Palm Desert City Council - Regular Meeting, April 24, 2025

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[00:01:14] Speaker: There you go.
[00:01:34] Mayor: Well, we ran a little late at study session, so we're a little behind on our closed session as well. We will now call the Palm Desert City Council meeting to order for Thursday, April 24th, 2025. And it's a joint meeting: Palm Desert City Council, successor agency to the Palm Desert Redevelopment Agency, Palm Desert Housing Authority, and the Palm Desert Board of Library Trustees. So, we are called to order. Are there any public comments for the closed session items?
[00:02:10] Staff: No public comments, Madame Mayor.
[00:02:13] Mayor: Okay. And we'll take roll when we come back. Okay. And we will now recess. Is there anyone here who would like to make a comment regarding the closed session items? Okay. Well, we are now going to adjourn into or recess, excuse me, to closed session and we will be back shortly.
[00:13:56] Speaker 1: The treasure is the moment itself.
[00:14:23] Speaker 2: Right. We have everybody. Okay. Welcome everyone. Uh, we've concluded our closed session business. Uh, can we have roll call, please? Or yes, can we have roll call? Oh, no, we can't. Not yet. We will soon.
[00:15:07] Staff: We're ready. Ready for roll call.
[00:15:15] Staff: Council member Nestandi, here. Council member Pedto, here. Council member Kintania, present. Mayor Pim Trouy, here. Mayor Harnick, here. All councils present. Thank you very much. We'll now have the pledge of allegiance with council member Neandi leading and inspiration by mayor prom.
[00:16:05] Mayor Pro Tem: Okay, my turn. All you. All right. Words of inspiration. Here we go. Short and sweet. Uh, this is attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Fairly self-evident, but um I think from time to time it bears repeating. No man is good enough to govern another man. I'm sorry. Let me start over. No person is good enough to govern another person without that other person's consent. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:16:34] Mayor Harnick: Uh, we'll now—do we have a report from closed session?
[00:16:38] Staff: Um, no reportable action from closed session this afternoon, Mayor.
[00:16:40] Mayor Harnick: Okay, we will now go to awards presentation and appointments. And I do want to mention that if you are following on your agenda, we do have it noted that we will have a proclamation for Holocaust remembrance or Yam Hashoa. Uh, but our proclamation is at Temple Sinai during their service today and there was a conflict. So we will present it at our next meeting and they'll bring it back to us and we'll represent. So thank you so much. And now we're going to—uh, we have a presentation, a proclamation for Tree City USA.
[00:17:39] Mayor Harnick: Who's... okay.
[00:17:42] Mayor Harnick: So whereas in 1872 the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to be set aside for the planting of trees, and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska. And whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world. And whereas trees provide solutions towards combating damage to our environment by reducing the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water, cutting heat and cooling costs, moderating the temperature, cleaning the air, producing life-giving oxygen, and providing habitat for wildlife. And whereas trees are a renewable resource, giving us paper, wood for our homes, fuel for our fires, and countless other wood products. And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of business areas, and beautify our community. And whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Now, therefore, I, Jan Harnick, mayor of the city of Palm Desert and the entire city council, do hereby proclaim April 25th, 2025 as Arbor Day in the city of Palm Desert. And I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands. Additionally, I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote well-being today and for all future generations. Thank you. Do you want to say a few words? Said it enough. Come on.
[00:19:25] Staff: A few. Okay. Well, thank you, uh, Madame Mayor, Madam Mayor, and city council. Thank you for your support for Arbor Day. Uh, the city has almost 10,000 trees. Uh, we have not lost very many after Hillary. Uh, that kind of helped us out on a big—uh, quite a few of them at the time. This helps the city also establish our Tree City USA which has been vacant for quite some years due to uh, COVID. So with this uh, proclamation, we can now become uh, Tree City USA once again. Thank you.
[00:20:02] Speaker: Yes, thank you. And Palm Desert makes a concerted effort to make sure we have enough trees. And in fact, we have more trees per acre than any other city in the Coachella Valley. Wanted to share that.
[00:20:40] Speaker: Okay, next we have a presentation from the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert. That would be Miss Cindy Buren, please.
[00:21:09] Cindy Burr: Good afternoon, Mayor Harnick, City Council, City staff, and guests. I'm Cindy Burr, and I am the proud CEO of the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert. I have a little presentation for you today. I haven't been here for a couple of years because I've been really busy with the museum, but first, before the presentation, I wanted to really, really give my heartfelt personal thanks for the support of the City. A couple of years ago, you guys stepped up. You and another city were the two that really helped fund the beginning of the reimagination for the museum. It really helped me to feel very proud of what I was doing, and it get—I get a little choked up because it really made me understand the importance of the museum to the City of Palm Desert, and I just wanted to personally thank you for that opportunity that you gave me to get the reimagination started. So, I do not have a clicker, right? Do you want me to just—oh, you're the clicker. Okay. So, for those of you that haven't been there, most of you on City Council have been to the museum. This is the reimagined museum. I like to say that this is what the inside of my brain looks like, but maybe a little more glitter. It's very joyful. It's very much a kids' museum right from the beginning. We have three buildings, and this is the main gallery that we reimagined over the pandemic. It took us a couple of years, and we opened Memorial Day weekend last year. So, we've almost been reopened for a year now. This is right when you walk in. Our bunny, Joy, is our welcome ambassador. And you can go ahead to the next one. Just to give you a couple of pictures to show you what it looks like. This is our Express House, where kids and their families can express themselves with the written word, with expressing emotions, expressing their ideas, responding to different prompts and such. Next slide. This is in our toddler space, which is for four and under. It's such a great space. A lot of soft activities. We have a crawler space. We have an activity wall, a resource library for caregivers to read to their kids, but also to read about kids, with being new parents, to find out how to parent better, how to parent together. And we really encourage interaction throughout the museum, but in this space in particular. This is our Dream section, which is upstairs. This started as our calm space. You'll hear a little bit more about that in a little bit, but this is like going up to the mountains and camping and fishing. There's a lot of tactile experiences and a library here as well, but it's sort of a hug. There's lower ceilings, demure lighting, and a lot of sensory activities in this space as well. This is a great shot of both Experiment and Express in the background there. Experiment is more of the scientific, hands-on experience. The entire museum, as you probably know, is all about hands-on learning with loosely guided experiences. So, and also family interaction. We're not the place where you come drop off your kids unless they're in camp. And we're not the place where you come and sit on your cell phones, because we will call you out. So, we really want family interaction. It's very important. This, you can see our numbers since we reopened. The May numbers were one weekend. That was our opening weekend. It was a little bananas, and we haven't really stopped since. So, we just had our best month in March with 8,900 guests. We are on track to beat what we were doing pre-pandemic, and about 36% of our visitors come from my city, Palm Desert. And about a third of those participate in our Museums for All program, which is our program that is a reduced rate for admission with an EBT card. So, it's something that we are involved with.
[00:25:00] Speaker 1: It's something that costs us a great deal of money because it isn't subsidized currently, but it's something we believe in removing economic barriers to admission. Just some samples of things that we do at the museum. This is our monthly calendar for this month. We have daily programming, whether it be arts and crafts, science, sensory play, music and movement, story time. We do something every single day at the museum. We are busy and we keep the littles busy, too. Next slide. Um, it's field trip time. We have field trips every single day in May. We had field trips every single day in March. Um, and kind of in between, people are now scrambling to get their field trips in. We welcome them in the mornings and then we have regular business throughout the day, but we see a lot of kids on field trips. We just got cards today, which was my favorite thing from the kids that came last week.
[00:25:50] Speaker 2: Can I interrupt? What does field trips mean?
[00:25:52] Speaker 1: Field trips mean school buses with kids coming from schools.
[00:25:56] Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you.
