Palm Desert City Council - Study Session, April 9, 2026

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[00:05:47] Mayor: All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I now call to order the Palm Desert City Council study session for Thursday, April 9th, 2026. We will begin with item 2A, Ordinances amending the Palm Desert Municipal Code relating to certain boards, commissions, committees, and task forces.
[00:06:08] Anthony: Mr. Mayor and City Council, this study session item is before you, the City Council, to obtain direction on draft municipal code amendments relating to three advisory bodies: the Homeless Task Force, the Environmental Resources Committee, and the Parking and Recreation Committee. As part of the city's annual review of boards, commissions, committees, and task forces, staff gathered feedback from department liaisons regarding how these bodies are functioning, including their structure, scope, and meeting frequency. That feedback was reviewed with the City Council Subcommittee on Boards and Commissions, and this item brings forward the resulting draft amendments for Council discussion and direction. First, the first item presents draft amendments that would sunset the Homeless Task Force. The task force was established at a time when the city primarily relied on county services to address homelessness. Since then, the city has developed a more comprehensive response model that includes dedicated staff, contracted outreach services, partnerships with regional service providers, and regional coordination through SCAG, where the city also has council representation. The question for Council is whether the current structure continues to warrant a separate standing task force. Second, the item presents draft amendments that would sunset the Environmental Resources Committee. Environmental and sustainability matters are currently addressed through staff-led programs and regional coordination, including participation in the SCAG Energy and Sustainability Commission and related regional initiatives with council liaison representation at the regional level. The committee has also been operating on an as-needed basis with limited recent activity. The question for council is whether maintaining a separate standing advisory body remains necessary under this structure. And third, the item presents draft amendments relating to the parks and recreation committee. The current code includes responsibilities relating to operations, maintenance, park inspections by committee members. The draft amendments would clarify that the committee's role is advisory and focused on policy, long-range planning, and major initiatives, while operational and maintenance responsibilities remain with city staff. The amendments would also remove the formal park inspection requirement and change the regular meeting schedule to every other month. The question for council is whether these changes appropriately align with the committee's role, with current practices and expectations. And that concludes my report. Based on council direction, staff will return to introduce the applicable ordinances for formal consideration at a regular meeting.
[00:08:35] Mayor: Okay, thank you, Anthony. Any questions from my colleagues?
[00:08:41] Mayor: Karina.
[00:08:43] Karina: Thank you, Mayor. Are there any environmental initiatives down the pipeline that we see that may benefit from resident engagement?
[00:08:54] Anthony: I'm going to ask if Amy could help out with that.
[00:08:58] Anthony: This is economic development deputy director Amy Lawrence.
[00:09:06] Amy Lawrence: Good afternoon. Amy Lawrence, deputy director of economic development. I'm unaware of any environmental initiatives at this time that could—I mean, obviously any could—but we could, if that's the case, we could put them on Engage Palm Desert and request feedback in that way.
[00:09:26] Karina: How successful is getting feedback from Engage Palm Desert? I don't know if this is a best question for our clerk or whoever else manages Engage Palm Desert.
[00:09:36] Amy Lawrence: Well, it falls under our department currently in economic development. We work with Ryland Penta, and when we do request feedback on Engage Palm Desert, we do put that on social media, kind of like what we do with our public art. And so we do put that out widely to request project feedback.
[00:09:54] Karina: Do we know how much engagement those social media posts get?
[00:09:58] Amy Lawrence: I don't know currently. I do know that—
[00:10:01] Staff: They do get a lot of engagement, at least you can see with the public art. I'm not sure exactly how many votes we got, but I do believe it was quite a bit.
[00:10:12] Councilmember: Okay, thank you. And I think from our Art in Public Places Committee, perhaps I think we had like 1,500 responses, or is it more?
[00:10:23] Staff: For the sculpture, we just had a meeting yesterday and people were voting on the two sculptures. So, did you want to share that?
[00:10:33] Staff: No, no.
[00:10:34] Erica Jimenez: Erica Jimenez, Public Works. Just to speak on Engage Palm Desert, we didn't force the issue of signing up to comment, so there's no barrier for commenting. And without that barrier, we received around 1,000 votes for the recent public engagement.
[00:10:53] Councilmember: Thank you very much.
[00:10:57] Councilmember: Last question. For instances of requesting feedback on things like environmental resources or initiatives, are those behind the open model, or do they require somebody to create an account to participate?
[00:11:14] Erica Jimenez: I think we can open it either way. I believe that's what we did with the public art. We didn't require them to create an account to vote.
[00:11:21] Councilmember: Okay, thank you.
[00:11:26] Mayor: Anybody else? Okay. No questions? Anybody want to... No, no questions. I'm sorry, it's open for discussion. Go ahead, Jess.
