DHS City Council - December 6

The audio recording of this meeting of the Desert Hot Springs City Council is available here. For those keeping count, there are now four large TV displays in the Carl May Center. They all four show the same thing.

Certification of Election Results

There were 2,160 votes cast in the election—1,482 of them by mail, or 67.6%. The official totals are now:
Mayor
Alex Bias: 273
Robert Bentley: 493
Yvonne Parks: 1,324

Councilmembers
Karl Baker: 537
Russell Betts: 1,557
Adam Sanchez: 1,403

City Clerk Jerryl Soriano swore in Russell Betts and Yvonne Parks. Adam Sanchez was sworn in by his own pastor, Jesse Sanchez.

Recognition Of Karl Baker

Mayor Parks presented outgoing city councilmember Karl Baker with his name plaque and a resolution.

The meeting then recessed for a 30-minute reception.

After that, the meeting reconvened with Adam Sanchez at the dais.

Mayor Pro Tem

Mayor Parks appointed Jan Pye as Mayor Pro Tem, confirmed by the council 5-0.

Senior Center Report

Erin Begley presented this update on the Senior Center. This is the first report since Family Service Association took over the contract to manage the Senior Center. They've done a needs assessment and have added a lot of programs including a flu shot clinic, blood pressure checking, sugar checks, bingo, bridge, crafts, tap dancing, popcorn & a movie, digital photography classes, hula. Special guests come in biweekly. They get more than a thousand visitors a month. The number of people coming for lunch hit a record on November 16 when 108 people ate lunch at the Senior Center. Homebound meals are also provided three days a week.

Mayor Pro Tem Pye said she had talked to several clients of the Senior Center and they said they are thrilled with the improvements.

City Manager Daniels pointed out that in contracting out Senior Center management, the city has saved money and gotten a much more robust Senior Center program.

Public Comments

Lorraine Becker, President of Cabot's Foundation, said there will be an artisan fair at Cabot's Pueblo December 17 from 10 AM to 3 PM. That will include a rummage sale of trading post items that they need to move.

Paul Pharez said that Thomas Paine had said "To submit yourself to any earthly king is an abomination." [Perhaps he meant this as a paraphrasing of something Paine wrote, because I can't find anything like it when I search Paine's writings on-line.] Then he paraphrased chapter 8 of the first book of Samuel, say that all an earthly king does is take from the people for his own benefit. "Atop, today, the United States Supreme Court [building] engraved is the Ten Commandments. Behind the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court is an image of Moses carrying the Ten Commandments." [Here's the page at Snopes.com that describes where the Ten Commandments actually may appear at the Supreme Court: the eastern pediment of the building does depict Moses holding two tablets. Along with him are Solon and Confucius. Inside the building, behind the Chief Justice is a frieze which includes a tablet with Roman numerals I through X. The designer said they represent the Bill of Rights, not the Ten Commandments. Moses carrying a tablet showing some of the Ten Commandments is in a frieze on the south wall. The full text of the Ten Commandments is not engraved anywhere at the U.S. Supreme Court building.] Mr. Pharez cited the commandments against stealing and coveting. He asked "Why do elected officials receive benefits from the taxpayers when they are no longer in office?" He said some people question whether James Madison actually said "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments." (More info on that quote here.) "But then again you have the engraving of the Ten Commandments there over the United States Supreme Court." [As I pointed out above, there is no such engraving, and the U.S. Supreme Court building was constructed while FDR was President, not Madison, and the court first occupied it in 1935.] He suggested that the government and the people are morally reprobate. He said he wants his country back.

Bruce Montgomery said anyone who wants to come see what the Christmas Store is like can come to an open house on Saturday, December 17, from 11 to 1. The Christmas Store will have been open for two days prior to that, and it will be open again in the following week, but on the day of the open house there will be no families shopping there. The Christmas Store is at Grace Church, 17400 Bubbling Wells Road.

