Palm Desert City Council - Study Session, April 23, 2026

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[00:17:44] Anthony Mia (City Clerk): Honorable mayor and City Council, I'm Anthony Mia, City Clerk, and today I'm seeking council direction regarding board and commission interview procedures. During the presentation, I'll cover four items: Senate Bill 707 impacts, the current interview procedures, the available options, and the proposed selection method.
[00:18:05] Anthony Mia (City Clerk): Under Senate Bill 707, it requires real-time remote public access for covered city council meetings. As a result, future appointed body interviews will occur in a more formal public setting with live public access via Zoom and open session deliberations. With that, that is why staff is asking City Council to revisit both the interview procedures and the post-selection process.
[00:18:30] Anthony Mia (City Clerk): The current process has two tracks for the Architectural Review Commission, Building Board of Appeals, Finance Committee, Planning Commission, and the Rent Review Board. Interviews are always required for all candidates and incumbents. For several of the other appointed bodies, an incumbent seeking reappointment is not interviewed unless requested by a council member. That structure was approved in 2021, but staff has identified an ambiguity that now needs direction.
[00:18:58] Anthony Mia (City Clerk): If an incumbent applies for reappointment to a streamlined body, and no council member requests an interview, and another applicant also applies for the same seat, the current policy does not say whether interviews should be held for the non-incumbent applicants.
[00:19:22] Anthony Mia (City Clerk): Staff has outlined four options. Option one is to keep the current streamlined structure and clarify that absent a requested interview, the incumbent is therefore recommended for reappointment. As a result, no interviews will be held for that seat. Option two requires interviews in all cases for all bodies. Option three requires interviews when there is one or more applicant for a seat or if the incumbent is called up by a council member. And option four keeps the streamlined process but requires an interview for a third or later term. Staff is also seeking direction on two...
[00:20:00] Staff: ...procedural items. First is whether to use a standardized bank of interview questions for future interviews from which the city council may select questions it wishes to ask without any requirement to use all of the questions in the bank and may ask follow-up questions as appropriate. Second, whether to use a point ranking system after interviews to identify recommended appointees. Council members would rank each of the applicants. Points are assigned by rank. The lowest total score identifies the recommended appointees and ranking forms would be retained as part of the public record and the city council would take final action at a subsequent meeting. This slide shows how the point-based ranking method would work for a body with multiple vacancies. If there is a tie in the final seat, the tie is broken first by the number of first place rankings. And if a tie still remains, the city council would need to discuss and resolve it in open session. In summary, a staffer is requesting direction on three questions. First, whether the interview procedures should apply, which interview procedures should apply going forward. Second, whether to use the banked interview questions, and third, whether to use a point-based ranking system to identify recommended appointees after interviews. And that concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions.
[00:21:22] Mayor: Okay, any questions from my colleagues?
[00:21:27] Council Member Harick: Um, I have a couple questions, please. We talked about, or you mentioned, I think in question two, the banked questions.
[00:21:36] Council Member Harick: If there is a question for follow-up, I would assume that's acceptable.
[00:21:43] Staff: Absolutely. Clarification questions, follow-up questions. Absolutely.
[00:21:46] Council Member Harick: Okay. And the other thing, I kind of... it seems counterintuitive to me why the person with the least points is your number one choice.
[00:21:56] Staff: Sure. So if you're ranking them, say, one through five, your top choice would be number one, and that person would get one point. And then if you're...
[00:22:06] Council Member Harick: And I understand that part of it, but normally you say, 'Okay, that person's got it all going on from 1 to 10. We're going to give them the 10, not the one.' It just seems counterintuitive to me, and I'm wondering if there's some...
[00:22:19] Staff: I would just reverse the order. So, you would rank it number five would be your top candidate, and then number one would be your least favorite candidate. But it's just a swap of how you look at it.
[00:22:34] Council Member Harick: Okay, thank you.
[00:22:39] Mayor: Oh, any other questions?
