Minden siren to sound no more

The Minden siren is well and truly silenced, Town Board members acknowledged on Wednesday night.

No vote was taken, but all four of the trustees at the meeting acknowledged that a law prohibiting its sounding was definitive, after hearing a report from attorney Ryan Russell.

Russell said that after Senate Bill 391 was passed earlier this year by an overwhelming majority and signed by the governor, the town could face a $50,000 fine per instance, should the siren go off.

Town Board Chairman Steve Thaler said that while the sound of the siren has gone away, its echoes clearly remain.

“I truly want that sound to go away, but I can tell by the amount of people here that unity is not here,” he said. “If (the unity) is not there, that sound will still be in everybody’s mind.”

It was the first time the town publicly discussed the issue over the past three years since Washoe Tribe Chairman Serrell Smokey sent a letter asking that the siren be silenced in August 2020, board member Brian Davis pointed out on Wednesday.

The following year the Legislature approved a bill supporting silencing the siren, but Smokey and Town Manager JD Frisby agreed to move the time of its sounding.

That might have poked a hornet’s nest in the Legislature, when Sen. Dallas Harris found out it was still being sounded at 5 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.

Carson City resident Valerie Melendez, a Yerington Paiute, said she was unaware of the siren’s significance until one lunch in Minden.

“We were sitting there, and we were all enjoying talking about things, and all of a sudden at about 5 minutes to 6 p.m., everyone started moving their chairs and started looking at me,” she said. “They moved their chairs because they knew the siren was going to go off and they wanted to see my reaction.”

When the siren sounded, she asked the first responders with the group why they weren’t leaving.

“Don’t you have to go answer that siren?” she related. She was told the siren wasn’t for first responders.

“That’s to tell the Indians to get out of town,” she said. “I go, ‘What?’”

She lived in Yerington before moving to Carson City and she’d been to Carson Valley many times for events but had never heard about the siren.

“I went home and asked my dad, ‘You know that siren that goes off in Minden?,’” she asked. 

“Oh, yeah, it’s to tell the Indians to get out of town,” he replied.

Washoe Stacey James said her great grandparents saw settlers arrive with their wagons.

“You guys will never hear, but we hear it constantly,” she said. “It’s in our blood.It’s in our DNA, in our children’s DNA. That’s what is in that siren and it scares our people, because of the memories and historical trauma that we hear, because that’s what our ancestors went through.”

Resident Marlena Hellwinkel disputed the claim that the siren was intended to tell Native Americans to leave.

“A law is a law, and what is done is done, and it is what it is,” she said. “The Minden siren was never installed to tell the Native American it was time to go home. It was installed solely for the purpose of telling volunteer firemen to save properties no matter where, Gardnerville, Jacks Valley, Dresslerville, it called the volunteer fire department.”

Resident Sheila Kendrick said she recognized residents feel passionate about the town.

“Regardless of the reality, that siren is divisive,” she said. “There’s fact and there’s perception.”

Assemblyman Ken Gray suggested that perhaps the town could do something else to honor first responders and veterans besides the siren.

Ruhenstroth resident Susan Minor suggested that way to honor first responders would be to pay them more.