Jim Provance talked about a front page article in the Desert Sun entitled "New Plan To Link The Cities." It's going to link Desert Hot Springs with the rest of the valley. It sounds great and wonderful. It will be useful for recreation, it will attract tourists, however, it uses some of the $53 million mitigation money that "all of Coachella Valley is getting" from the new peaker plant being built in DHS. Every city in the valley has to give up their portion of the mitigation funds, including Desert Hot Springs. He asked the councilmembers to comment later. He asked "What is our portion?" The city has already submitted a 4-page list of projects to the county supervisors that could use some of the mitigation money. What is the benefit to the city from this project? "When we say 'yes' to this what are we unknowingly denying for ourselves, the current children and the future of Desert Hot Springs."

Paul Tapia, President of the Police Officers Association. The police officers contract expires at the end of December. They've been in negotiations for 5 to 6 months. "It's time to get this done. This city is the way it is because of the officers that work for the city." The people are safe because of the police officers. The officers risk their lives daily for the city. "We're not asking for anything." He asked the council to review the proposal.

He also talked about the toy drive for 750 kids on December 17. He said the American Legion would host it [later information says it has been moved to Miracle Springs Resort].

John Martin said Junior All-American Football and Cheer had a very good year. Two of the teams made it to the conference playoffs. The Elks Lodge, the Elks Auxiliary, Cal-land (?) Properties, Hidden Springs Country Club, Desert Dental Group, all donated a thousand dollars or more. The high school clinics are already scheduled for 2012 in January, March and May. In February is the Tour De Palm Springs which they will be working to support and raise money from.

Russ Augustine, President of the Chamber of Commerce, introduced Heather Coladonato, the new Business Development & Marketing Director for the Chamber. She said she has lived in the Coachella Valley since 1991. She wants to grow the Chamber, add value to current Chamber memberships, and bring new positive perspectives about Desert Hot Springs and the Chamber. Friday, December 16, 1:30 PM is a ribbon cutting at the Pop Shop, a new business. The Spa Tour is February 2, 2012. Ticket sales are underway. Tickets can be purchased at visitdeserthotsprings.com or at the Visitor Center.

Dot Reed thanked those who supported the holiday tree lighting. Two Girl Scout troops helped. Boys & Girls Club had a choir. She said the holiday lighting contest judging would take place that week. She read this quote:

Everything you do or say
will make a difference.
If it is mean or only partly true,
it will come back to haunt you.
If it is real and true it will have a
"butterfly effect"
and make the world a better place.

Roger Rice spoke on behalf of AYSO. They are finishing up their regular season. 625 kids, age 4½ to 16, participated. Tournaments commence in January. Area tournaments will be in Desert Hot Springs. These will draw about 5,000 visitors over three weekends in February. The tournaments cost about $2,400 and they are looking for sponsors.

Bruce Barrett spoke about the senior lunch with the city manager. He said it takes a lot of courage to take criticism and go a step beyond and say "I will accept responsibility." He commended Rick Daniels for doing that. We have gotten into innuendos, transparencies, "and this needs to be addressed." He suggested all the councilmembers set aside time to meet with constituents. He suggested something like "Donuts With Russ."

David Johnson from Food Now thanked everyone who helped with the holiday feast. They fed over 750 families, more than 2,200 individuals. 42% of them were senior citizens.

Sonora Drive

Councilmembers Scott Matas and Russell Betts recused themselves from this matter, but Attorney Duran said that at least four votes are required to approve a Resolution of Necessity, so he and Mr. Matas bent their heads over the map. The final decision was that Mr. Matas had no apparent conflict and he un-recused himself.

The piece of land in question is described as "an eight feet (8') strip of land along the east side of Sonora Drive between Avenida Dorado and Avenida Jalisco and a corner cutoff at Avenida Jalisco." Total area is 7,347 s.f. The value of the land has been appraised at $1,837. the engineer's estimate of the cost of improvements is $62,000. The school district has said it will contribute $50,000. The balance will be paid by the city. The city has made an offer to buy the land, and the owner wants a lot more money. He was, apparently, not at this meeting, although he had been notified of this opportunity to speak.

