Letters to the editor for Thursday, April 20, 2017

Music festival being held with support of Howell family

The Last Response Memorial Fund, in the process of organizing A Day In Remembrance of Deputy Howell, our benefit music festival taking place on Aug. 19 in Carson City for the benefit of the children of Deputy Carl Howell, has received questions from friends, neighbors, and supporters regarding the nature of Deputy Howell’s family’s support of our event.

Since we first started to organize the event, we took great pains to include Deputy Howell’s family ... and secure their support. To that end, we received explicit support from Deputy Howell’s parents, siblings, his children and his siblings children; his father, Kevin Howell, is a member of our board and has been instrumental in planning the event from the very beginning.

We received this support by putting Deputy Howell’s children’s interests first, by planning the event transparently with the community and his family, and by remaining sensitive to the emotional and material needs of Deputy Howell’s family from start to finish.

We recognize that, like any family, there may be some that have strong differences of opinion regarding the best interests of Deputy Howell’s children, regarding the role of a concert featuring 15 live performing groups in relation to those interests, and regarding the role of a music festival supported by more than four dozen businesses throughout Reno and Carson City and also nationwide in relation to those interests.

Even so, we take great pains to remind the community, our friends, and our supporters that we have been and continue to actively work with Deputy Howell’s family — with his father, his mother, his stepmother, his sisters, his brothers, nieces, nephews and his children — in a manner that is sensitive and consistent toward our mission to put the interests of Deputy Howell’s children first and foremost, and we would never plan a music festival in his honor without the expressed support of Deputy Howell’s family.

We thank the community for its continued support and we look forward to seeing you at our music festival on Aug. 19.

Don Alexander

Carson City