[00:25:59] Speaker 1: Yes. Uh, summer camp is right around the corner. We will be having 10 weeks of summer camp. They're all themed. Everything from arts and crafts to learning about different artists and different mediums of art to lights, camera, action, all about the performing arts, um, space camp, all kinds of different things. But we've got 10 weeks of good times. The next two slides show you some of those themes. Um, we have the Olympics, we have dirt camp, um, all-American road trip. Next slide. And it's all about, like it said on that first slide, the summer of joy. Um, so that is a camp that's every week, Monday through Friday, 9 to 3. One of the big things we did with our reimagination is to increase accessibility. There were some things that we didn't have that were really, really important to myself and to our board. So, we did things like put in accessible doors, automatic doors that we didn't have before. So, we now have three of those. We have adaptive trikes for our trike track. We have um all of our materials are in both English and Spanish. And we also have Mandarin books in our library. Next slide. And we didn't stop there. We also, this is a picture from last week, um as you all know because you are a certified city um with the autism designation. Now, the destination is as well, and we were the first attraction to sign on because it was very important to us. So, we are a certified autism center. We have sensory bags. We have a sensory guide talking about the type and level of uh sensory um stimulation of each of our exhibits and spaces so that those families can plan their visits accordingly. We do a lot of fun events. So, this was one we partnered with DreamWorks and we had Gabby, if anybody has a preschooler, Gabby came, uh, the costumed character to the museum. That was really bananas, but it was a lot of fun. That was our busiest day up to that point. We have had some local authors. Um, Peter Bedard is an author who has created this anxiety monster to help kids self-regulate and deal with times of anxiety. Um, and Lauren Tavillian um, is a fashion gal. She worked for Chanel and she has a line of books teaching kids about um self-regulating and emotions through her books as well. And then we had on the left there somebody that came and played percussions on their bike. So we're trying to always do some fun things like that. Next slide. And we also have yoga now. We just put in a zenon. So we have kids yoga. We have yoga for my team. Um journaling sound baths. I'm a hippie-dippy chick, so this is right up my alley and I understand the importance for mental health and well-being. So, we wanted to extend that to kids, their families, and to our team as well. Another activity we did is during the LA fires, we took it upon ourselves and fortunately I have a background in events and I have a lot of great partners who within 24 hours, we were able to put on this kid kind of kidella event, a kids music festival. Um, it was just for LA families and we had over 500 people show up. So, how can the city of Palm Desert help? You already have. We appreciate the partnership that we've had with you. Um, we do have fundraisers that I'll be sending you an invite for our next fundraiser in June. We would appreciate your participation there. We have Karina Kinttonia who is our um, liaison on our board as well. We appreciate her immensely also. And just keeping us in mind, we are applying for the funding that's coming up that's due next week. So just keeping us in mind um anytime there's an opportunity, we appreciate your consideration. That's the last slide. Oh, this is the party I'm going to send you an invitation for. It's going to be really fun. So now I welcome any questions if you have them. Thank you.
[00:29:53] Speaker 3: Are there any questions or comments?
[00:29:55] Speaker 4: No.
[00:29:59] Speaker 5: As a liaison and Evan was the liaison
[00:30:02] Council Member: Last year, the amount of excitement that this has generated, because calling it "reimagination" does not begin to state. Every single inch and corner is new from what it was before. Um, I went recently with my boyfriend's kiddo and his granddaughter, and she was taken in, completely enveloped. And it was great to see a kiddo on the spectrum playing right next to her where there was a sound, but he had one ear covered and was still engaged with what was going on here. He wasn't forced to be social. He wasn't feeling like he was constrained in anything. To see the inclusion is absolutely beautiful. Just when you go in on the outside courtyard, you have the crayons for all of your donors. There is the City of Palm Desert crayon that's there, so we are presently recognized in the space. And even outside, you have the musical instruments outside. Every inch of that place has been transformed. And you come here, you sparkle, you smile, but I don't think people understand how much of this is your passion 24 hours a day. The free labor that you recruited your family to do as well, I mean, we have to give them the appreciation. You work so hard. You work so hard, it shows, and I'm happy that the community can see the value. And you're also an economic impact. Again, we get kids from all over the place, families that are here. Now you get people saying, "I came here, now I'm bringing my kids. I came so much time ago." But this is an intergenerational feature that we have. So thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.
[00:31:48] Mayor: Any other questions? Any other comments? No. All right, thank you so much, very much.
[00:31:55] City Manager: Okay, we will now move to City Manager comments. Mayor, I'd like to invite up Sergeant Jeff Krider to do a couple of introductions of some of our new officers.
[00:32:15] Sergeant Jeff Krider: I don't have a PowerPoint, so sorry. Just wait a second. I do want to excuse Lieutenant Porsus. He had a family event that he had to go to, so you get me. I do want to introduce—I know you guys have been waiting for these positions to be filled for some time—these are our two new motors. We have Deputy Tony Leva and Deputy Jeff Viser. Viser's got 18 years on the department, and Deputy Leva's got eight years on the department. He comes to us from the military. This guy's got a decorated military past. So, we are very excited to have them out there enforcing the vehicle code for us in the city. So, they're doing a great job. And then I'd like to give a little just a little update. I know there was some inquiry last month about vape pens that we were seeing in the schools. We did, back in December, we saw a pretty good increase in possession of vape pens, both nicotine and cannabis vape pens, on school campus. We started enforcing that, but we also wanted to take it a step further and try to find out where they were getting them from. So, we are glad to report that this morning, my team, we ended up, in conjunction with some other teams, we served two search warrants and arrested the subject that we identified as the seller to a lot of our juveniles here in the Coachella Valley. So, hopefully makes a pretty good dent in our kids being able to have access to vape pens and things like that in the valley. The only thing I do want to add too, just for those that are here and listening, please, please monitor as best you can your kids' social media. That's where we were able to identify this person and how the kids were getting in contact and making that contact of who to purchase from. So, I just want to make that little shout-out. Please pay attention to that. Watch where your kids are, what websites they're on, and social medias they have access to.
[00:34:20] Council Member: Was this a private individual or was it a business?
[00:34:23] Sergeant Jeff Krider: No, this is just a—
[00:34:25] Council Member: I know you probably can't say too much, but yeah. Huh. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.
[00:34:32] Sergeant Jeff Krider: Any questions?
[00:34:33] Council Member: No, but welcome. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:34:42] Mayor: Okay, we'll move to Mayor and Council Member reports and requests for action. Let's start with Council Member Pedetto.
[00:34:49] Council Member Pedetto: Uh, none today.
[00:34:51] Mayor: Okay, Council Member Quintana.
[00:34:55] Council Member Quintana: Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, I wanted to touch on um the autism event. We were um
[00:35:04] Speaker 1: Looking at the greater—Visit Greater Palm Springs. Sorry, all the alphabet soup of acronyms is in my head, just to see how the region came together. All of the cities that were present, organizations gathered at the Living Desert, and I had the opportunity to speak with the president of the credentialing organization and was able to let her know how much it meant to our city to be the first and how hard our staff worked. So, I just wanted to go back and reiterate that pat on the back for everyone. A couple of community events, but I'll save that to the side or for more informal. What I do want to request is action, and unfortunately, I left my handouts, but I know I did provide to our City Manager info on the international standards or our arboricultural society, which we cited in our proclamation for Tree City USA.
[00:36:07] Speaker 1: We had talked about it in the past, but I think it just kind of stayed up in the air in terms of language that we could use about preventing people from over-pruning their palm trees. And where we can't do that, whether we can or how we can incentivize people, or whether it's just to do the good deed. All of the negative environmental impacts of keeping your palm trees the way that they should be and letting nature take her course, because we are impacting migratory birds, owls, hawks—they nest in those palm trees. They nest in other areas, and we should do our best to ensure that we are creating—I mean, my brain is so scrambled right now—we are creating limitations in the ability to maintain these palm trees happy. The more you over-prune them, the less likely they are to thrive. There are diseases that come into the palm trees because of having them over-pruned. So, I'm more than happy to provide some of that literature to you as well. Like I said, I would have had more stats if I hadn't forgotten my sheet, but I know that that's something that Councilmember Padetto and I had engaged in a positive discussion at the dais a few weeks ago. I don't remember when.