[00:22:41] Council Member: Um, I do. If you could please go back to the options presented. Option one: if an incumbent seeks reappointment and no council member requests an interview, the incumbent will be recommended for reappointment and no interviews will be held. Does that... the other consideration there that I don't see listed is if there's another applicant.
[00:23:05] Staff: Okay. Incumbent only interviewed. Okay, gotcha.
[00:23:11] Mayor: Got it. Okay, good. Ready for discussion? Anybody want to give their opinions?
[00:23:34] Council Member: If there's another applicant, I think it's important to give them the opportunity to be interviewed and not close off the interview process just because option one would preclude another applicant from interviewing if we did option one. So, I like option three the best. I do like the bank of interview questions. I do know when I've been in these interviews questioning people, sometimes it's hard to come up with the question just because of the nature of it. And sometimes maybe it's not fair that one candidate gets question A and another one for the same position might not get question A. So, I think it would be better to have a bank of interview questions. It makes it more standardized, and I like the point system as well. And that way, it takes away a little bit of subjectivity because we're all human beings and we do observe people, and maybe our personal observations cloud our best judgment. This way, it standardizes the system as well. I think it creates a more even playing field, and I like Council Member Harick's suggestion of using the reverse point option. Whoever has the most points, that's the best candidate. That's it.
[00:25:04] Council Member: Um, I'm going to offer my opinion. Um, I do like option three, but it doesn't seem like these options are standalone. You know, they're not mutually exclusive. In other words, I'd like to see a bit of a combination of three and four, whereby an incumbent gets two terms, but on the third or fourth, maybe we automatically... just so, I mean, we all have to campaign for office theoretically, and I don't want committee members necessarily taking things for granted. But some combination of three and four to me would be desirable. The bank questions look good, and I think standardized questions are good as well. So, any thoughts from you guys?
[00:25:50] Council Member: In terms of the options, I think I agree. I like option three. If we mix and do like option four and we interview candidates with no other options, like, what are we doing? I'm just curious because, from the staff report, the original problem that the council was trying to solve is efficiency. So, if we're holding interviews with no options, then what is our intent? Whereas, we still have the option to call up applicants for an interview if we want.
[00:26:33] Council Member: Yeah, true. That's reasonable. That would be a bit of a waste of time if there's no applicants, granted. And Council Member Hornick?
[00:26:40] Council Member Hornick: Thank you. I do want to note, because we talk about the fact that these are now Zoomed, these were always public meetings, but now this is making it more accessible. Anybody could have been in any of the interviews at any time they wished, so I think that's worth noting. But now, due to efficiencies and doing the right thing and making sure everybody has an opportunity, I think it's great what we're doing and really making more notice of it. I like the bank questions. I like the ranking because, keep in mind, that all becomes public record, and that too is an asset. I like option two. Now we have narrowed down the number of committees and commissions. I know it means a lot of work. In the past, there's been seldom, but it has occurred, where we interview someone and it's like a different person shows up to serve the committee. Because of that, I think it serves us well to interview everyone. And here it says the benefits are—and this is something that should be driving our decision—I believe the benefits are consistency, transparency, and regular reconsideration of incumbents. It is more work, I get that, but it also is what makes Palm Desert work well when we look at these things closely. So, I would think number two. And then, as I said, along with the ranking system, I think that works well, and the bank of questions. Thank you.
[00:28:35] Council Member: I think you make a great point. With us kind of paring down the number of committees, it does change the variables to which we optimize. I think that's a valid point. It affords us the ability to... where transparency and consistency may have been extra burdensome before, now it's manageable. I think that's a good point.
[00:29:04] Council Member: Actually, you do make a good point. I'd say option two probably is... it kind of solves my conundrum about the mix-up of three and four and interviewing everybody all the time. So, yeah, maybe option two is the way to go.
[00:29:17] Mayor: All right. Well, then we've given staff direction, it sounds like.
[00:29:20] Council Member: Yeah, I think I was leaning towards option three, but yeah, I think Councilwoman Harick makes great points. I think option two for me.
