One PS - November 2021 Meeting
Vista Las Palmas Neighborhood Organization One PS Meeting
November 9, 2021
Hello neighbors, the One PS meeting was held last night and as always your neighborhood representatives from Vista Las Palmas were in attendance.
As many of you know, we have a new police chief, following the retirement of Bryan Reyes. Our new Police Chief: Andrew Mills, joined our meeting for the first time. Indicating an openness to new ideas and new approaches to our problems, he advised that his office will begin to have office hours open to the community for any of the residents of our great city to go in and talk to him about their concerns. And in a further remarkable and perhaps to be regretted decision, he shared his personal cell phone with all of the One PS reps from across the city.
In another first, not one but three representatives were present from the Desert Sun, indicating their intention to participate in all One PS meetings going forward. The three reporters that joined the call include Paul Albani-Burgio covering city news, Jonathan Horwitz covering education, and Tom Coulter covering politics. Editorial comment: many of us now subscribe to the Palm Springs Post, the independent online news journal started by Mark Talkington that has come online in the last couple of months. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, please go to thepalmspringspost.com and enter your email to receive your daily news briefing on all things local.
Patrick Tallerico announced that he is leaving his post as head of the sustainability department for the City of Palm Springs, with this meeting being his last in his position. The City has not yet identified his replacement.
Kathy Cohn, Secretary of One PS, in a bit of gyrotechnics that we’re still trying to get our head around, announced that the December meeting of One PS will be in person for the first time since before Covid restrictions were put in place. The City of Palm Springs still restricts large in person indoor meetings in city buildings, so in order to circumvent this, One PS, despite being a quasi-City agency, has reached an agreement with the Mizell Center to allow us to use their facility for an in-person December meeting. Further, One PS announced that they have eliminated entirely the online Zoom component to this meeting, forcing representatives to either attend in person or forgo the meeting altogether. Ms. Cohn described the loneliness being experience by many of us as the reason for this shift. Your VLPNO representatives don’t share this loneliness, and don’t relish the thought of being in a small room with 100 people for three hours, but the heavy hand of government marches to its own drummer.
Neil Garrett, chair of the One PS Events Committee, indicated that One PS still needs volunteers for the upcoming Veterans Day Parade and for the Festival of Lights. One PS was unable to march in the Pride Parade owing to a lack of volunteers. If you have an interest in representing Vista Las Palmas at either of these events, please email us and we will sign you up quickly. In particular, for the Festival of Lights Parade there are two balloons left that need wranglers.
Councilmember Lisa Middleton spoke next, indicating in her opening remarks that the City of Palm Springs will be revisiting our covid restrictions at its meeting on December 9th. While she noted that many people are frustrated at the continuation of mask and gathering requirements, she also noted that an equal or greater number remain concerned, especially in the face of rising numbers. Ms. Middleton also thanked One PS for the submission of a proposed noise ordinance that will strengthen and refine the City’s existing ordinance. She indicated that City Council will take up this recommendation from One PS in coming weeks. In a bullet point summary, she indicated that homelessness is still a problem, and getting worse, the City’s climate change response is being delayed, the pride parade was a nice event, and it brought a tremendous number of people to town.
Councilmember Dennis Woods spoke next, indicating primarily that there would be a section of holiday lights not lit this year owing to a problem with the wiring.
One question from a member of One PS of note came up regarding rising electric prices. The question led to a lengthy discussion about the variety of electric options now being presented to our residents, and meaningful resulting confusion. Councilmember Middleton indicated that the City would be revisiting its posture toward Desert Community Energy, and also said that while costs have gone up for residents, the impact to the reduction in the city’s carbon footprint has been meaningful, equaling the removal of several hundred cars from our streets. Councilmember Woods indicated that the Desert Saver plan is the cheapest option for our residents.
And finally, in a rare bit of genuine frustration, the representative from Desert Highland Gateway Estates chastised the City Council for “dumping yet another facility that no one else wants into our neighborhood”, referring to the City’s plans to place a large homeless center off of Radio Road. The neighborhood representative indicated that it would join the other things that no other neighborhood wants, including cannabis facilities.
Perhaps the most important news from the meeting came from Lt. Frank Browning from the Police Department. He indicated that in August, our city experienced an 18% reduction in violent crime, also an 18% reduction in property crime, but in September, we saw a meaningful increase, with violent crime up 33% month to month and a 23% rise for property crimes month to month. In August there were 67 violent crimes reported and in September that figure increased to 89, roughly 3 per day. Year to date, in 2021 there has been a big increase in reported crime, with a 42% increase in violent crime and a 39% increase in property crimes. He indicated that 2020 figures were a decline over 2019, owing to everyone staying indoors because of Covid. Comparing 2021 to 2019, the increase has been more muted, but still an increase. He encouraged everyone to keep their cars locked even in their garages, and to always keep your doors and windows locked.
That’s it for this month neighbors. See you in December! Your representative to One PS is Kevin Comer, and your alternate is Steve Orr. Please feel free to reach out to either of us, or to anyone on our Board, with any questions or comments.