[00:37:31] Speaker 2: Are you saying on private property or on the city property, the pruning of the trees?
[00:37:36] Speaker 1: On city property to ensure that we don't. But I mean, I know that there are—I think there was one city in Florida that just had an outright ban. Just leave it the way it is, don't go too thin, because ultimately people see it as more cost-effective to practically prune it to nudity, hoping it takes less time. But the overall health of the palm tree is supported when you leave more of the fronds. And if we can say, you know, I know we want to phase out the Mexican fan palm, but at least my request would be to our City Manager to see how can we support looking at following the palm tree guidelines according to the international arboricultural standards organization that was mentioned in the Tree City USA proclamation, and we're citing them as why it's important to participate. So, I think it's important to follow the guidelines and their recommendations. Sorry, I'm all scrambled.
[00:38:43] Speaker 3: Perhaps we could work with UCR and CVAG, because CVAG does a lot with the landscapers and UCR certainly is the expert on this. So perhaps there's a section there, and I would assume Mr. Randy Chavez would be included in this discussion as well, right?
[00:39:03] Speaker 4: Absolutely.
[00:39:04] Speaker 1: He must be there. Thank you.
[00:39:05] Speaker 5: In fact, I would like to mention that Director Chavez did, during the HOA presentation, do some education to our HOAs on proper tree trimming and the value that brings—not just palms, but all trees—and it does make a big difference. Thank you.
[00:39:23] Speaker 6: Okay, no comments. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you.
[00:39:30] Speaker 7: No comments tonight, but I do have one request for action. It just struck me that if we could look at moving when we conduct our closed session towards maybe the end of the meeting, maybe as our last item to cover. And the reasoning, to me, there's just several different benefits to doing that. First, I think, you know, today we ran about 10 minutes late, which, you know, folks show up here at 4:00 to...
[00:40:00] Mayor: ...to start the meeting, and it seems like more often than not we keep them waiting because you never know how long closed session is going to go. Second, of course, if we end the traditional, the regular meeting, and then staff can go home, it gets them out of here a little bit earlier and it potentially could allow a little more time for study session, which I like—a nice, robust discussion at study sessions. So when we have those before our typical open meetings, I request for action to visit moving the schedule, if I have any backup.
[00:40:34] Councilmember: I support, wholeheartedly support. Those are excellent reasons. I think that's an excellent idea that the mayor presented. Thank you.
[00:40:42] Mayor: So we have support on that. So let's take a look. Thank you. And as far as my comments, the only things coming up is Southern California Association of Governments is having its annual general assembly, and that's for all of Southern California. Palm Desert always hosts it, which is great to have everybody here. A lot of great ideas and a lot of good discussions occurred. So, that'll be next week, and some of us will be there and learning from our neighbors throughout Southern California. Okay. So, we will move to non-agenda public comments. Is there anyone online with any comments?
[00:41:27] Staff: For those on Zoom, if you want to participate in public comment, please click the raise hand button on your computer or smartphone. And if you're calling in on your phone, please dial star nine to raise your hand, and when called upon, press star six to unmute yourself. And Madam Mayor, I have no raised hands.
[00:41:41] Mayor: Okay, I have three cards here. David Tolzman, would you like to come up and address the body?
[00:41:56] David Tolzman: I wanted to talk to you about the Cultural Resource Preservation Committee. Is that the right time to do this?
[00:42:06] Mayor: Do we have something on the agenda for it? I think there is something on the agenda, so it should be later. Remember that 13F. So okay, there is. So why don't we wait till that item comes up. Thank you.
[00:42:21] Mayor: Okay, we'll go to Mike Morsh.
[00:42:31] Mike Morsh: Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. After going through all of the videos on the city, learning more about the city, I came across one that's called State of the City, whereas the last time, Mayor Harnik, you were mayor at that time, which is the video I think was in 2022, maybe 2021. And two of the councilmembers on that video are no longer here. We have two new councilmembers, and I thought, are there any plans to update that video? Because I thought it was a very good video on the State of the City, and possibly it's getting a little outdated with two of the older members gone and two of the newer members back on as councilmembers. Okay. Thank you.
[00:43:26] Mayor: Thank you for bringing it up, and we'll address it. Okay. And then I have John. Is it Sisley or Cy?
[00:43:34] John Sisley: It is Sisley. Okay, thank you. I want to take a minute of your time to talk about community workforce agreements, like we have in Palm Springs and have had for a few years. You know, the wages on a public works project are exactly the same wages and benefits as the union wages and benefits. So why wouldn't you have a CWA? There's always that pushback, right? So, two things: a non-union contractor can bid the work, but they have to hire local community members to put on the project. And then number two, that agreement has teeth in it. There's enforcement in that agreement. Contractors out there, they joke with each other. They say a labor compliance case is like being hit with a comet. They say, 'Did you get hit with a comet?' because there's similar odds involved with that, right? You have one state inspector for the entire Southern California area, and I file more cases than he does in a year. So they can't cheat under the CWA, right? So if there's a cost difference—I mean, you all can do math—if there's a cost difference, that's the difference in cheating, cheating your local community members that we put on these jobs. So in the future, I'm going to bring other trades up to talk to you also about these agreements, and we're looking to try and maybe get something like that going here in Palm Desert. So, we'll be talking. Thank you.
[00:45:00] Transcript gap: Gemini did not return transcript text for this 00:45:00-00:50:00 clip. Use the official video for this interval.
[00:50:00] Staff: council for consideration. And then the city council has of course the final approval, which is why we're here today. So in 2024, a park naming subcommittee of the parks and recreation committee was formed. It consisted of two city council members and two parks and recreation committee members as well as city staff. They considered many different names and naming conventions. And on January 3rd, the parks and recreation committee recommended approval to move forward with the name Dave Irwin Park. Dave Irwin was the city attorney for the city of Palm Desert, the first city attorney, and was employed with the city for about 40 years. There is in your packet included a biography on Mr. Irwin, but his legacy and contributions to the city align with the core values and mission of the parks and therefore the parks and recreation committee voted to move this forward for the council's consideration. Staff has contacted Mr. Irwin's wife and family and they are in support. I understand they may be here this evening. So that is the first item for the council's consideration and with that we'll go ahead and move into the presentation on the conceptual plan. I'm going to turn it over to John Foley of Interwest to provide that.
[00:51:20] John Foley: Great. Good afternoon, John Foley with Interwest. So, we want to give you an update on the final concept for the design for the park. You had already as a council, you had already seen this and there were some design changes that we needed to do. So, we're bringing it back so we can get that final approval from you. So, what are the proposed changes? First, we want to clarify that the park that we're talking about is the community park that is right off of Dinah Shore, next to the interstate and accessible from Gerald Ford. Some of the key components that required us to look at some changes were in discussions with the police department and the fire marshals. It became very clear that two points of access and egress were really critical to make sure that we had in the park particularly. It's very sad, but in my world, we're now starting to have to think about public space and design it in a way where it's defensible against all kinds of undesirable activities, active shooters, and that sort of stuff. So it's very important to make sure that those two points of access were critical in terms of bringing that into the design to guarantee that nobody could barricade an entrance into the park and have activities there that are undesirable. So that two-point of access became really critical, and then we were trying to make the previous design work to have fire trucks driving on improvement areas to get them to other points of access and that just wasn't working. So we had to rethink that. That gave us an opportunity to really think about a new access point instead of directly across from the entrance of the Genesis community to actually move it to the Dinah Shore circle. That will make it a lot easier for people to come in and it gave us an opportunity to relook at some of the design choices that we had made, bringing parking closer to all of the amenities and making sure that we had some opportunities for inclusion of some additional elements that we heard from the community. So, I'm going to walk you through those slides now. As I said, we're going to be bringing in access off of Dinah Shore. We initially had looked at access only off of Technology Drive and we realized talking to public works staff that Technology Drive simply was just not engineered to carry that level and capacity of traffic. So that two-point solution became really critical. So the idea here is that we're going to add a new spoke to the Dinah Shore circle and render that with all the pavement and striping components that are the standards of the overall city. So, a couple views of what that will look like. And you'll see here with the naming of the park, the Dave Irwin Park, what that experience would look like. And as a pedestrian, when you cross across the street, you'll come in and you'll get access right just south of the park name. So, the park has all of the previous components that we had initially provided. We simply just had to shuffle things around. But we did have an opportunity to add some new components and those are shown in orange. Those are disc golf, that the disc golf community was very vocal about wanting to get their piece in there, pollinator garden, fitness and agility equipment. One of the things that we...