[00:29:30] Staff: Great. We'll return with a policy at your next meeting.
[00:29:33] Mayor: Terrific. Thank you. Okay, on to... oh, and by the way, Anthony, are we going to go with the reverse point system? The higher candidate gets the higher points. Okay, terrific. Okay. Item 2B, update on the status of key projects by the Development Services Department. And we have Mr. Carlos Flores, or we have...
[00:29:57] Carlos Flores: Yes.
[00:29:58] Mayor: Rosie.
[00:29:58] Rosie: Yes.
[00:29:58] Mayor: Terrific. Thank you.
[00:30:00] Rosie Lua: Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Rosie Lua, director of development services. We are presenting to you the annual development services department key project update.
[00:30:11] Rosie Lua: There are several divisions within our department that bring forward projects, initiatives, and programs that are part of our commitment for long-range planning, process improvement, and innovation. Although some of these items we will be discussing today are city council-driven initiatives, I do want to commend our staff for bringing forward projects that are in addition to their day-to-day operations.
[00:30:39] Rosie Lua: So we will be presenting to you a list of these items that will include a project description, whether we have a consultant on board to support staff, the outcome of the project (whether it'll be a policy document, a municipal code update, a program launch, or something else), as well as indicate whether we have a future study session that will come before you before we are actually adopting any of our programs or initiatives, and the estimated completion time.
[00:31:16] Rosie Lua: We will also be presenting potential projects that we would need direction on at the end of our presentation. So, we'll have some considerations to make on timing and prioritization of a project, the feasibility and assessment of a project, and/or the need to bring in an external contracted service for this project. We could also defer this item to a future study session if the council wishes to. So, with that, I will turn it over to Carlos Flores, deputy director.
[00:31:49] Carlos Flores: All right. Thank you, members of the city council. As mentioned, we have about 24, 25 projects here listed. I'm not going to go into extreme detail on any of them, although I'm always open to any questions or clarification needed. We've grouped them. We tried to provide them in certain groups. And so the first one we have here is within our development services center, focusing on the next phase of our Clarity permitting software. So, we have what we're calling phase two of our permitting software, which is some items that were deferred from phase one.
[00:32:21] Carlos Flores: And additionally, at the same time, we are going through major efforts to incorporate the Riverside County Fire Department into our permitting system, so really creating that one-stop shop. And that is a two-part project. Part one is incorporating fire fees. So, we have to adopt their fees if we're going to charge them here instead of sending them offsite to get charged. And the other part is making sure that anyone can apply for any fire permit within our system, that they don't have to go to the other system as they currently are. We're working through that right now. We have a consultant on board helping us, and we will have a future study session to get this wrapped up with this year.
[00:33:01] Carlos Flores: At the same time within the Clarity system, the other thing on track is incorporating business licenses into the Clarity system. So again, really making sure that trying to get any service within the development services center is in our Clarity permitting system, that we are getting assistance here, and do anticipate a study session.
[00:33:24] Carlos Flores: Next, we have code compliance and supportive services. These items here are internal and staff-driven only, a couple projects we got going on. So, as we incorporate business license to be in-house, we wanted to make sure is what we're putting into our system doesn't make sense. Is our business license ordinance the most effective and most streamlined? So, we are going through our ordinance with help with BBK to make sure that we're doing everything we need, but anticipate a study session on some decision points, whether it's, 'Hey, do we should we get a separate permit for this?' or, you know, what's the best, most effective way to help people through our business license process.
[00:34:01] Carlos Flores: Also have our business compliance program, which is a code compliance-driven program with, as well as with economic development in other divisions. We are looking at voluntary compliance, really to help enhance our city's commercial areas. This is meant to be a very, very proactive program instead of reactive, which code compliance sometimes can be. We want to get out in front, make good connections with our businesses. And then we are looking at our current funding sources and services for homelessness services in our city and seeing if there's a new service model that comes from it.
