News - March 30, 2026 - by Ray Hagar

Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson and City Councilwoman Charlene Bybee have agreed on most issues since 2014 -- when Bybee was first elected to the council and Lawson was already an incumbent.

"We both have been with the city so long, we see what the issues are and what the problems are," Bybee said recently on Nevada Newsmakers. "So we are in agreement on a lot of things."

Bybee, however, noted two major disagreements with Lawson in her career, telling host Sam Shad that they both occurred during one of the most controversial chapters of the city's recent political history.

Now, Bybee and two other candidates -- Diana Mackey and Wendi Rawson -- are challenging Lawson in the 2026 Sparks mayor's race. The primary election is June 9.

  The episodes where Lawson and Bybee were in opposition dealt with the bungling of the removal of Fire Chief Mark Lawson by City Manager Neil Krutz back in 2022.

It eventually led to a Krutz losing his job, with Mark Lawson filing a wrongful termination and defamation lawsuit, which cost the city $381,000, according to published reports.

In the first disagreement, Mayor Ed Lawson was required to cast the deciding vote on council's motion to fire Krutz, Bybee said. He voted in favor of Krutz keeping his job, Bybee said.
Bybee wanted Krutz removed.

"In the years that we have served together, ... we've had a few times where we disagree, but not anything big until we had our issue with the city manager, who we did wind up firing," Bybee said of Mayor Lawson.. "But initially, only three of us voted to remove him, and the mayor had to vote because we needed four council members.

"So we kept him (city manager) another four months, and we did eventually, let him go," Bybee said. "And a lot of it had to do with the city manager's handling of our fire chief that he was let go."

Bybee and Mayor Lawson were also on opposite sides as the controversy mushroomed.

"The fire chief turned around and sued us," Bybee said. "So the second issue that I was on the opposite side of where Ed (Mayor Lawson) stood, was on that lawsuit.

"Two of us (on the city council) voted to accept a settlement that our city attorney, Wes Duncan, had settled down from $411,000 to $170,000," Bybee said. "And we voted to accept that. And the mayor didn't get to vote, but heavily influenced ... and did not want us to pay him a nickel.

"And really, for me, we had liabilities," Bybee said. "It wasn't that I wanted to pay the fire chief, but we had liabilities because of the city manager's actions. And we held that liability."

The eventual settlement, "cost $210,000 more for the City of Sparks, because we did wind up settling eight months later," Bybee said.

"So I felt I was on the correct side of both of those," she said.

The issues surrounding the former city manager and fire chief "were the most major the City of Sparks has faced," Bybee said, who is term-limited in her role on the city council in November.

  Communications ability

  Another key difference between Bybee and Mayor Lawson are their methods of communication, Bybee said.

"I think my approach and how I work with people, is where we differ," Bybee said. "And people say that to me all the time. I work really well with people. And so how we (Lawson and I) get there (to the solution), is probably a little different.

Shad asked Bybee if she thought Mayor Lawson didn't communicate well.

"I'm not saying he doesn't, but I think, his communication skills ... his communication skills are not as strong as mine are," Bybee said. "And I hear that from voters at the door, other people who are frustrated, frustrated with a lot of things, a lot of challenges that we're facing right now."

Bybee later clarified: "Our goals might not be a lot different, but how we get there is really the difference."

  Frustrations of living in Sparks

Living in Sparks now can be frustrating because of the massive amount of traffic. It is a result of city's rapid growth. That growth is partially due to the success of the nearby Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Storey County. It is home to major corporations such as Tesla, Switch, Google and others. More than 20,000 workers commute to the TRIC daily, according to published statistics.

Many of those workers travel on I-80 from Reno and Sparks. Others come from communities such as Fernley and Fallon.

The eight mile stretch of I-80 between Sparks and TRIC is consistently hampered by traffic jams and accidents that can shut down traffic for hours. Afternoon and morning traffic across east Sparks, including I-80 on- and off-ramps at Vista and Sparks boulevards, is often slow, stagnant and bumper-to-bumper.

  "We have the growing pains of all that growth," Bybee said. "And it's evident every day on our roads with traffic, the amount of traffic and the wear on our roads and the infrastructure from sewer capacity, fire and police.

  "We're stressed because of the growth," she said.

  Plans to ease the traffic between Sparks and the TRIC include a widening of I-80, although the narrow canyons and Truckee River will make that a difficult and expensive solution.

  Lawson's proposal for a toll road connector from Northeast Sparks to I-80 -- to alleviate the traffic to-and-from the TRIC -- went nowhere at the 2025 Nevada Legislature.

  The Regional Transportation Commission is also studying a project to move 4,500 workers via a potential train service to the TRIC daily, according to reports, reflecting long-term expectations of increased employment levels.

  Bybee noted that past negotiations between the City of Sparks and the Union Pacific Railroad have had rough edges.

  "I'd like to be optimistic about that," she said about a rail line to TRIC. "It's a little tough because of our recent experience with Union Pacific," Bybee said, referring to past negotiations to save historic buildings on railroad property.

"They were difficult to work with.

"But at the end of the day, I would love to see rail," Bybee continued. "I would love to see that as an option to utilize rail to help with that problem on I-80. And the thing with I-80, it's so frustrating because that should have been widened there five years ago."

  Bybee acknowledged the $1 billion estimated cost of the I-80 expansion project, but added:

"When the whole TRI Center started booming, they knew what the traffic studies of future traffic would be. And I know that is going to be really disruptive to get it widened. And we can't do anything about the fact that we are where we are, but it is in a crisis mode."

Bybee suggested having Elon Musk's Boring Company drill a tunnel to the TRIC to move workforce traffic. Major economic considerations are at stake, she said.

"It's super important for people to get to work and get home and get there safely," she said. "But it's also interstate commerce. We're interrupting interstate commerce every day on I-80 with all the accidents. So I would love to see another talk about The Boring Company doing a tunnel, the rail option. I think all all options are on the table. And I would support whatever we can do. "