[00:55:01] Speaker: ...heard was with all the new development that's happening, residents expressed concerns about new families and making sure that wellness-minded new families had an opportunity to also have activities in the park. We have an opportunity to bring some bocce courts that can double up for cornhole, a community garden, and a second restroom. In redesigning it, we ensured that we were able to get the kind of circuitry that we needed. So if somebody went to the park to exercise, they could very easily sort of amass a mile or even two miles of walkability within the park very easily and keep that on track. And then you'll see in red the vehicular circulation and how those two points of access will work.
[00:55:50] Speaker: We took that plan to the Parks and Rec Committee, and they asked us to swap the location of the children's playground with the splash pad, so that then the children's playground will be closer to the drainage basin, so that if a parent brings a child that's in the basin and at the playground, they can sort of have center stage to be able to surveil both and supervise. We thought that was great feedback. So, we took that, made some modifications, made those changes, and you'll see those changes shifted. Those are in blue. So, the playground moved further west, the pickleball and basketball court shifted, and that gave us an opportunity to create a new crowd plaza and a little event area that could double up just outside of the community garden.
[00:56:40] Speaker: So, some of the things that have not changed is that we're still respecting the 75-foot landscape buffer. That is a requirement of the development agreement right off of Dinah Shore. We are providing that lawn mall, and on the bottom graphic, we're showing what that could look like if there's a farmers market event there. The drainage basin essentially remains the same, with the addition of the fitness area just to the north, which is on the right. The children's playground, even though it's shifted, it still remains the same in character, and the sports court. What we've done is that we've now found a prefabricated manufacturer of shade structures that we are bringing to create these sort of social spaces.
[00:57:26] Speaker: When we're talking to the stakeholders, one of the things that we heard is that people spend more time waiting to play the game than actually playing the game. So, the ability to have interaction with your neighbors, build community in that shaded area as you're waiting for your turn to come, we thought was a really valuable component. So, not only next to the pickleball courts, but also next to the basketball courts, you have this opportunity to have these sort of shaded areas. And the fact that these are prefabricated, it brings the cost substantially down.
[00:58:00] Speaker: The access off of Gerald Ford, the sort of entry plaza, the character of that will remain the same as we initially envisioned. And now this is the new location for the splash pad. So it is at the center between the concession area, the children's playground, and the overall basin. Still ample locations for art in public places. We think that that is a great way to brand and bring placemaking to the overall park amenities. We're still providing a large and small dog park, and we are providing security lighting at night.
[00:58:35] Speaker: As we were talking to some of the residents, the residents were concerned about too much light. We did clarify that there's no sports lighting planned here. And one of the strategies that we've been doing in a lot of our park spaces is that we group lighting with sensors so that the lighting dims in the early late-night hours of the night. When a sensor gets triggered, the lights dim up, and it serves as a defensible strategy so that neighbors are aware that somebody's in the park, or if the police is driving through, they're able to also assess that somebody's in there when they shouldn't be.
[00:59:17] Speaker: New additions to the park are a community garden, which is going to replicate what you have really close here to City Hall, the new bocce court, which is also going to have the opportunities for cornhole, the ninja course, which we got a lot of excitement from the residents, and the pollinator garden that we're very excited about as well.
[00:59:44] Speaker: For us, community feedback is really important, and we made every effort to get these plans out to the community and get feedback. So, we had an opportunity to man the booth at the Wildflower Festival. We handed out a survey and flyers, collected a lot of...
[01:00:00] Presenter: Different responses. And we then followed up with a dedicated open house at the iHub. And we had a really big participation there. So it was very exciting to see all the good feedback that we got from the residents. A lot of disc golf aficionados showed up in support of the disc golf. And we also had an opportunity to hear from residents about concerns or thoughts about the park that we are going to then carry into the design development phase as we move forward. Overall, the park design that was modified in response to the Parks and Rec Committee was supported by the overall community. That was their overall preference. There was a strong support for disc golf and a strong support for community gardening. The lighting got a lot of support for safety reasons provided that no sports lighting is provided. And one of the things that the residents really asked for was, budget permitting, wherever we could, if we could provide more manufactured shade as opposed to waiting for the trees to grow in, it would provide an opportunity for more immediate shade and respite from the sun. And we think that that's really important. A lot of concerns that we heard from residents, particularly those that lived across the street, were concerns about no overnight parking, and city staff was very good about explaining that there are enforcement standards and policies that the city has in place. So we're here to ask for your approval of this design with the goal that if we get your approval, then we can start going through CEQA and getting the plans developed so that by this time next year, you would be, hopefully, in construction. And I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you so much.
[01:02:02] Mayor: Are there any questions or comments?
[01:02:06] Councilmember: I'll make a comment. I have a question. So the original presentation, I remember some of the original concepts you brought through City Council and the Planning Commission have changed quite a bit through the CEQA process. How much more do you think it might change, or do you think we'll get a high-fidelity rendering based on what you're presenting today?
[01:02:26] Presenter: No, I think it's going to stick to what we're presenting today. We don't see a lot of changes.
[01:02:33] Councilmember: I think the evolution has been really cool to watch, and it's a very cool product that you've built. Congratulations. Very nice. Any questions?
[01:02:46] Councilmember: Yeah, I agree with my colleague. It looks fabulous. I love the way you incorporated all the suggestions, and just the way you made it all fit and work. Very thoughtful. Just, if I remember, one of the original renderings that we saw at Parks and Rec, maybe even here at Council, included ingress/egress off Gerald Ford. Is that right?
[01:03:04] Presenter: No. Off of Gerald Ford, we never had vehicular access. The access at that time was off of Dinah Shore directly across from the entrance to Genesis, which also doubles up as an entrance into the future Palm communities. And we thought that separating that from all that would make it a lot simpler...
[01:03:24] Councilmember: ...and that sort of still exists, right?
[01:03:27] Presenter: That, correct. Yeah.
[01:03:28] Councilmember: Got it. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you.
[01:03:30] Mayor: Any other questions? Questions? No. Okay. I do have a blue card. I have a speaker. Is there anyone online who wanted to speak on this issue?
[01:03:44] Staff: No raised hands, Madame Mayor. Thank you.
[01:03:46] Mayor: Then we have Hugh Van Horn who would like to speak on this issue.
[01:03:55] Hugh Van Horn: Council, sorry, Coachella still recovering. Thank you for having me speak. I know it seems like a silly thing to show up and talk on. First off, my name is Hugh Van Horn, a business owner in Palm Desert, resident of Cathedral City. I'm also the vice chair of the Riverside County Parks and Open Spaces Commission. And I just, when I saw the name of the park, I felt obligated to come speak to all of you. I think having a name of a park is a very big deal. City of Palm Desert has two parks named after somebody. The rest of the parks are named after trees and streets and other things of that nature. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Irwin and the contributions he made to the city and the time he spent here as a city attorney. However, I feel that he was fairly compensated for his work here, and I feel that this is an opportunity to maybe name the park after somebody that has a bigger philanthropic base here and has been more of a volunteer in our community. I would like to make the recommendation for potentially somebody of color or a woman, if possible. The name that popped into my head was possibly Mario Gonzalez, whose fees...
