In April of last year, Justine Overacker got a surprising voicemail from Library Board Trustee Gianna Jacks.
“I’m just trying to reach out to you to follow up to multiple emails. I had a couple phone numbers, I left a message earlier,” Jacks said. “I also was gonna just try to send you a letter. If you could reach out to me, I appreciate your time.”
The message, which Overacker shared with KUNR, sounded friendly. But this wasn’t a social call.
By that point, Jacks had been hounding Overacker for almost a month over public comments she’d made about the controversial trustee. But Overacker, a Washoe County resident and library supporter, hadn’t contacted her directly, and still doesn’t know how Jacks got her email and phone number.
“It's kind of scary that she has that information,” Overacker said.
Overacker’s complaints stem from a KUNR investigation that found Jacks had an undisclosed financial relationship with Nichelle Hull, a conservative activist who was petitioning the library to limit access to books with LGBTQ+ themes and authors by reshelving them.
According to a District Court ruling in Texas, moving children’s books to the adult section is a form of unconstitutional censorship.
“I read that article, I got a little steamed, and I decided to write public comment,” Overacker said.
So she emailed Jacks’ fellow trustees and the Board of County Commissioners, who appoint library trustees.
“Accepting political donations and bypassing normal meeting procedures to benefit Nichelle Hull and Wake Up Washoe County is a blatant violation of the ethics standards. Furthermore, this may not be the only money Gianna Jacks has taken from an anti-library group,” Overacker wrote. “As a longtime Washoe County resident and library patron, I am calling for her immediate resignation.”
‘Send a full retraction and apology’
According to records Overacker shared with KUNR, Jacks went on to contact her at least nine times over the next year. The pattern began with emails — around one a week — and escalated to phone calls.
“I would like you to send a full retraction and apology of your false claims to the Washoe County BCC and me personally,” Jacks wrote in one such message.
Then, just over a week after the voicemail, Overacker received a letter from Jacks at her home address. Overacker said she didn’t respond, because she’d never wanted to speak with Jacks in the first place.
“She has no right to try to infringe on that freedom that I have — especially as a public official — just because she doesn't agree with what I wrote, or doesn't like it,” Overacker said.
Jacks didn’t respond to questions about why she kept contacting Overacker before this story was published.
After she got the letter, Overacker attempted to file a code of conduct complaint with Washoe County.
“She has gathered all my personal information and has borderline harassed me already,” she wrote. “I do not want to receive any further messages from Trustee Gianna Jacks and will seek legal action if necessary.”
A member of human resources staff replied, explaining that the county’s code of conduct didn’t apply because it’s an internal policy that only applies to officials and public employees, but Jacks went quiet for a while after that.
UNR political science assistant professor Brad Johnson is an expert on public administration, but admitted he’d never heard of a case like this before.
“This is a little odd, this situation, especially for a board that is appointed like this,” he said.
According to Johnson, library boards operate in a gray area. While county commissioners are responsible for appointing trustees, their role is defined in state law, and the only way they can be removed is if they miss three meetings in a row.
“It's created an insulated space, where this type of concern, it doesn't necessarily have a recourse,” he said.
A pattern emerges
Meanwhile, Overacker isn’t the only one who said she’s been harassed by Jacks. At the library board’s last regular meeting on Jan. 21, William Puchert spoke about his own encounters with Jacks during public comment.
“I personally was harassed at a local store and at my job by one trustee, and have heard allegations that this trustee has inappropriately contacted others who have been critical of the library board,” he said.
Puchert has been calling Jacks out for her connections to library antagonists like Hull for years. In 2024, KUNR found the trustee privately identified as a Republican. From her seat on the board, Jacks worked against a ballot question that would have renewed dedicated library funding, as well as Drag Story Hours co-sponsored by the LGBTQ+ rights nonprofit Our Center.
Voters rejected the funding measure, and Washoe County later canceled the popular children’s events after a librarian was hurt by a protester.
“I think if you serve on the board, you need to advocate for the library, but especially its employees,” Puchert told KUNR. “I was really disgusted by that.”
He also said that at around the same time Jacks was trying to reach Overacker, she approached him in person.
“I was working down in Carson City at the legislature. And she, as I walked around the hall, she confronted me and started to harass me,” he said.
Puchert made a beeline for the nearest elevator, because he didn’t want to engage while he was on the clock, but the harassment didn’t end there. Jacks confronted him one more time in Reno, while he was out having lunch.
‘Unbecoming of a public official’
A few months after Overacker complained to Washoe County administrators, Jacks submitted her own public comment. In a short note published during the November library board meeting, she appeared to take aim at Overacker once more.
“I don't know Dr. Justine Overton from UNR. Public Comments by this person in 2024 against me are false. I tried to contact her multiple times for any clarification,” she wrote.
Jacks also started emailing Overacker again.
“Hi Justine, once again I am asking you to remove your FASLSE [sic] statements about me,” she wrote in January.
This time, Overacker responded, telling Jacks to stop. Jacks hasn’t contacted her since, but Overacker’s still frustrated that she doesn’t appear to have faced any consequences.
“If anything, I feel more strongly about my original comments, because she's acting in a way that is unbecoming of a public official in my opinion,” Overacker said.
Library Board Chair Ann Silver didn’t directly respond to emailed questions about whether she believed Jacks’ behavior was appropriate.
“Each one of us on the Board has received nasty and harassing e-mails and letters, regardless of the point of view, and it has taught me that it's been both a privilege and a punishment to serve on the Library Board,” she wrote. “We are all targets during the public comment period.”
Silver also said she doesn’t criticize her fellow trustees, and prior communications obtained by KUNR in a public records request seem to bear that out. After the story about Jacks’ connection to Hull came out, she emailed Silver a link to a blog post seeking to delegitimize the investigation’s findings.
Moments later, Silver replied.
“GREAT piece; it’s an embarrassment to the station and fact-checking. Glad it was basically ignored at the last Board meeting,” she wrote. “Support from this end.”
