Greg Nuttle, A Nutt in the Mayor’s Race, Talking Sense and Listening to the “Real Reno”
Greg Nuttle is playing off his nickname Nutt as he runs for Reno mayor on a platform of responsible growth, affordable housing and downtown development, which he concedes is not unheard of.
His originality comes from the Nutt in his campaign visuals, his sincerity, his listening aptitude, his promise to follow through and his approachability.
“I want something to get attention,” the 49-year-old downtown Reno bartender and resident explained of using his nickname, even if he admits to some “mild concerns” about how it might sound to some.
“I talk to the real Reno, every day. Everyone is just trying to make it here. And I hear over and over about frustrations,” he added.
He says his website nutt4reno.com may not be too different besides the name than what voters usually come across.
“But then nothing happens,” he says of his experience watching others win council seats with lofty promises. “That's what pushed me to run. It's not because I think I have all the answers, but I think that the city needs leadership that's actually paying attention to real people and not donors. I'm not taking any corporate donations. I'm running this campaign with the support of my friends and my neighbors. And I want to hold our government responsible and accountable to the real things.”
Nuttle says he tried several times previously to meet with his Ward 1 councilmember Kathleen Taylor, initially selected and then elected, and now also a mayoral contestant. He says he never got anything back from her, as has been our own experience.
As he picks up his campaign activities ahead of June primaries, he will be one of those taking part in the April 21st debate at TMCC, while he recently introduced himself within a political discussion on the Reno subreddit, diverging from his usual comments on that platform about crossword puzzles.
“I need to hear people that are going to come at it from a crazy angle like that,” he said of some of the back and forth that created.
Nuttle has been a Reno resident for over two decades now, and he says much more consistent effort than what he’s seen needs to be applied to revive the downtown area. An Indiana native and former working grad student in California he was initially hired in Reno as a Director of Grad Student Services at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Living in south Reno at first, he came to love the “weird and funky,” downtown areas “in exactly the right ways. This is home for me. And everyone that knows me knows.”
More recently though he views the destruction of all the motels mishandled. “You lose that central core part of the downtown community. You also are eliminating how many units of low income housing with absolutely zero plan to replace that.”
Nuttle also says he would work to reverse the city’s much derided, at least on the national level, 2021 ban on possessing or using whips in the downtown corridor.
“It has to be like the most tone deaf law and stuff. People that are upset about that are not the people who live downtown,” he says of those who complain about people using the whips for creativity and communicating.
“I’m not coming at it from a political background. I'm coming at it from talking to people every single day,” he said of his campaign approach during our conversation. If elected he says he will follow through on concerns he hears from locals and not be at the service of those who bankroll the major candidates in this race.
“I’m going to keep things grounded. I want to make sure that decisions are reflecting real experiences, and … that things actually get done. And I'm going to listen. I am going to be the guy who actually cares about what people say,” he concluded.
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