[01:05:01] Public Speaker: ...from building helped support the park. Also, Ronald McDonald House gives a house away to St. Jude every year. I think he would be a prime example of somebody that actually contributed to that portion of the community in Palm Desert and would be somebody to name the park after. And if not that, maybe reconsider naming the park after somebody that has had a bigger influence and philanthropic development here in the city, and really take this opportunity more seriously than a name recommendation from a former staffer. Thank you very much.
[01:05:31] Council Member: Thank you. Okay, are there... there's no other comments? If I may, open to discussion with Council Member Pettet, please. I'm sorry. Sean, if you could speak to the naming of the park and how we arrived at that. And I did read the news article on Mr. Irwin and have heard a lot of good things about him, but there are other names listed that were considered. And especially after reading through the historical survey, we get to see a lot of people who risked their livelihoods and put a lot of personal risk, business risk into the community to build what we have. And so, you know, some of those... Henderson is one of those names that pops out right off the top. So, can you kind of walk through that process and how Mr. Irwin came to the top of that list?
[01:06:32] Sean: Sure. As I mentioned, the subcommittee was voted on by the Parks and Recreation Committee. So, they designated two members, that was Lori Flint and Paul Murphy. And then we had a council member at the time, Trubee, as well as Kathleen Kelly as the council representatives. Among staff, we had a representative from planning, Nick Maloney, as well as myself and another member of the Public Works Department, Kevin Schwarz. So, we attended several meetings. The first meetings were more brainstorming and looking at different categories. So, some of those were plant components like flora and fauna, for example, Ocotillo Park and things of that nature. Another one was a nod to the university area and potentially naming the park after some university-related name. But those definitely fell flat among the discussions, and members of the community who had contributed to the city began to rise, and that's where the list of names that I believe you have... I apologize, I don't have it in front of me, but there were about five different names of individuals who contributed to the city, of which Mr. Irwin was one, and that was the recommendation that the subcommittee decided to ask staff to move forward.
[01:08:01] Council Member: Are there any other comments?
[01:08:05] Council Member: I've heard the same comments from the community. How did we arise on that topic, on that name? It's wonderful to see. I did not know that Bob Hargreaves was only the second City Attorney, so that's a testament to the commitment of one individual. But I agree with Council Member Pettet, after we've seen the trailblazers from historic Palm Desert, I think that we should consider more of the city founders, for example, even before incorporation, going back to what it took before there was air conditioning, before there were the roads. How did we get to become Palm Desert, instead of a person who, again, no disrespect to his service, helped guide us through legal transactions and reading and signing, which were all beneficial to the city. But I think that if we're opening up in a new area, it would be a great reminder to residents and visitors in the area that as we build out, we're still keeping focus on where we came from. So, again, I've heard similar concerns from the community about it being named for a person when we have Ironwood and others, again, that are named after flora and fauna.
[01:09:23] Council Member: Well, I guess we're focused on the name right now, but I was going to comment overall. I'm excited about the community park getting built as soon as possible. And I know the residents of North Palm Desert are very excited, at least the people that I've talked to, and it's really... the North area needs a community park desperately. And in terms of the naming of the park, it is so very, very subjective. If we put it on the ballot and had people write in the name they wanted, we probably would get a hundred...
[01:10:01] Councilmember: ...plus choices of a person's name. And so it is subjective and I do defer to the committee that chose the name, but I'm not—I am—it's not written in stone that, you know, if this council has a plan B, I'm open to it. But again, it is going to be very subjective.
[01:10:28] Mayor: If I may. Of course it's subjective. It's their opinions. Dave Irwin was not a member of staff. He was an independent contractor who was hired by the city to represent it. He also was part and parcel in starting the city, in incorporating the city. Dave Irwin did more with law, abiding by the law and making it work in the favor of this city than anybody could imagine. Whether it was with windows that were inappropriate, signs that were inappropriate, he found a way to make it work in this community's best interest. He was generous with his time. He was generous with his thought. He was a spectacular human being who gave not only at this city, but he served at the—what was it?—Desert Desert Classic. That's what it was called then. He was amazing what he gave in his time. It wasn't always compensated time financially, but it was always compensated because it resulted in a greater community. It was an investment in the community is what Mr. Irwin gave. And I always remember him with his generous thought and his wisdom sharing, and these were such great words: you can disagree agreeably. And he was wise and he was kind and he did a lot for this city. And though people may not remember it because they were not around, perhaps this is a way to remind everybody all he did for the city. And I certainly hope there will be a plaque that explains all that he did and how he helped incorporate the city of Palm Desert because he's done a lot for this city. And because there are those that don't remember, that's a sign. It's a time to use his name and make sure that people don't forget what he has done for us. We have a subcommittee. They went through this. They had other names. They chose this. We can respect that process. And I would absolutely support what they did. They worked hard. I'm sure it wasn't easy. Yes, it's subjective. Um, I know his family is here tonight. They probably could share a lot more with you of the things he did quietly and behind the scenes. He wasn't someone to step out in front to look for accolades. He just did the good work. And he did the good work because it made this community better.
[01:13:33] Councilmember: I think that was very well stated, Mayor, and that's what I was trying to convey is that it's so subjective that I defer to the committee that put the time and effort into this because otherwise we could have a hundred different plus names for this park, and we did have a committee that studied it. So, I support what you're suggesting.
[01:14:01] Councilmember: Yeah. Um, I agree. To me, the issue is not whether or not he was remunerated, paid for the work he did. 42 years of service since the city's inception. I don't think I ever met the man. I moved here in 1993. Never thought about leaving. I know it was a beautiful city when I moved here. I'm sure he deserves a good chunk of the credit for that. And I'm all for naming the park after, uh, after him for, for his contributions. Anybody who dedicates 42 years of their life in the service of a community as beautiful as this, I think deserves recognition. And I also, uh, to me, the conceptual plans don't need to be touched. I'm all for just moving this thing forward as presented.
[01:14:50] Mayor: Is there any other discussion?
[01:14:52] Councilmember: So will this be a separate motion or are we taking them together?
[01:14:54] Mayor: Let's take them together. I'd like to have them both.
[01:14:59] Councilmember: I will make a motion to move them as...
[01:15:00] Council Member: Presented. But thank you. I think that since they are two items and we have had a discussion on the name, I think we should take them independently as is stated on the agenda.
[01:15:08] Mayor: Okay. So that's a substitute motion. Is there a second for that substitute motion?
[01:15:18] Council Member: Oh, I will second the substitute motion.
[01:15:22] Mayor: Okay. So we'll have a... Which would you like to take first?
[01:15:29] Council Member: There's a one and a two. Well, sequential order, one and two.
[01:15:31] Council Member: Okay. I make a motion to approve the concept plan A as presented.
[01:15:35] Council Member: Okay. Second.
[01:15:48] Mayor: Motion passes 5 to zero to approve the conceptual plan.
[01:15:52] Council Member: And then I'll make a motion to approve the park name Dave Irwin Park.
[01:15:54] Council Member: And I'll go a little unconventional. I'll second that.
[01:16:12] Mayor: Motion passes three to zero with Council Member Padetto voting no and Council Member Kintania abstaining.
[01:16:21] Mayor: Thank you, council.
[01:16:23] Clerk: I'm sorry. And that passed 3 to one with the abstention as a nonvote.
[01:16:29] Mayor: Thank you.
