Carson Perspective: Don’t throw dirt on Werner’s Carson public-sector career yet

It was almost a Mark Twain-Dave Swarbrick moment for Carson City’s city manager recently. Larry Werner was asked point-blank if he would retire soon. He didn’t duck the question.More on the renowned Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and the lesser-known Swarbrick soon. As for Werner, he said retirement isn’t in the cards — yet.He said a rumor about it surfaced because of matters he characterized as separate. One was a health scare he said turned out to be more scary than serious, which got him thinking.The other, which he insisted was unrelated, involved something he floated to supervisors — individually, he said, to conform with open-meeting law — about prospects for having a deputy city manager.Marena Works, director of the city’s Health and Human Services Department, was mentioned as a possible choice. He later said that was because health and human services loom large among city issues.He said he figured based on reactions, however, that this might not be the time. As he put it, he could use a deputy, but he isn’t prepared for a big fight if the idea sparks one.Werner, the city’s administrative manager for five years, has said he had thought of retiring from his public-sector career before he was offered his current post in 2008. He has said he enjoys the job.As for Clemens, whose writing pseudonym was Twain, he famously was quoted as saying after hearing his obituary had appeared in the New York Journal: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” But perhaps a quote from Swarbrick, a British folk-rock violinist (or is that fiddler?), also is fitting.The Daily Telegraph in 1999 mistakenly reported his visit to a hospital in Coventry had resulted in his death.“It’s not the first time I have died in Coventry,” Swarbrick joshed.Other items from this reporter’s notebook: Carson City’s Board of Supervisors will hold a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. on Valentine’s Day in the Sierra Room of the Community Center. It will give Werner and his city staff members direction on crafting city government’s fiscal year 2013-14 budget. Supervisors usually meet the first and third Thursdays each month, but staffers recently indicated that issues have piled up to the point where the board will be meeting most Thursdays this winter. Supervisors also sit on various citizens’ advisory panels, which means more meetings than residents might realize. Some examples: Mayor Robert Crowell, Reconstruction of the V&T Railway; Karen Abowd, Convention & Visitors Bureau and Cultural Commission; Brad Bonkowski, Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) and Debt Management Commission; John McKenna, Parks and Recreation Commission and the RTC; Jim Shirk, Airport Authority and Nevada Association of Counties.• John Barrette covers Carson City government and business. He can be reached at jbarrette@nevadaappeal.com.