Heat Wave

With the temperature rising in Palm Springs are city officials maybe losing their cool?

In the last few weeks, there have been questions raised about the design of downtown Palm Springs and later questions raised about the ethics of developer John Wessman applying for a million dollar tax rebate from Riverside County and the city as the result of lawsuit brought by the Agua Caliente Tribe. Wessman later withdrew his request when it was made public by the local newspaper.

Now as I have spoken about before, one of the great things about living in the Coachella Valley is the “small” town feel. But one of the detriments is the small town hyper sensitivity seen in local officials.

Look no further than just a few weeks ago when some members of the public complained about the design of some downtown buildings. In response, Mayor Steve Pougnet sprung into action by denouncing those who had raised questions. I think his actions surprised many.

Myself, I was more disappointed than surprised. I have known Pougnet for over a decade and felt he was above this type of behavior. For far too often in the past, Palm Springs has been led by people who were hyper sensitive to anyone questioning their decisions.

My message to city officials is as follows: If you want to be perceived as being hip and trendy, you have to be cool. If you want to be cool, learn to keep yours.

Buzz Kill

Last week it was officially announced that the Palm Springs Trolley was coming!!It has a new, survey approved name, The Buzz. According to the official agenda the new name and trolley implementation were decided by an “Ad Hoc Stakeholders Committee”. Forgetting that assault on the English language, it remains to be seen how the Trolley will work in reality.

It will run 4 days a week from Vista Chino to Genn Autry on Palm Canyon and then back on Indian. It will be free. Starts at 11a and ends around closing time Thursday thru Sunday. Costs almost a million dollars a year to run.

Now there are quite a few unanswered questions regarding the Buzz.

1. Will locals be able to ride it?
2. Will the disabled be able to ride it?
3. Will the Buzz have security because believe it or not, some people may

have been drinking before they board?

This will be an interesting experiment. The city has already activated it's, “How cool are we!!” PR machine to get the word out.

As always, the devil is in the details and for a cost of a million dollars, these details should be released as soon as possible.

Sticking With Goats

It has been almost 20 years since more than 55 million dollars was spent on the downtown redevelopment of Cathedral City.

One of the major problems with the project has been the complete eyesore of 2 empty lots right smack front and center on Highway 111. There have been many proposals in the past and now a new one has come down the pike.

Somehow out of thin air, city officials hope to conjure up over 3 million dollars using a variety of sources to turn a 2 block area, yes a 2 block area into a virtual smorgasbord of items.

Somehow it will feature a festival walk, with 2 amphitheaters, plus wellness and energy parks. All within an area a little bigger than a football field. No new home for an NFL expansion franchise?

Now color me skeptical but a project of this magnitude does not seem to be based in any sort of reality.

The city doesn't own the all the land in question and plans to possibly use kick starter or crowd funding to also help offset cost. A recipe for complete disaster.

The local paper quotes some expert that more 1,224 crowd funded projects raised 10.74 million dollars in 4 calendar years. An average donation of 25 bucks per year. Yikes.

This is one of those silly ideas that seem to float up from time to time but have no basis in reality.

Years ago, I proposed the city grow grass and provide goats on the lawn to deal with the problem of growing grass. It still sounds better than this proposal.

Palm Springs Gets A Reality Check

I have had the great fortune of getting to know Hank Plante.. Hank relocated to Palm Springs a few years back after a tremendous career in journalism winning numerous awards. He has always been very kind to me and it is appreciated.

Hank has a column coming out tomorrow in the Desert Sun and it could be a defining moment in the downtown redevelopment of Palm Springs. I am not going to steal any of Hank's thunder so you are going to have to read the article but it is critical of the designs submitted by developer John Wessman for the the retail phase of the development.

It is going to be interesting to see how the political elites in Palm Springs act upon reading Hank's article. So far one councilman, Paul Lewin has sided with those who want perhaps a different design.

I have been covering politics in this area for almost 15 years and one thing I have learned is that the some of our local politicians can be hyper sensitive to any criticism real or perceived to their grand plans. While Palm Springs tries to portray this cool, hip image to the rest of the world, many times its political leadership is strictly Mayberry RFD. Hank has gravitas that the Palm Springs leadership will find hard to shunt aside.

It is ironic that I find myself not as concerned about the downtown renderings submitted by Mr. Wessman as I am by the obvious lack of tenants that are to fill the new buildings. We have been promised now for a few years that “National and prominent” tenants are lining up. If so who and where? 

The next few days around here are going to be interesting and I for one can't wait.

Murrietta Madness

It has been nearly a week since a buses carrying undocumented immigrants from Central America were turned away by protestors at a Murrietta check point. In a moment reminiscent of Bull Connor and the embarrassing George Wallace movement, the worst of America turned out to demonstrate.

Conspiracy theories, Islamic terrorists, and of course fear and ignorance gave our county a bad name. In fact even the mayor, who at first was a chief cheerleader and the town's city manager later said these idiotic protests were not the image the town wanted to project.

Jeff Stone, a Riverside County Supervisor and candidate for the State Senate addressed a town hall meeting and demanded that the border be made more secure. Stone who never met a PR opportunity he didn't like even drafted a letter to President Obama saying “He was willing to meet with him” to discuss all the issue.” Well I am sure the President will get on it right away.

The amount of ignorance in this matter is startling. The people were shipped to Murrietta to be screened and in most cases deported. Throw in some racism and you get the rest of the picture. Thank goodness for the citizens of Coachella who are collecting items for these refugees.

Also what was interesting to me was the amount of people who came out to support the undocumented immigrants. I think the Tea Party types were stunned that even in Murrietta, there were demonstrators who were willing to stand up to them in 90 degree heat.

The “Crisis At The Border” will soon be handled like all such in the past. However the stench out of Murrietta may take some time to dissipate.