[01:16:33] Mayor: Thank you for being here, Travis and family. We're all very proud of that. Okay, we will move to public hearings.
[01:16:45] Mayor: 15A is to adopt a resolution to increase admission fees for the Palm Desert Aquatic Center. And once again, we have Miss Mure.
[01:16:56] Sean Mure: That was a quick break. Again, Sean Mure, community services manager. We have for you today a presentation on a proposed fee increase for the Palm Desert Aquatic Center. I'm here with Liberty Urban from Urban Accounting who will be providing a portion of the presentation, but I will get things started. Just to recap on a brief history about the aquatic center: it was opened in 2011. A resolution was passed which set the original fees as well as a goal of achieving a 60% cost recovery for the expenditures toward supporting the facility. As we conducted financial analyses year-over-year, we saw that that subsidy was increasing and the cost of goods and services going up. We wanted to do some additional research to determine whether the fees needed to be increased. In doing so, staff researched several local facilities as well as regional facilities and throughout California that were comparable to the aquatic center. So, I'll talk more about those. And ultimately, a five-year increase plan was presented both to the parks and recreation committee and to the city council, and the year one fee increase was adopted. So we're here with year 2 fee increase being presented. Again, the study session in March 2023 to the city council provided some background about other aquatic facilities and where we stood with the Palm Desert Aquatic Center. And then the city council meeting in September 2023 was when that year 1 fee increase was adopted. It was implemented in January 2024. Along with it, a discount program for low-income individuals was rolled out for those who qualify. And also wanted to note that just this year in January, the YMCA management and operations agreement was renewed and extended through 2030 at a lower rate than the city was paying previously.
[01:19:00] Sean Mure: So about those other aquatic facilities in Southern California and around California: in speaking with them, they mostly do not have an established recovery rate or they don't know what it is. And if they do know what it is, it's a low recovery rate. Pools are not money makers. We understand them more as a benefit to the community. They keep their rates relatively low to allow accessibility to those amenities. They have very similar open times and operating hours. Many of them only are operating for recreational swim from Memorial Day to Labor Day over the summer. And then most of their programs are focused on the community benefits. So you're talking about your swim lessons for kids and water exercise for adults and things like that.
[01:19:47] Sean Mure: So where does the Palm Desert Aquatic Center stand in relation to these other facilities? We're now at $5.50 for a resident adult entry fee, and there are eight amenities that you can access for that entry.
[01:20:00] Sean: By comparison, you can see that many of the other pools are sticking with that lower rate, and that's essentially for water exercise programs. But the further that you get toward offering amenities like water slides and splash zones and things like that, you get a higher rate. And you'd notice that many of those are also based on height, and that's because they have water slides and features such as those. And in the previous discussions with the City Council, staff have learned that the desire is to have a gradual increase on fees as to not impact the community significantly by increasing the rates so high that it makes it inaccessible. So working through that on the five-year plan, right now we're averaging about 30% recovery rate, and by continuing with the five-year plan to increase fees, we would control that city subsidy at about 33% recovery rate. And then we also committed to an annual review on the impact of those fees on attendees at the aquatic center and how it affects the city budget. So, for today, we're going to look at the highlights after the year one, what the year two fee increase looks like, and how that impacts the general fund. And this slide is just as a reminder—I know the City Council is well aware, but for constituents—that not all of the costs to operate the aquatic center are recovered through charging fees to enter, selling merchandise, selling concessions, goodies. They are subsidized by the city, and that recovery rate was set at 60%. Right now we're looking more at 30%. And in the fiscal year 16-17, that looked more like $600,000. In today's dollars, that's about $800,000, but today we're looking at 2.2 million. And the impact of admissions on the recovery of the aquatic center fees is the most significant thing. We will not recoup all of those fees by all of the funds spent on the aquatic center by increasing the fees. There is a need to increase attendance in order to meet that need as well. So again, I mentioned the contract with YMCA was renewed. We're working closely with YMCA staff to increase the amenities available, the programming, and try to drive up that attendance. However, you can see mainly from this chart, I wanted to show that between 2023 and 2024, when that fee increase hit, there wasn't a significant negative impact to attendance, which means the fee increase was not a deterrent for folks. And just a note about the income-qualified discount program: folks who want to enter the aquatic center at the 2011 rate need only bring their utility bill showing their participation in a qualifying program, and they get the 2011 original rates set to enter. Only 87 people used that last year, but it was used. And after that, I will turn it over to Liberty to recap the year one evaluation.
[01:23:22] Liberty Urban: Thank you, Sean. Good evening, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Liberty Urban. I'm happy to be back here with you all again discussing year two of the potential fee increase for the aquatic center. I'll cover a brief recap of the highlights, and then we will jump into the numbers pretty quick here. As Sean mentioned, attendance was not significantly impacted by the first year of the fee increase, and there was a handful of people that used the income-qualified discount program. While the operations recovery rate did reduce slightly from the last fiscal year, those additional fees brought in about $108,000 in additional revenue that would not have been received if the fees had not increased. The general fund contribution for the prior year was about 1.9 million, and we anticipate 2.22 million in this fiscal year that'll be ending on June 30th. And then additionally, the fees are not the only piece of the puzzle. As Sean mentioned, the YMCA contract extension as well as continued expansion of the programming at the facility. Now, looking at where we have been and where we could potentially go with these fees according to year two of the five-year plan, I do apologize, there is one date error on this slide to point out. That column that says 4/1/25, it should be 7/1/25. We're looking at a July 1st implementation. And I will focus on this first adult line, ages 13 to 59. Adult residents were previously paying $4 for a single admission to the pool, and now they're paying...
[01:25:00] Staff Speaker: $5.50 since January of last year. Year two of the proposed plan would bring that fee up to $7.50 in that column underneath the blue there. We also did provide the parks committee with an alternate option with the budget information we had at the time a few months back, which was $6.50. I will note that the parks committee did opt to move forward with that proposed $7.50 fee for non-residents. The original fee established in 2011 was $6. They're now paying $9, and with the proposal, would move up to $12. Again, that alternate option was $10.50. And then one more item to note on this slide, if the original proposed option for year two, the $7.50 and $12 is adopted, that would generate about $130,000 in additional revenue compared to the alternate option, which would be about $74,000. We are only looking at daily admissions here, but this does include the punch passes and the annual passes as well, which have been updated accordingly.
[01:26:19] Staff Speaker: As Sean mentioned before, the general fund does subsidize aquatic center operations. Back from 16-17, just over $600,000 in general fund subsidy and close to the 60% recovery rate that was originally established. Up to today, we're looking at about $2.2 million in subsidy with around a 30% recovery rate, excuse me, in the next five years averaging out to about 33% with fee increases. One of the big impacts to the expenses at the aquatic center was also a lifeguard wage increase that happened a couple of years ago. And then another item just to caveat those, that $613,000, we know that the value of the dollar declines slightly every year. So in today's dollars, that would be equivalent to about $81,000.
[01:27:25] Staff Speaker: This is somewhat of a repeat of the last slide depicting the prior years, but we projected out into the future years. Assuming those fees are adopted according to the 5-year plan, we're looking at about $2.2 to $2.3 million general fund subsidy each year, and that's for operations only.
[01:27:47] Staff Speaker: While capital projects are not the primary consideration in the fee increase, we do want to highlight that the general fund also supports capital projects for the aquatic center. And we've outlined over the next few years what those capital projects will be. In addition to that $2.2 million this year, there's an additional $350,000 going out for capital projects from the general fund. And you'll see next year in fiscal year 25-26, a big equipment renovation for filter tanks, heaters, and pumps for about three and a half million dollars. So that will be part of the bigger picture of the general fund contribution as well. I'm going to turn it back to Sean here to discuss some of the benefits from those capital improvements.
