “Tri-Power” club presidents and represented our club for 12 years before moving home. We were an eclectic bunch and came from all walks of life; wealthy and modest, young and old, black and white, Republican and Democrat. Our love of America’s OG Muscle Car brought us together and we left our differences at the door while we worked for charity and furthering the culture of Classic Cars. I had a ton of fun.

Over the last two years, I have attended the annual Comstock Classic’s Car Show (click here and here to see the cars!). I know many members of the club and they are great people. My experience with the club members as well as the volunteers at the shows was nothing less than wonderful. In talking to people in July, the attendance was slightly lower than in 2017. I was looking forward to joining the club and helping apply my experience in helping put on dozens of successful car shows to the Club next year.

I talked to Ambre and Kevin Chevalier about this year’s show and they gave me the information that helped me recognize the award winners and promote the club. Kevin invited me to attend the August meeting held at his home business, Chevalier’s Custom Auto Restoration, behind Divide Fitness. He was friendly and hospitable and even gave me a bolt for my fuel pump so I could get the GTO ready for the Labor Day Parade. Nice!

When I arrived, I recognized more than half the people there and was happy to be back in the car club business again. Or so I thought.

Thug Culture Is Alive And Well

My excitement changed to awkward disappointment before I had a chance to sit down. I was about to sit next to Joe Curtis when Joe got up and declared “Well, I’m out of here. I won’t say anything in public with this guy in the room!”. He stomped out as the folks in the room glanced at each other uncomfortably. Moments after Curtis stormed out, Jack McGuffey arrived. Despite the mountains of criticism that I have heaped on him here in The Teller, he sat next to me and was very cordial. The meeting resumed and was over in about 40 minutes. I thanked Kevin for the bolt and talked cars with the club members. All in all, Joe Curtis notwithstanding, it was a good meeting.

As the meeting was wrapping up, I noticed two of the members I didn’t know quietly talking to each other as they shot me sidelong glances. I shrugged it off and talked to Club Secretary Tom Rahme who promised to send me an application so I could pay my club dues and become a card-carrying member. He assured me it would be in the mail in the coming week.

Soon after the meeting, I checked the mail, and sure enough, the postman delivered. Or so I thought. When I opened the letter, I saw that Thug Culture is still alive and well here in Storey County.

Dear Mr. Toll:

Thank you for your recent interest in the Comstock Classics Car Club. At this time, we are not able to accept your request for application.

Sincerely,

Kevin Chevalier – President

Bad People Hurting Good People. A Storey County Tradition.

All clubs have criteria for entry. Our GTO club was for Pontiac GTO’s. But we let folks who had GTO clones (LaMans dolled up to look the Olomogato) and the newer Holden Manero kludge-mobiles. But we didn’t discriminate for any reason. The only time we kicked someone out of our club was for being racist to one of our black members. Other than that, we were a large friendly family.

What happened to make Kevin change from the warm, welcoming host who dug through his bolt bin to get my car on the road to the guy who sent me that letter? Was it was my long hair and cowboy hat? Was it because I have both a GTO and a Volkswagen? Was it because I put together The Teller? I can’t tell you because I don’t know. But I can guess.

I’m guessing that Joe Curtis found a couple more soft-skulled inbred thugs and decided that they weren’t going to let the likes of me in. They then intimidated the good people in the club to go along with them or suffer the consequences, just like they did with Sheriff Antinoro during the recall election and just as they do to everyone in the county who doesn’t see go along with them. I’m guessing that almost all of the other people in the club don’t even know this happened.

By doing what thugs do, be it in a car club, County government or the Storey County School System, these mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging asshats harm the good people of this County. Good people like Kevin are forced to go along with their chicken-shirted vileness or suffer intimidation and fear. With intimidation and fear, they have run over our community for generations.

But we can change all that together.

To quote Edmund Burke, the only thing for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.

With The Teller, I am doing something.

The right people like what I do, and the right people don’t.

Put A Bully In His Place, Punch A Bully In The Face

Goober Del Carlo and his pals taught me hard lessons growing up. They also helped forged me into the person I am today; a fearless advocate for the vulnerable. In the short life of The Teller, dozens of folks have reached out to me to advocate with them against the thugs that lurk in the shadows wielding their ugliness. I have reported on many of the things they told me. Almost every one of them asked for anonymity so they would not suffer repercussions.

In my shorter time running for School Board, I have been contacted by parents who want to see an end to the bullying and nonsense that has been a tradition of VCHS since forever. I promise that if elected, I will advocate for every single child and will do my level best to eliminate the generational culture of thuggery handed down in Storey County.

I often say that the best way to deal with a bully is to punch him in the face the second (s)he starts in on you. But the truly best way to deal with a bully is to make them irrelevant by standing up to them. Standing up to them is powerful because, to a person, they are cowards. And they won’t bully someone they can’t intimidate.

Stand Up And Vote For Change

The good news is that these fools are drifting further and further into their own little cesspool of irrelevance. They are losing their grip on our County. More and more “newcomers” who aren’t trained in the ways of these thugs are calling Storey County home. Many of these people have stood up to the garbage already. With each act of defiance, the cowards lose another bit of power. Soon enough the old guard will collapse and give way to people who truly want to make this The Richest Place On Earth for all of us, not just a select few thugs.

Electing me for Storey County School Board will be another small step we take together in stopping the culture of thuggery.

Join me on November 6th. Together we can be the change we want in our County.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. – Bishop Desmond Tutu