Our Town Reno

In this Our Town Reno episode, reporter Lauren Juillerat interviews a local Reno band, Faded Shawties, on their experience and perspectives on the local music scene. Nico, Eduardo and Daniel share their opinions on lighthearted topics such as their favorite foods to eat before a show, to more serious topics concerning the recent cancel culture in the Reno scene, as well as their mission as a band to be welcoming and more inclusive to communities around the Biggest Little City.

In this Our Town Reno episode, our music reporter Lauren Juillerat hosts Reno photographer and videographer Jake Erwin on his experience in the local music scene. Jake only started pursuing photography and videography in 2021 and rapidly learned new skills that helped him gain new opportunities in northern Nevada. Success this early on in a photographer’s career is rare. Jake shares his advice on how to be successful in this creative field as well as his back story. Listen in for an inspiring tale, essential tips and tricks, and guidance when it comes to thriving in photography and making music videos.

A resident of Curti Ranch, now in Ward 6, since 2005, a mom who battled to get one of her son’s to overcome childhood leukemia, and a professional in marketing for decades, Brandi Anderson wants south Reno to no longer be overlooked in terms of parks and recreation, public safety, and solutions-based infrastructure. Listen to her interview as she begins her campaign for a seat on Reno's City Council.

Before his mother passed away at the end of 2022, Michaelangelo Aranda remembers she used to call him “Mayor Michael.”

His father, who is currently struggling with health challenges, set the bar even higher. “When I had shared with him that I'm running for city council,” Aranda says, he told him he hopes to stay alive to see him as president.

“I don't know if I will career that far,” Aranda told Our Town Reno during a recent podcast interview.

For now he’s one of many candidates for our city’s new Ward 6, with a campaign website extolling “Reno Born Reno Ready.”

Listen to Aranda make his case for his campaign by listening to this episode which is part of our political series on 2024 northern Nevada candidates.

Heather Goulding, running for District 27 of the Nevada State Assembly, rides bikes whenever and wherever she can, including on her commutes, and with big tires, she handles all weather and steep inclines.

Goulding, currently a senior project manager in utility energy efficiency programs, is bringing that can do spirit to her campaign to become a representative for a district encompassing portions of the North Valleys including Panther Valley and Sun Valley.

Listen to her reasons for running in our latest in a series of political episodes ahead of 2024 voting.

With two fourth place finishes in previous citywide mayoral elections, William Mantle, a raw data person who likes to ask questions, is now running for Ward 6, the new ward in South Reno with about 40,000 residents, high home prices, wild horses and plenty of new multi-unit apartment complexes. Listen to his interview as part of an Our Town Reno podcast 2024 local election series.

Erica Roth, a civil rights attorney now running for Nevada Assembly seat District 24, traces back her willingness to serve in elected office to help she gave as a public defender to a now incarcerated man. Listen to her make her case as part of our series of episodes looking ahead to 2024 elections.

Sparks-based Nevada Forward Party chair Cesar Marquez explains how he went from Tesla employee to operative for the Andrew Yang led Forward Party in the Silver State, as well as strategies for the 2024 election, including a final push for ranked choice voting and open primaries to pass.

It’s the end of an era here, the end of our weeklies, we’ve consistently produced over the past two years for podcast platforms and for KWNK.

We’ve interviewed people struggling on the streets and volunteers who do good to help them out, as well as movers and shakers, artists and illuminaries of our community, radical thinkers, doers and promoters.

As we’ve gone independent, we no longer have the reporter bandwidth to be able to produce one episode every week.

Going forward we will have occasional episodes. We are thinking of new types of interviews such as reporter’s notebooks with prominent journalists in the community, looking into cold cases or having audio mini documentaries as we once did at our beginnings.

Thank you for being faithful listeners and keep us in your subscription as pretty soon a new episode here and there will pop up, not as a regular feature anymore but as an occasional bonus, to inform, to enlighten, to give sounds of our Reno, Our Town Reno, the biggest little streets, still rad, still getting better, growing, but in need of tlc, of vintage, of keeping public spaces public and of helping each other out.

We will continue our regular postings on the BiggestLittleStreets Instagram which we are proud to say for a hyperlocal initiative has over 17k followers, on the Our Town Reno Facebook which has over 11k followers, on our Twitter/X, TikTok where one video got over 600 thousand views, on the Our Town Reno threads and Reddit where we need more followers to continue.

We also have a weekly Our Town Reno Substack which you can get by email every week.

If you’d like to contribute to this hyperlocal reporting endeavor you can subscribe via our Facebook for three dollars a month, via our Substack for whatever amount you choose with your credit card, and if you have Venmo via the ourtownreno account.

This is an archive episode of people of living on the streets in Reno, Nevada, with serious health challenges and how they cope as best they can. Marcus is nearly blind and has other complications due to albinism.Tex has been given a timeline to die from cancer. Ian suffers from mental health challenges.