[01:28:35] Sean: Okay. So, some of the capital improvements, we've talked a lot about operations, but the city is also making capital improvements to increase efficiency at the aquatic center and also achieve some cost savings over time. The pump room renovation is a big one. All of the pumps, filter tanks, and heaters will be replaced, and we're looking at more efficiency with those pumps operating in those filters, but also a 12% reduction in the use of gas for heating the pool. There's also a generator that will be going in this year, and that'll provide backup support for the computer systems that operate the chemical distribution and the pump operation for the pools. And then this year, a solar project was also constructed at the aquatic center. Now that will eventually result in about $160,000 annual cost savings on electricity. Right now, it's still maintaining at the same level because there was a cost to the equipment that was installed, but over about a five-year period, we will start to see the decline in those electrical costs.
[01:29:42] Sean: We also have a strategy to improve the recovery rate. As I mentioned, hand-in-hand with our partners at the YMCA, we are developing a business model to increase events and bring people through the door during times that have traditionally been low attendance. One example of that was the hot summer nights that was rolled out.
[01:30:01] Staff: Last year on Tuesday nights, people could come out, enjoy the pool while the sun was down. They had a DJ going, and it was a really fun event for the community, and it had a huge turnout. Um, it was just something that we tried and thought would be successful, and it turned out to be so. So that'll be continuing this year again with Friday nights being added as well. So look out for that. We're also working in partnership with the public affairs department and FG Creative to make sure that our marketing is on target. Um, we've got new tools in our purchasing system where we can see where folks are coming from and target the areas that they're not coming from. Um, and we're also incorporating some passive income opportunities in new cabanas where families can rent a space for themselves, um, poolside in a cabana versus, um, anywhere else on the deck. And then new food and beverage options, um, slushies and, um, waffle fries and all kinds of good things. Um, again, we're also, um, hiring an aquatics consultant. So that's to bring more of the national lens on, um, the trends in aquatics and, um, do some customer satisfaction surveys and make sure that we're on the right track. So we'll have some reports back to you on that. Um, and again, the fee increase, it does stabilize the city subsidy, but it's not the whole picture. So the schedule for this, uh, back in February was the presentation to the parks and rec committee. They originally thought they wanted to go with the alternative option, but upon presenting the updated budget numbers to them, um, they went with the, um, originally proposed year two fee increase. Um, and here we are today with the year two presentation. Uh, we would begin implementation of the new fees on July 1st, and that would sync us up with the fiscal year and allow for better tracking, uh, moving forward. And of course, we would come back to you in 2026 with a report on how the year two increase impacted, um, attendance at the facility and just an update overall. So, the recommendation today is to move forward with that year two increase, and I'd be happy to take any questions.
[01:32:06] Staff: Thank you. Are there any questions?
[01:32:10] Councilmember: No questions.
[01:32:12] Mayor: A question? Yeah. Okay. Questions. Okay.
[01:32:19] Mayor: Then we'll open the public hearing. Uh, are there any, uh, comments online?
[01:32:29] City Clerk: No online comments, Madame Mayor. Thank you very much.
[01:32:33] Mayor: Then are there any comments here, please? Thank you. Okay.
[01:32:37] Councilmember: So, um, I've been following this closely naturally. I happen to be the liaison to the parks and rec committee meeting, and it's had a lot of very active discussions, and like every single meeting, we talk about PDAC for sure, and this comes up. Um, so what's interesting to me is we spend over $3 million a year on our parks. Is that on our park maintenance? Is that the figure we talked about?
[01:33:01] Staff: Maintenance. Correct.
[01:33:03] Councilmember: Right. Just servicing and maintaining our parks, and that's considered an amenity that the city provides. PDAC, of course, we treat a little bit differently, but you could view it one of two ways. You could say, well, the pool is just another amenity like a park that we offer to residents and non-residents alike. I guess the difference is once you start charging admission fees and people start looking at it almost like a private sector entity where you need to have a profit and loss and etc., etc. So I think that's where a lot of the, uh, backlash and interest in this subject has come. Um, a couple of things. I mean, we talked about other ways to kind of close the gap on subsidy. We talked about adding some amenities, but I think we would just leave the pool status quo and just leave it with admission fees. So I think that was a wise, uh, path forward. Um, I'm just wondering if in future years, I know we talked about starting it July 1st to, uh, sync up with the fiscal year. Is there any concern? I almost would like to, I would prefer because Open Swim starts April 1st. Isn't that right? Like, I would be a little bit concerned about sticker shock because right there you're in the middle of the summer season. People go June 30th and like, 'Hey, I'm paying five and a half bucks,' and all of a sudden tomorrow they're paying seven and a half. Is there any wisdom to thinking about doing it April 1st, or have you already weighed that kind of consideration? So after the winter off, people don't even remember what they were paying last year, and all of a sudden they just know it's 7.50 this year.
[01:34:31] Staff: The July 1 date was decided upon, um, knowing today was the council meeting and the time to implement the fee increase and get the YMCA and staff, uh, up to date. Um, we could implement it earlier. I, I would say, you know, sometime in June probably, and I'd have to, um, collaborate with YMCA on rolling it out sooner rather than later.
[01:34:56] Councilmember: No, no, I'm, I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm not talking about this year. I understand the wisdom of doing...
[01:35:00] Council Member: It's July 1st this year, but in future years, '26, '27, because this is going to be an annual issue that we revisit year after year. It seems that's just the way we have it set up for the 5-year program. We're going to do it every year and talk about fees. So with that in mind, '26, '27, '28, would it make sense to think about getting the timing done so we could implement those new fees April 1st?
[01:35:21] Staff: We can absolutely consider that for the year three, which would be coming next year, implementing it upon the beginning of recreational swim. The pool already is open for recreational swim. They open for spring break this week, and then they're open on weekends for rec swim already. So that would be a rollout that would happen sooner in April rather than July moving forward. Yeah, we'll definitely look at that.
[01:35:50] Council Member: So theoretically, under that proposal, we'd have two fee increases in a single fiscal year?
[01:35:55] Staff: Yes.
[01:35:58] Council Member: And I think it makes sense. I would support that because, from the public's perception, a swim season starts in April, and it makes more sense to start it at the opening, and they have that winter break where it just starts fresh. So I would support that.
[01:36:16] Mayor: Are there any other comments?
[01:36:19] Council Member: And I think we might have brought this up last year or two years ago about the non-residents. And it's not really a question, it's more of a could we consider requesting the other cities pitch in based upon the number of residents? Can we revisit that perhaps? You're laughing.
[01:36:44] Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think a lot of the non-residents are coming from India, and I don't recall actually... So we used to, just to that thought, the other cities used to help us at this city when we did our Independence Day because their residents came. They've all pulled back, they don't want to contribute. So I don't know that we would make any more headway on this notion because they're just not inclined to do so.
[01:37:23] Council Member: Let me touch on that. I think that if a city wanted to participate, then maybe they could do something similar to our resident card and say, 'If, you know, City of India, we're going to then pay if you sign up for the resident card.' If they want to take that on, if they want to have that initiative, if they want to have a way to show that ID for their residents. But agreed, they would have to initiate that. I don't think that we should try to set any separate pricing because it would be so much work for staff that's coming in to say, 'You live where? How much are you charging? You're unincorporated Riverside County, what are you going to pay?' versus another one. But I think, as the Mayor mentioned, if at one time we had that kind of a shared financial agreement for events and amenities that made sense, then I think that what we need to look at in focusing on how to recover those costs is also making the experience friendly for people to want to go back and not feel like they have to go through extra steps when they come in, if I understand correctly.
[01:38:26] Council Member: So right now, a resident has to show proof that they live in Palm Desert, and then they get the discounted rate. And what I was suggesting is, for example, the City of India, perhaps we negotiate with them—I don't know how it would work—but that they donate $100,000 towards the aquatic center because their residents are using it. But Mayor Pro Tem, you're laughing at that suggestion, and I know it's probably been brought up before.