[00:34:39] Carlos Flores: Housing, we have four, you know, pretty big projects in dealing with housing. First, want to highlight that will come to a study session soon is a prohousing designation program. So we are going to present to council what the application looks like, what is an outcome, and what are the options that we want to move forward with. We also have, we are working with legal on analysis for rental rates within our mobile homes as well as our rent on our PDHA, on our Palm Desert Housing Authority properties.
[00:35:11] Carlos Flores: All of this, or that one, sorry, is in line with trying to see what our options are for the Western Center stipulation, which is a court agreement from the '90s that provides that, establishes our obligations and requirements on how we charge rent. So going through this, and it really needs to go step by step by step for us to see what our options are to see what we can do with our properties or what our options even are.
[00:35:38] Carlos Flores: Now we have planning, and we have a couple projects of different sizes. The first one is we are looking at the north sphere in terms of the name and seeing, you know, we've met with economic development on analysis and options, and then we'll work internally to present to you all what our analysis is, what our recommendation is, and how we want to move forward, how formal we want to make any change or time.
[00:36:05] Carlos Flores: We also have the views analysis. So this is one of those projects that as we were going through with our consultant, John Klitsky Architects, and a lot of our objective design standards, kept on hearing about views and views and views in our city, and thought that this was best tackled as its own project. So we're going to embark on a citywide analysis of public views, and this will come with a study session. We've already had a kickoff meeting with them. So, anticipate sometime in June that we will get together with you all, see what we find, and ultimately end up with some recommendations.
[00:36:43] Carlos Flores: We are moving forward with our unified development code. We've had some meetings with you all as well as our subcommittee, and anticipate many more meetings as we go through and ultimately end up with a whole new municipal code. For historic preservation, we are doing phase two of a historic survey, which is a more intensive level analysis of certain properties, which then ultimately could lead to the city applying for certified local government with the State Office of Historic Preservation to open up some funding opportunities to us.
[00:37:10] Carlos Flores: And we are also still looking at our university neighborhood specific plan. So that's, the city controls 170 acres, working with our consultant on an updated land use plan. Want to make sure we incorporate a possible indoor sports complex and look at that site for a park. So, we are continuing to move forward with that. That one we do anticipate being completed next year.
[00:37:37] Carlos Flores: Lastly, in our downtown, we have two projects. One of them is we are looking at drainage in our downtown. So, something we heard a lot between, again, between development services and economic development is new development coming in. One of the big things they said was it's difficult to meet your drainage standards to make this pencil out. So we are looking at our existing capacities and our opportunities for drainage changes in our downtown. We hope to get some findings and recommendations on improvements needed to reduce drainage requirements, whether that's a capital project, whether that's a code change, whether that's a combination of both. We really think that that's a big critical step for us to move forward and hopefully allow some, spur some development there.
[00:38:22] Carlos Flores: Along with that, the downtown, we've had a contract in place to do objective design standards. So, similar to what we did in our hillside as well as our multi-family, we have a contract to do objective design standards. That one has been on pause as other things have come up that we want to make sure are done ahead of it. We didn't want to develop design standards until we complete a views analysis and complete our unified development code, because I think that that's most appropriate to complete that afterwards. That one would come back for a study session.
[00:38:57] Carlos Flores: So now we have a couple slides here on, or a few slides here, sorry, on some of the discussion ones. Some that we are not at this time, you know, have a consultant in place or moving forward, but, you know, we've heard either through here at council or staff as we're looking at it, or through subcommittee of, you know, some items that we need to move forward. We had a good, informative meeting, subcommittee meeting yesterday with Mayor Pro Tem in terms of outdoor dining, which could, which does help us, and we anticipate coming back to this council with an update on outdoor dining. So that is an update here. But some of the projects we're looking at in our downtown is the streetscape, which is, you know, potentially looking at El Paseo and/or Highway 111 to incorporate streetscape changes. So, we've heard, you know, again throughout our year, throughout the year, and in kind of other conversations about, 'What about...'
