Do you plan on moving to Pahrump, being that its housing prices are likely well within your budget? Well, let me tell you, Pahrump could really use an injection of people who have the smarts to bring it out of the Wild Wild West. Let me give you a hint of what goes on here.

Here in Nye County’s biggest town, we are dealing with a totally inexperienced, rogue group of library trustees assembled by Commissioner Leo Blundo. The board has repeatedly broken open meeting law, but they and Blundo don’t seem to care. They just keep pushing forward with new violations.

In the board meeting last month, the trustees were required to rescind seven illegal actions they took at the June 2021 meeting. The trustees claimed these items were rescinded because they were not properly listed on the agenda, which is true, in a way: They rescinded what took place at a closed meeting. What they didn’t rescind or apologize for were their illegal actions, as follows:

They put Ms. Wonderly, the beloved, long-time library director on administrative leave without honoring her legal right to be told they were going to talk about her in a closed meeting (NRS 241.033). They also took away her legal right to be present at the meeting (NRS 241.033a), her legal right to have a representative or attorney there (NRS 241.033b) and her legal right to present her side of things (NRS 241.033c).

Trustee Dave Ochenreider out and out lied to the public when he stated that the result of the closed meeting was simply to give Ms. Wonderly a “paid vacation to honor her service.” At the closed meeting, they said she was being put on administrative leave for breaking two NRS codes (for which no evidence exists). Typical behavior for the Blundo Board of Trustees.

This is not about "procedural discrepancies.” This is about repeated violations of open meeting law and abuse of the public trust. This is about the disrespect and emotional harm inflicted on Ms. Wonderly. And this is about the lack of an apology for any of it.

Blundo’s chosen board members should resign for their lack of transparency, lack of ethics, and lack of corrective action. Those not convinced of this should be aware that even more open law meeting violation complaints have been filed with the state attorney general, including several more violations at the most recent meeting. The statutory limit for those and more current violations have not expired. Neither has the law which says violations can carry fines of up to $2,500 for each offense. That’s how seriously the state takes it when someone breaks open meeting laws (NRS 241.040).

As for the board’s lack of ability to hire a new library director, Ms. Wonderly announced her retirement more than nine months ago, yet a group of three hand-picked trustees has been unable to find a new one — mainly because they aren’t trying. These men are much more interested in having an acting director in place who, before being elevated to the top job, was a clerical administrative assistant. They gave her a $20,000 raise to do a job she wasn’t trained for and doesn’t know how to do. She holds none of the required qualifications to be a director. She only has one qualification that matters to them: She is willingly under their thumb.

Still not convinced? At the meeting this month, Blundo brought in 40-50 men to disrupt the meeting and rally against us, a small group of women. These were men we had never seen at a library trustees meeting before. They called us nasty names, made obscene gestures at us, interrupted us, and even moved their chairs to block us as we went to and from the podium. But we prevailed and didn’t give up. We won’t bend to school yard bullies over something they don’t know anything about: library administration.

Nye County commissioners appoint the library trustees, but they so far haven’t done one thing to see that the outrageous actions of these men are stopped. I requested a recall be put on their agenda almost two months ago and nothing has been done. Men who didn’t even have library cards until they applied for the trustee positions, and who have no experience directing a business, let alone a library, have no business on the board. 

Still want to move to Pahrump? Maybe you could make a difference. We’d be grateful.

CJ Stevens, a resident of Pahrump, NV, is a retired executive director of a large non-profit serving the needs of seniors and special needs individuals. She is a committed advocate for transparency in government and enjoys hobbies including HAM radio and geocaching.