The resolution of necessity was approved 4-0.

Consent Calendar

Approved 5-0 without discussion were these two items:

• Acceptance of a donation of a painting by Carl Eytel along with a book of his writings. The staff report described it as an "oil painting," but a more detailed description of the painting says it is "Framed pale watercolor painting with pencil drawing on heat browned or brown paper or cardboard. The subject matter is an oasis of 7 Palms on a hillside with mountains in the background." [Why the council didn't have a 20 minute discussion on this discrepancy, I have no idea.]
  
• Awarding the contract for 8th Street rehab to Matich Corp., the low bidder at $231,984. The only other bid was from Tri Star for $267,149.90. Both business satisfy the local business preference.

Festival Producer RFP

This is the Request for Proposal/Request for Qualifications for a producer of a music festival that was put together by the Festival Advisory Committee. Councilmember Betts asked that this item be pulled from the Consent Agenda. He asked if there would be a future session (closed or open) to discuss the disposition of the "past effort." He thanked the Festival Advisory Committee for their efforts. He asked about the blank dates on the form that all show the year 2011. He wondered if they actually plan to do all of that, including awarding the contract, within the next month. City Manager Daniels said that they didn't know which council meeting they would bring this to, so they didn't know what dates to put on the form. The RFP will be out for a 4 to 6 week period. Then there will be 2 or 3 weeks to do technical review to check for compliance. Then the committee will go through them for about a month and select 3 (probably) firms to interview. That will take another 2 or 3 weeks. Then it could be brought to the city council with a recommendation for award in 3 or 4 weeks. Add it all up, and you are looking at a 3 to 4 month process.

The committee will make a recommendation and to review a contract, reporting both of them to the council. After that the committee's job will be to monitor and report progress on a monthly basis.

Councilmember Sanchez asked if any money could be recovered from the past event. Attorney Duran said that there are litigation issues, so he would brief him in closed session.

Approved 5-0.

Street Sweeping

Marilyn Heidrick had questions. The annual award is $67,500. Divided by 12 is $5,625 per month. But on the bid she saw there was another division by 12. She wondered what its significance was. Will there be 12 sweepings a month? She had been informed by Mr. Matas that it was an error, but she thought that the clarification should be brought out in case anyone else noticed the error.

Here's the page she is talking about. $5,625 is the monthly amount, so there's no point to re-divide it by 12.

Jason Simpson confirmed that it was an error. The $5,625 per month is the official number. Mr. Daniels pointed out that while the level of service remains the same, this is a reduction in cost of $20,500 per year. It's a local vendor who pays prevailing wage.

Approved 5-0.

Comments

Councilmember Sanchez said he has been here 14 years and he has seen pretty much everything. He said he had learned that the first church in DHS was built in 1940 and the building was shared by four church groups. He said the city needs to cooperate and work well together. He will organize a special committee to encourage small business and more training for people in Desert Hot Springs. He will report back in 4 to 6 months.

In four months he will come back with ideas on how to improve transparency and accountability. "I know that in our city code that register of demands, if it's not in there, I think that's probably one of the things we're headed for." There was a time when the register of demands was printed out and available at city hall.

On the subject of juvenile crime, "we don't even know the number, but I would say it's 60% or higher if we look at all the juvenile crime." He will be working through the Public Safety Commission to find out how best to address juvenile crime.

He has "appointed" Mr. Betts to be on his committee to work on the Christmas parade.

He said the only way to give the youth an opportunity at public service is to appoint them to commissions. He will not appoint anyone age 30 or older to any commission.

Councilmember Betts said that during his campaign he learned that people in Desert Hot Springs want to have something fun to do on this side of the freeway. He suggested garage bands, or any bands, in a park. He is looking for someone very energetic to appoint to the Community & Cultural Affairs Commission.