[00:40:00] Staff: If we do things like bollards or look at the landscaping up and down, or the travel lanes and the right-of-way changes, and, you know, really thinking that these aren't projects that could be done as one-offs. But if we really want to look at it, it would have to be a comprehensive look at anything we want to change in our streetscape. Obviously, that's not a cheap or easy or quick process. It is a very large thing, but again, just keeping that in mind for us, that we didn't want to piecemeal a lot of these things, rather than say, 'Is this something we want to move forward with, or just keep in our back pocket for a later date?' Outdoor dining is the same thing. And again, we met yesterday and made good progress on a permanent solution. And so again, we will come back with more analysis on that.
[00:40:49] Staff: And then some other ideas. So again, also with the outdoor dining is the possibility of doing an entertainment zone in the future. Parking analysis, that's another one we've heard, either segmented or downtown in general. And that would be a little more in line with if we do make changes or try to make changes in our downtown as a capital project, that at some point we'd recommend doing some sort of parking analysis to have the data of, okay, what areas are people actually parking? How is it actually working? Is this a wayfinding issue, if there's an issue at all, or are there other opportunities to remove or add in certain areas?
[00:41:32] Staff: And then the other item with our downtown, and this is where we left off with our downtown subcommittee actually, is looking at our land uses. We've had good, productive conversations with our downtown subcommittee on maybe what a new zoning map looks there, but really the next level there is us looking at what are the appropriate land uses in the downtown. This would take—this would be partially completed by staff, but really would need some urban design professional to do, you know, really block-by-block, tenant-by-tenant analysis of what's existing out there and what would be appropriate in certain areas.
[00:42:13] Staff: Lastly, with all that said, you know, we are going through our unified development code right now and going through, you know, full steam ahead. We have a few other topics again that have come up in terms of our municipal code. Everything from citywide light ordinance, pickleball, golf cart revisions to our downtowns, and then ultimately views analysis revisions. Some of these we could and we'll try to incorporate into our UDC, although those that require, you know, a lot of specific analysis or side conversations or study sessions could delay that. Or we could also, you know, some of these that staff could do internally could try to be done beforehand or after UDC adoption, meaning we could look at what our unified development code would look like and then from there see which ones of these we still need to update. So, I know it's a lot. We went through a lot of the existing ones, and really what we're looking for is a little bit of direction if any of these we want to see immediately, or, you know, if more comfortable with the approach we have on which ones we're going to be bringing back for a study session.
[00:43:33] Mayor: Any questions for my colleagues?
[00:43:37] Mayor: All right. Council Member Hornik.
[00:43:40] Council Member Hornik: On the number 18, which was the drainage analysis, isn't a lot of the water management guidelines that we go by, isn't it state-mandated?
[00:43:53] Staff: There is a lot, and that's part of it. There is a lot that are state-mandated, and so what we're trying to see first and foremost is our existing capacities and what we have there, and then from the engineering team, what changes, if any, could we make. So is this something where we could change in our municipal code, or is this something more that we have to create some sort of capital infrastructure to accommodate, you know, development?
[00:44:21] Council Member Hornik: Are we working then within the state-mandated guidelines?
[00:44:25] Staff: Correct.
[00:44:26] Council Member Hornik: They're not actually guidelines, are they?
[00:44:29] Council Member Hornik: They're ordinances, I suppose. But okay, that was one of my questions. The other—and this is a question and a suggestion on, I think it was 23, and you were talking—it's the parking analysis. And though it doesn't seem to be a big deal now, as we grow, it's going to be an issue. We've always taken great pride in the parking we have and the fact that we have no parking that we charge for, and curb management is a big issue. And especially when we look at, um, Alpaca is the perfect example where curb management counts, and SCAG has a lot of really good information on that. So it's just a resource we may use as we go forward. I'm thinking with the parking analysis, it's one of those things I just want to make sure that we get out in front on, because we don't want to be responding like you said before about reactive rather than getting out front. So, those are just a couple of notables. But there's so much here. So, this is big work you're taking on. Thank you.