[00:11:36] Councilmember Harnik: As far as when we talk about the interaction with the community, we know that we can just look at our mail we got this week. They are not shy to give us their thoughts and opinions on projects going on or any issues that might impact the city. So, we know that our community members are engaged and will speak up when they need to. What we have found over the years with the environmental issues, we are always more effective when we deal with it on a regional basis, when we go to CVAG, and then of course those meetings are always noticed. We always welcome comments at those meetings, and we can be more effective when we deal with those sorts of issues on a regional basis, even if we look at all the environmental issues being addressed with the Southern California Association of Governments, which does an awful lot as far as the environmental issues, air quality, etc. So, we have a lot of agencies, a lot of bodies working for us in the environmental area. And I think this is fine, what we're doing. If there is ever anything of an emergent nature where we need to address something, I know we're nimble enough as a city that we can take whatever actions we need to do that. But in the meantime, I think this is a good recommendation from our staff, and a lot of work went into this. I do think it looks like some good thoughts and ideas. Thank you.
[00:13:21] Mayor: Very good. Anybody else? Mayor Pro Tem.
[00:13:25] Mayor Pro Tem: I think Councilwoman Harnik shared my thoughts very well.
[00:13:32] Mayor: Anyone else? All good? Councilmember Karina Moreno.
[00:13:35] Councilmember Karina Moreno: Thank you, Mayor. I completely agree that when the Homelessness Task Force was established, it made perfect sense. We were dealing with a regional effort that we then took in-house and took matters into our own hands about how to approach it within our city for what made sense for us, because not every city is created equal. We found that we could do a better job in referring our resources and allocating those resources for a long-term sustainable impact in our collaboration with CVAG. So, I think we have been very successful by doing that in-house. However, I am very concerned about doing the same to sunset the Environmental Resources Committee. And part of that is because when it first came about to say, 'Let's shrink the frequency,' I was already hesitant about it. Had I known that there was a potential to say, 'We're going to shrink it to as-needed, and you know what? Nobody's needed it, so let's get rid of it,' to me, that's a very different situation. That's a scenario that was not presented as a possibility, and to me, that bypasses a lot. I think that when we look at social media, yes, we get engagement, but that doesn't guarantee that they were Palm Desert residents. A lot of people participate in art. Art has people from everywhere that come and enjoy our art, but that doesn't replace the people that sit in our commissions, in our committees, that are the ones that select the art that draws that in. We have a wealth of talent. We've seen how many people apply for our committees and commissions, and having less engagement and saying, 'Apply for something'—I mean, I recently know of a former elected official who told someone, 'You know, get involved, join a committee or a commission.' So, we're shrinking that pipeline, and we're saying, 'Join a committee,' but then we're not going to meet. So, what are you really learning about what it's like to participate, how the meetings run, and how government runs if we're closing the opportunity for participation? I've always said that our residents are the lifeblood of our city, and any opportunity that we are implementing cutting them off from having that direct engagement is putting a tourniquet where we don't need it. How many cities don't have an environmental resources committee? That's kind of standard. That would be like saying, 'Yeah, you know what? Our parks are running great. We don't need that either.' We can modify the scope of what they do. But I find that I have heard it from a couple of different committees and commissions. Now, granted, individuals are going to feel differently or may not understand why staff does what they do, but they have felt that staff comes in and says, 'Here's what we're doing,' and they feel like they're just rubber-stamping. Some across, again, different committees and commissions have said that when they have presented things, they feel that they're not being heard. Staff can come back and say, 'You know what? We heard this, and here's why it may or may not be feasible.' But when they say, 'Okay, thanks,' but it doesn't come back to say, 'Here's why,' our residents want to be engaged. Saying, 'Oh, we heard from them online' doesn't replace the role of government to engage residents to be part of the process to establish the opportunities. And this, to me, is very concerning. I understand Parks and Rec, you know, if we're going to limit the scope of each individual commissioner to have to go to their individual respective park and send a report, that makes sense. That makes sense because we've got an amazing public works department that can let staff and let us internally know. That makes sense every other month. But instead of saying, 'All right, fine, let's have a quarterly environmental resources meeting, even if it's just to update them on what we're doing,' so these members of the community can go back and say, 'Here's how Palm Desert is exceeding the standards. Here's our innovation,' and go forward, instead of 'Go look on the website.' And that to me is essentially what this is doing. If you care about the environment in Palm Desert, go look on our website. Go look for it on social media.
[00:18:23] Mayor: Well, I actually happen to agree with Councilmember Harnik, and I think staff time can be better used in other ways. So, do you have a clear direction on how to move forward? I do. Terrific. Thank you. Okay.
[00:18:37] Mayor: And we will now... actually, that closes the study session for today. We will transition to closed session, which doesn't exist today. So, we're going to take a break until 4:00, come back for our regularly scheduled open session meeting. Thank you so much.
[00:18:56] Speaker: Oh, there you go. So, we give you a half-hour buffer. Yes.