He said the city needs to be open in dealing with the media. There are endless cycles of bad press. He asked for more notice when significant matters are going to come before the city council. "The best day in a city council's life is when everybody's in this room upset because they see something they don't like and we can all sit there and say 'You know what, we didn't do this yet, you're here to offer this input to this council, and now we're hearing that.'"

"We've got some really great spa hotels; the Lautner..."

[In case I have confused anyone, let me clarify that the Lautner Hotel is outside the city limits of Desert Hot Springs, and it is not a spa — it doesn't even have a swimming pool.]

Mr. Betts went on to say our boutique spa hotels have risen to a standard to attract people from all over the world who pay two to three-hundred a night. He is restarting the streets committee to do a drive-around survey of the city.

He talked about the low-income housing requirements. DHS was required to provide something like 9,000 units. Currently the city has only about 7,500 housing units, total, at all economic levels. He said the way the program was originally conceived was to insure the existence of affordable housing in expensive cities like San Francisco. DHS is already a working community. Our residents drive to other cities for their jobs, not vice versa. Rancho Mirage is required only to provide 200 low income housing units. Twentynine Palms and some other cities came in on our side of this issue. So they created the "Social Equity Modifier" which has allowed our required number to be reduced to "only" 4,000.

Mayor Parks said she is very impressed with the goals set by Mr. Betts and Mr. Sanchez. January 7 will be the city council's goal setting session. All commission appointments expire at the end of January. Everyone who wants to be appointed or re-appointed must get their applications in before the council makes its selections in January. She agreed Mr. Betts, saying that controversial items need to be aired in study sessions. She said the council has been doing that.

She explained the $53 million mitigation money for clean air. It is paid to the South Coast Air Quality Management District and it could, potentially, go anywhere in the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The Coachella Valley needs to come up with a project that brings those funds here. Each individual city has provided their wish list for projects within their city as well. All of the projects have come to only about $10 million. The original Whitewater path was about a $30 million project. Adding electric vehicle capacity makes it eligible for air mitigation funds.

The money is to go to areas deserving of "environmental justice," and what city could be more deserving of that than Desert Hot Springs? Well, Mayor Parks explained, since Mecca has the PM10 sensor and we don't, they seem to be more deserving than we. [She did not discuss what it would take for us to get a PM10 sensor.]

At the first meeting in January, the Mayor will be making her council appointments.

Mayor Pro Tem Pye explained a proposed process where each city would contract with CVAG and direct money for Roy's Resource Center through CVAG, I think. The goal would be (I think) to allow each city to claim Roy's Resource Center as low-income housing required to meet SB-2. I think. Or something sort of like that, maybe.

Ms. Pye and Councilmember Matas talked about consideration being given to creating a "spa card" that would be available to DHS residents. The spa card would allow you to visit local spas at a discount.

Mr. Matas said he agreed with Officer Tapia that the police department is an important part of this city. 70% - 80% of the city's budget goes for public safety.

He said that he is always available and willing to answer questions from constituents. When public information requests are received from the media, he believes they are always answered by staff to the limit allowed by law. He suggested that if more "transparency" is desired, then the city council will need to consider priorities and goals and find a way to pay for more staff to respond to media inquiries.

Ms. Pye offered to answer the question posed by Mr. Pharez earlier in the meeting about city council members keeping their benefits when they leave their position. They do not. There are no benefits to former council members. While on the job, they get the same benefits paid to city staff. She also said the check registers are published, they're on the city website and they're in the agenda packet on the table at the back of the room. They usually come at the second council meeting of the month, because the first meeting is too soon after the close of the previous month.

Mayor Parks said she gets her medical benefits from her retirement pension, not from the city. "We're not Indian Wells," she said.

City Manager Daniels thanked Dot Reed for putting together tonight's reception.

He reported that problems at Dillon Roadhouse have been resolved.