[00:45:42] Council Member Hornik: So, also on number 18 with the drainage and with Hurricane Hillary, with the big storm and all the drainage issues that we did have in the north area, were our drainage requirements—are they in any way related to the issue people are having now? Did we go too strict as a result of Hurricane Hillary, or is this completely separate?
[00:46:07] Staff: We didn't change our requirement. So the requirement is capturing a 100-year storm, and that requirement did not necessarily change because of it. We've stuck to it, and that is, you know, one of the many reasons why. It hasn't changed because of it, but we would, as part of this, make sure that we're doing things in a way that is safe for those large events.
[00:46:32] Council Member Hornik: Right, because we did have issues with flooding and many, many issues. So I thought we were going to make requirements more strict. So am I conflating the two here?
[00:46:44] Staff: Yeah. It's not necessarily that we'd make it—so when I say more flexible, it's more flexible to allow development but still hold the same amount of drainage capacity. So you're correct in that we need to make sure we're draining enough, right, and that we're capturing everything. It's just seeing what the options are for developers to design it differently and still meet all of that. But the goal and the intent is not to loosen any restrictions.
[00:47:15] Council Member Hornik: Okay.
[00:47:16] Council Member Hornik: That's my only question.
[00:47:17] Staff: And I can provide a little background on that. I've heard from a few different folks doing redevelopment and infill projects. We require property owners retain 100-year storm flows on site, and sometimes, depending on the site location, there's not enough landscape area to build basins. So then they're looking at building underground facilities. It's just—
[00:47:45] Staff: Yeah, it's very expensive. And so the thinking is, with staff, is one of the things they'll be looking at is, is there a way to build a community facility-type flood that instead of doing all on-site, property owners can work together to contain it some way that makes it affordable to—
[00:48:06] Staff: Yeah. Because what happens when someone's designing it, what we've seen is, okay, for me to meet this standard, my building's got to go up and up and up and up and up, right? The actual building. So, it's really just trying to see what are the other options out there, if there are any, but not loosening standards.
[00:48:22] Council Member Hornik: Understood. Thank you.
[00:48:23] Staff: And if I could add one quick item, we do have a parallel effort looking at the north edge flood control. So, that item is not on this list, but it is running concurrently, and we'll have a study session to the Council in June focused on the north end in response to Tropical Storm Hillary.
[00:48:38] Council Member Hornik: Thanks.
[00:48:40] Council Member: There's a few things on here. Would it be helpful to hear from us of things that might alleviate your guys' workload? I'll answer and say that I think when we look at the entertainment zone, the little I'm familiar with it is that for the outdoor alcohol consumption, it would create a zone where you can drink outdoors, but I think the legislation requires specially branded containers so that you can monitor who's drinking and where, so that they don't go outside of that area. And I'm just wondering if the look we want is people walking down El Paseo with plastic cups branded for outdoor alcohol consumption. I don't know if we're there yet. So, if I'm correct in my analysis, that's one thing that I think we can not put on the top burner at the moment, for sure.
[00:49:40] Staff: Understood.
[00:49:44] Council Member: I do have one question about item number seven. It was the homelessness service model and potential for new service model. Are you able to share anything that's been—or has anything been considered to date?
[00:49:58] Staff: Right now, one of the big items we're looking for is, or looking at is, how much—
[00:50:02] Staff: funding we're we're going to get for from certain grants that usually fund a lot of our homelessness services. And so that's why once we receive that, we do anticipate potentially getting less than we usually get. And so just trying to see what our options are at that point. And I know that's vague, but unfortunately until we get those numbers definitively, then we just don't know what our options even are. But we're trying to do as much as we can proactively in seeing our services right now, how much they cost, what our options are with them, and taking it from there to act quickly once we know what the numbers are. Any other questions or opinions, thoughts?
[00:50:52] Council Member: Well, for direction, are you asking us to rank what we think is most important or what direction are you looking for?