[01:38:51] Mayor Pro Tem: Yeah. No, only because the residents already enjoy it for free. So it'd be like asking them for an act of charity, or like, 'Oh, please, can you give us this money?' without any incentive for them to do so over there. And if I understand, the Cove communities used to contribute to Civic Center Park maintenance, and not just the July [4th] but the entire maintenance of our Civic Center Park, with the understanding it's a big, almost quasi-regional park for the three cities, and that went away. And to bring that back, you know, again, it'd be like an act of charity. The residents already enjoy it without any...
[01:39:24] Council Member: We'll take the charity. That's what I'm saying. I mean, we can ask. We can ask all day long, but...
[01:39:28] Council Member: I just think one opportunity would be if you go through the Desert Recreation District, because that's who we go to get our resident card. If, again, if they want to figure it out, if they think it's a great idea to come and support us in doing that, we're going to put the ball in their court. We're going to put the water polo ball in their court and see. But I agree. I agree that we want to entice as many local residents, but what's the trade-off going to be in the amount of time it's going to take for it to get done, the amount of the burden on our staff? I think it's a great idea.
[01:40:02] Council Member: And if any city wants to figure out how to do it for their residents, then they can come and propose it to us. I agree with my colleagues that if you've been already planning and participating and it's the middle of the swim season, no matter how many times we put up a sign that says it's going to be changing, it's not going to feel like we're keeping up our end of the bargain of what they knew to expect or budgeted while they were doing it. We also don't want to say, you know, April 1st, April Fools. But I think that I support waiting until the end of that season is over.
[01:40:40] Mayor: So, Council Member Padetto, I wanted to ask you, you had talked about, and as did Mayor Pro Tem Trouy, about changing it a different time rather than having somebody in mid-season, mid-swim season. Does it make sense perhaps to make that change Memorial Day?
[01:41:02] Council Member Padetto: Is that when swim season—is that when the pool closes, or Memorial Day?
[01:41:07] Council Member: So in May, that's when summer starts unofficially, kind of, and it just seems like it makes sense. But I would defer to greater minds than mine, certainly, on that issue.
[01:41:22] Council Member: Yeah, I just think the opening of rec swim season April 1st makes the most sense to me because they've had the whole winter off. Rec swimmers then come back, and all of a sudden they've had five or six months without using the pool. Now they are, and they don't remember what they—can we look at numbers and see when that is? We could look at the people who use the pool and make an informed decision that way.
[01:41:42] Council Member: Yeah, and I'm not suggesting—I'm not making that part of this discussion here because—
[01:41:48] Council Member: Yeah, yeah. I just think, you know, we have some months to figure that out.
[01:41:52] Mayor: Okay, and we do have something in front of us. That's not even, by the way. Is there any further discussion on what is in front of us?
[01:42:01] Mayor: Okay, then let's close the public hearing, and I will entertain a motion on 15A 1, 2, and 3.
[01:42:11] Council Member: I'll move staff recommendation.
[01:42:13] Council Member: I'll second.
[01:42:15] Mayor: May I have a vote?
[01:42:19] Mayor: Motion passes 5 to 0. Thank you very much. Okay, next is 15B: adopt a resolution designating Sandpiper Circle 4 Condominiums as a historic district.
[01:42:33] Carlos Flores: Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the City Council. Carlos Flores, Development Services, here to present on the item in front of you today.
[01:42:42] Carlos Flores: What is under consideration is a request from Sandpiper for what I'm going to refer to as the Circle 4 Condominiums within Sandpiper to be designated as a historic district. Our Cultural Resources Preservation Committee considered this item on February 26th and did recommend that this City Council recommend approval of it based off two criteria which are listed here and within your PowerPoint. It's worth noting that for purposes of designation for districts, they only have to meet one of the criteria. Two are listed here: Criteria A, exemplifying special elements of economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, architectural, or natural history, as well as Criteria E, distinctive examples of community planning. So some background if you're not familiar: here is Sandpiper. It is organized within 17 circles. Circles 1 through 12, with the exception of Circle 4, which you're considering today, have previously been designated as historic districts. You're probably asking the question that I've gotten asked multiple times: why didn't they just bring all of them forward at the same time? And the simple answer is that they all have different HOAs, so each of them somewhat individually have to come forward. What you are seeing today is Circle 4, and you will likely see future circles in the future as well. So what is being considered here is Circle 4, listed there. It is one of the original four circles within Sandpiper. Here's an aerial view. More recently, you can see each of the circles are designed in a similar fashion where you have a central pool and condominiums located around it. So the proposal is to include Circle 4 with the rest of the historic districts that have been previously designated. All of those previous designations were designated under the same criteria we are proposing for approval today. Again, Circle 4 is a part of the first original circles that were built within Sandpiper with mid-century modern architecture as well as that garden design with a central pool and homes built around it. The packet and the application provided a lot of detail and—
[01:45:01] Staff: Information on Circle 4, including some original site plan, original plot plans, original brochures. One of the things that they wanted to highlight is that at the time of construction, condominiums within the region and in general were a relatively new concept, as well as the concept of how Sandpiper was built out with that central pool. And so that was highlighted within that brochure. What you have here is a very distinctive feature of not just Circle 4, but the rest of the Sandpiper community—again, that central pool and central garden area where the homes can walk out to. Here are some other features. Again, it is very similar in concept and design as the rest of the previously designated Sandpiper circles. You have the landscaping and the mid-century modern architecture. So here, I'm not going to read this verbatim, but this is within your packet. The applicant provided a justification on why they meet criteria A and E, and staff not only concurs with that, but again, there is precedent based off the rest of the Sandpiper circles on the distinctive historic components that we will recommend approval for designation. This is a public hearing, so public notification was provided both in the Desert Sun as well as to the surrounding residents. Staff did not receive any comments. For CEQA purposes, this project is exempt and is not considered a project under guideline section 15378. With all that said, city staff's recommendation is to adopt a resolution which would designate Sandpiper Circle 4 as a historic district. Thank you very much. Are there any questions?
[01:46:53] Mayor: Okay, no questions. So we'll open the public hearing. Are there any comments online?
[01:47:03] Staff: No online comments. Thank you.
[01:47:05] Mayor: Are there any comments? Is there any discussion at the dais?
[01:47:10] Councilmember: My comment is, I love how you said it was a new concept. Condominiums were a new concept. On top of that, it could have looked like any old apartments, but the way that someone described it like daisies, like a series of little daisies. So that is very unique, and I don't think I've seen anything like it in the desert that has that kind of structure. Having been on the Cultural Resources Preservation Committee, we had seen a lot of them come in as individual units. It's great to see that now the whole entire area will be part of it and have a greater sense of community. And another point that the neighbors used to get upset at one another is, I think somebody put in a red door, and now this will have people with that historic designation to maintain that consistency of why it's a historic district.
[01:48:05] Mayor: Any other comments? Okay, I'll entertain a motion.
[01:48:11] Councilmember: I'll make a motion to approve.
[01:48:14] Councilmember: Second.
[01:48:15] Mayor: Oh, wait. I forgot to close the public hearing. Closing the public hearing. Now entertaining a motion.
[01:48:20] Councilmember: I will make a motion to approve.
[01:48:22] Councilmember: Second.
[01:48:23] Mayor: Okay.
[01:48:27] Mayor: Motion passes 5 to 0.
[01:48:30] Mayor: Thank you very much. Are there any information items?
[01:48:32] Staff: I do have one. Just another reminder that April 30th is the deadline for boards and commissions. And for the public, if you're not aware, we have commissions, boards, committees that address architecture, parks, public safety, public art, sustainability, homelessness, and many more. So, if you are interested in serving, please get your applications in and go to the city's website for more information. Thank you very much.
[01:48:56] Mayor: Okay, seeing no unfinished business, this meeting stands adjourned.