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City outlines public-engagement plan and Reno Direct role as residents press for faster service updates
Summary
City staff reviewed a draft public-engagement plan and described Reno Direct as the service-intake hub; board members and residents pressed for clearer guidance on when to call dispatch versus filing Reno Direct tickets and for more timely updates on open service requests.
Naimi Gomez Martinez, the city's community relationships manager, told the Ward 1 Neighborhood Advisory Board on Feb. 9 that staff are finalizing a public-engagement plan built on an outreach review performed in June 2025. She said the review included 358 survey responses and more than 300 community contacts and emphasized hybrid meeting formats and informal engagement methods.
"When we say public engagement is how are we engaging with our community," Naimi Gomez Martinez said, explaining the IAP2 participation model staff plan to use and noting that informal, interactive formats ranked highly in the survey.
Staff also explained how Reno Direct functions: it serves as a customer-service hub that takes calls, chats and online requests and routes them into ServiceNow for departments to create work orders and respond according to department service-level agreements. Staff said departments (for example, the Clean and Safe division for encampments and a parking division under Reno Police Department) manage the priorities and responses.
Board members and residents raised repeated concerns about responsiveness and clarity. Several speakers said that reporting abandoned or unregistered vehicles and homeless encampments through Reno Direct sometimes results in long delays or closed cases if the issue is not present when crews arrive. Maya Johnson and others asked for clearer guidance on whether to call nonemergency dispatch, file a Reno Direct ticket, or use 911 in borderline situations; they urged more frequent case updates so residents know a request is being handled.
Staff acknowledged the problem and said they would pass operational feedback to departments, consider process improvements (including periodic updates on open cases), and pursue invitations for Clean and Safe or other department staff to present to the NAB in a future meeting.
Next steps: staff will pass the board's operational concerns to service managers, explore options for more regular case updates, and consider inviting Clean and Safe or parking-division staff to a subsequent meeting to clarify procedures for encampments, parking, and interagency handoffs.
