Unfireable man makes reckless decision | Reno Memo

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The U.S. Postal Service made it somewhat official on Tuesday: They're moving mail-processing operations for Northern Nevada to a site in Sacramento. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy compared the decision to a "crime scene" -- and that was a phrase he used to defend the decision. He also admitted the move will slow mail delivery for 10% of Nevadans; on the other hand, it's going to save the USPS $2-3 million out of its $85.4 billion budget.

(To put that into perspective, it's like the median Nevada household saving $3 . Have you ever found $3 in an old jacket pocket and thought, "Finally, this is the big break I've been waiting for"? Yeah, we haven't either.)

And it's not just Nevada -- senators from Georgia, Oklahoma and California also expressed serious concern about worsening mail service.

Could DeJoy be fired for incompetence? Unfortunately, no . He only answers to nine members of the USPS Board of Governors, who serve seven-year terms; each those members only can be removed early by a vote of the U.S. Senate. We all should be so lucky as to have 100 politicians and nine bureaucrats standing between us and a pink slip.

More houses! Well, a few more

Home prices continue to hold at high levels , but there's relief on the way. Sort of. Toll Brothers has filed an application to build 57 high-end single-family homes just east of the South McCarran-West Fourth Street intersection. And while it's interesting to see luxury single-family homes built inside the McCarran loop, we should note that it's along a fairly picturesque bend in the Truckee River between Crissie Caughlin Park and Idlewild Park.

The lot sizes would be pretty spacious -- the maximum allowable density for the site would be 30 units per acre, and Toll Brothers is proposing to build just 10 units per acre. On the plus side: If we coordinate this right, we could have everyone in town just upgrade to a home that's 57 homes better than where they're currently living. It's going to be pure chaos for a few months, but totally worth it. Jason Hidalgo has more .

With the new housing project, we could hire 57 new superintendents

The Washoe County School District is spending its Friday interviewing candidates for its next superintendent, and they're hoping to hire someone who will put down roots and stay a while. As of now, there are five finalists -- one from Florida dropped out, but was replaced by a candidate who's already working for WCSD. As of now, there are three internal candidates, plus one each from Texas and Arkansas.

If you'll recall, Washington State transplant Susan Enfield, the previous superintendent, resigned earlier this year after less than two years on the job . While it's fairly illegal to force a candidate to actually buy a home here, WCSD says they're looking for “an owner, not a renter.” Siobhan McAndrew has more .

This week in health inspections: Mold gets creative

What got moldy at Washoe restaurants during the first half of April? Public health inspectors only caught a few things during routine inspections -- nacho cheese, random food containers, and also ice scoops. Did you know ice scoops could get moldy? They're only touching ice! (Theoretically.) Now that's all we're going to be thinking about every time we get a soda from somewhere.

Also discovered during the inspections: an employee who checked the temperature of rice by using his bare hands. Here's the full rundown of health citations issued between April 1 and April 15 .

The rundown

• A win for local bike culture: Trek Bicycle opens showroom on South Virginia
• Man steals front-end loader from Reno, drives it two miles to smash it into Sparks pawn shop . Hard to believe there wasn't a more convenient pairing of a construction site and a pawn shop around here
• Should Nevada start charging everyone who wants to run for president ?
• Wolf by Vanderpump Tahoe restaurant opens with shirtless wolf models and pomp . We'd give anything to send this headline back to 1954 and ask Renoites to make sense of it
• Reno ranked 60th-best city to survive zombie apocalypse , but we got low marks for our lack of basements to hide in. (Why would you try to hide in a basement during a zombie apocalypse?)
• Las Vegas-to-Southern California high-speed rail line breaks ground . It should be up and running before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles , allowing international visitors to come up and see what their home landmarks would look like if there were slot machines inside them

Who's winning the internet?

The $9,420 flamethrowing robot dog , for sale just in time for wildfire season (and somehow totally legal to own in Nevada).

Brett McGinness is the engagement editor for the Reno Gazette Journal. He's also the writer of The Reno Memo — a free newsletter about news in the Biggest Little City. Subscribe to the newsletter right here . Consider supporting the Reno Gazette Journal , too.

This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Unfireable man makes reckless decision | Reno Memo