Why local solutions matter
With barely any political experience, Roy Stoltzner jumped in late for a spot on the Reno Nevada City Council in 2024. Stoltzner didn’t advance beyond the primary but has an interesting and successful background as a perfusionist; he easily rattles off precise descriptions and facts about open heart surgery when asked.
His wife is a primary care nurse practitioner, seeing everybody in her clinic from pediatrics to geriatrics. “It’s great to have a job where you could see the good you are doing for somebody,” says Stoltzner. “It’s not something where you ever ask, ‘Am I making a difference?’”
At friends’ suggestion, Stoltzner ran for city council, but he concedes he’s happy for somebody else to get the job if they are better at it. He says, “My main concern is that my views and the things that I believe in are represented on the council.”
It’s clear that Reno’s explosive growth is stressing the infrastructure of the city. Stoltzner has unique insight into this problem, as he worked with his dad in construction, and his great-grandfather started a successful construction business in Chicago. “There are still houses marketed as Stoltzner-homes in Chicago to this day, built by my great-grandfather,” he adds.
“I know from past work if you pay a little bit more, but you can get your permits faster, get hooked up faster on the front end even if it costs more, you’re going to make more money on the back end because you’re not stuck in limbo by the regulatory environment.” Stoltzner explains that many of the permit fees were supporting local infrastructure expansion, but some of that was scrapped during the Great Recession to try and stimulate the local economy.
“That was one of the ways that I wanted to work both with our public utilities, work within the city government itself and the builders to make the process pay for our infrastructure and then make sure that they’re streamlining and doing it smarter.”
When asked what advice he would give to local candidates considering a first-time run, Stoltzner says, “Start a year early and talk to as many people as you can. Get your name out there.” He knows he missed out on some critical voters because his name was not in front of a few of the key groups in Reno. “They were enthusiastic about my candidacy, after they found me, but had already committed their resources to somebody else.”
Stoltzner says empowering local politics and communities is vital for a successful and healthy political process. “One of the greatest aspects that drives more and more division is that we have centralized so much power, not just in the federal government itself, but in the office of the presidency.
The sheer number of decisions made through executive action, if you would have shown the founders what we are doing now, it would be horrifying to them.”
He points to recent events and issues that played a big role in reminding people of the importance of federalism but adds there can be an extremely short attention span with modern politics.
“As far as the stuff that affects you in your day-to-day life, in my ideal world, that is handled as locally as possible,” says Stoltzner. “COVID, for example, at least from a state-to-state level, brought federalism to people’s attention because you could see how dramatically different it was handled in Florida or California.”
Stoltzner adds that he’d often take a national issue being discussed and localize it. “You wouldn’t think that as a Reno City Councilman, one would have any influence over what’s happening at the border, which is true,” he says. “What you can have influence over is whether or not people come across the border illegally and then come up to Reno.”
He talks about the important pull factors for illegal immigrants in terms of the kind of services the city is offering or the decision about being a sanctuary jurisdiction. “We may not be able to change the broad policy at the border, but there are reforms we can make locally so that we’re in the best situation as a city and for residents.”
At the same time, Stoltzner makes it clear that he supports more immigration if it’s done legally and is comfortable with “taking in more immigrants than many Republicans are comfortable with,” adding the caveat that “we need a secure border.”
From a big-picture perspective, Stoltzner notes that federal entitlements are creating a climate where more workers are needed and not many are willing to pay substantially more in taxes to stabilize that system. “If they are motivated to work and we can streamline the process where they pay their dues and become citizens, that makes sense.”
Stoltzner says it was a challenge to run in a non-partisan election because the current political process can be polarizing.
“I’m much more of a small government person, especially by staying tethered to the principles of federalism.” He’s critical of the Republican Party and some of the overall messaging that doesn’t resonate, pointing to bad candidates that appeal to certain subsets that are running for office. “We’ve made it more difficult to vote Republican. We’ve done a poor job of communicating and marketing ideas.”
He says a lot of people in Reno are conservative, but now identify or lean independent, which aligns with the growing trend nationally of voters shedding party identification.
If one reads Stoltzner’s candidate questions on Ballotpedia, they see a principled person who is passionate about local governance. He cites “The Federalist” and the relevancy of Andrew Jackson and Calvin Coolidge’s presidencies for their fiscal discipline and responsiveness to the people.
“The arguments made in the Federalist Papers are not only key to understanding the intentions behind the U.S. Constitution but also continue to be relevant in discussions about federalism, the balance of power, and the role of government in society today.”
