outlandish | outˈlandiSH |

adjective

1. looking or sounding bizarre or unfamiliar: outlandish, brightly colored clothes | the most outlandish ideas.
2. archaic foreign or alien.

Storey County is looking for a new County Manager to replace the soon to be retiring Pat Whitten. In an effort to be as transparent as possible, the County has hired a Linda Ritter to help them select the new manager. According to Ritter, she will select between 5-7 candidates from the pool of applicants. Those candidates will be interviewed by two separate panels, one panel made up of citizens of the county and one panel made up of county staff.

The citizens panel would consist of two appointees from each Commissioner (presumably people from their districts) and three citizens selected by the county manager. The county panel will be consist of county staff managers.

Ritter expects the panels to interview the candidates near the end of February. She will then “pick the top two or three candidates” for County Commissioners to interview in the beginning of April. After the Commissioners select the next County Manager and that person will sit side by side with Whitten to learn the ropes.

Tangent: If Ritter selects the pool of the applicants and then picks the best two or three after the panels weigh in, is her thumb on the scale?

Listen up

Here is the audio for the entire agenda item.

It’s nearly 23 minutes, so the tldl (too long, didn’t listen) version is listed above and Nicole Barde saying three weeks isn’t long enough to get qualified interested parties from outside Northern Nevada to apply and Kris Thompson saying Storey County was founded by three cowboy county commissioners and a retired banker and we don’t need no stinkin’ outsiders from San Francisco mucking up the works.

Here is Thompson’s audio from the meeting. I provide it because I will submit it to you, gentle reader, as evidence that the county already has Whitten’s sucessor waiting in the wings. The entire process will, by design, prove to young and old that Human Relations Manager, Planning Director, Public Information Officer, Assistant County Manager and Man of Mystery Austin Osborne is the only person on the seven billion strong planet to occupy the County Manager’s throne.

Connecting The Data Dots

First, along with Kris Thompson’s lusty endorsement for an inside man, there are other noteworthy data dots to connect. Second, the county advertised for a senior planner to take Osborne’s place once he is annointmed County Manager. I predict the role of Planning Manager will transfer to Crony Contractor (and according to my sources in the Fire Department, acting Fire Chief) Gary Hames’s Community Development, where it rightly belongs.

Finally, if you attended the Northern Nevada’s Development Association’s January 23^rd shindig at the Fandango, you would have had the chance to see the heir apparent in action.

As you can see, four out of the five Counties were represented by their County Managers. Austin Osborne represented Storey County.

By now you are wondering why in the world I chose the word outlandish as the word of the day.

Tangent. Being a guy who loves words, I wonder out loud: what does it mean to be inlandish? Can something be simply landish? Ponder on, Wayne. Ponder on Garth.

Here comes the reveal. Freshly minted County Commissioner Jay Carmona runs a number of county information pages on Facebook. Apparently someone else sees this excersize for what it is and Commissioner Carmona took umbrage to her wondering on the book of faces.

There you have it. To insinuate this process a sham is “outlandish”.

I’ll be direct and call it a formality. No insinuation required.

If you think I’m wrong, I’ll take even money on Osborne.

Line up, I could use some easy money.