[00:51:01] Staff: I don't necessarily rank in terms of the ones for discussion. We got good feedback in terms of the entertainment zone. If there is one that you definitely want to move full steam ahead, I think on the parking one as well, that's good analysis of, you know, don't completely push it away. And I think we have similar thoughts of there's going to be a trigger point of, 'Hey, we need to move forward with this,' right? Of we are looking at our sidewalks and opposing some parking. Let's do this parking analysis that we understand there's going to be a trigger point, and maybe that trigger point isn't now yet unless we hear otherwise, but that will keep it on the back burner. Even trying to figure out how much it would cost to then come back to you all and say, 'We believe we're at a point we need to do this parking analysis if you guys want to do these projects, and here's the option with it.' So, it's a long way of saying, yeah, you don't need that.
[00:52:00] Council Member: All right. I would just highlight number 20, the downtown streetscape, though, from my perspective, is very important, but I don't know how my colleagues feel on it. We did have a study four or five years ago and we had a consultant giving us design ideas, and I still think it's important that we look at the downtown El Paseo and Highway 111.
[00:52:28] Council Member: Thank you on the parking, because what we don't want to do is have things go a certain way and then we have to pull back and it creates such angst. So, if we can get out in front on that. As Council Member Neandi talks about the streetscapes and we look at zoning and the Unified Development Code, one of the things that I think is foundational to all of those is a views analysis. And I think, you know, as we look and we have later on today for the hillside issues, that drives so many other of the ordinances, the zoning, as we look at height issues, as we're looking at mixed use, all these sorts of different issues, the views analysis will drive a lot of those decisions. And to me, the views analysis should be something we look at closely. We can't protect our natural environment enough. And if we don't have the views analysis in place, it's difficult to do all these other things and then go back and say, 'I wish we'd done the views analysis. Can we just, you know, blow up that building over there that's blocking that view?' So, I think the views analysis is something that's critical to driving so many other decisions and making sure we're protecting the quality of the city. The other thing, which of course everyone's heard from me and I think it's important, the sooner we get a new name for the northern area of Palm Desert and that is integrated into our lexicon, the better off we're going to be. So, those are just a couple of the thoughts. Thank you.
[00:54:27] Council Member: Okay. Yeah, actually agree views and parking to me, you know, functional considerations and real-world considerations that are foundational to what goes on after that. So, I would prioritize them for sure. I also agree with Mayor Pro Tem about striking number 22. I will disagree with Gina about the streetscape. To me, that just has an expensive feel to it. And I'm only reminded of two meetings ago when we talked about medians and wholesale changes throughout the city and the price tag. And so, that's what my concern is with kind of revamping the streetscape. It smells expensive to me, and that's the only reason I wouldn't necessarily want to pursue that as a priority.
[00:55:17] Council Member: I agree with both of my colleagues, and I think the solution goes to what the third says is we cross that bridge once we get the view study. I think we get the view study, that informs a lot of what we do next.
[00:55:31] Staff: Sounds good. Mayor, if we could focus on number 25, and I think that's one we would need direction on, and that's some additional zoning updates, some of those that are not within our Unified Development Code. And so, those are ones that we could either bring forward on its own, we can wait for the Unified Development Code, but we just wanted to know how important those items were to you to bringing them forward sooner, or if the timing of the Unified Development Code met the expectation there.
[00:56:14] Council Member: Mayor, if I may. I was going to say my question to that was going to be...
[00:56:20] Council Member: I think some of these are kind of business-friendly type things,
[00:56:26] Council Member: correct? And so, I would suggest if we can take these as soon as we can, and then we're still moving forward with the UDC, and so they'll get incorporated. But my preference would be if we could move these along and be business-friendly, that would be my suggestion.
[00:56:44] Council Member: I have a question.
[00:56:45] Council Member: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:56:46] Council Member: And I agree with the business-friendly. We also want to be brand-friendly and resident-friendly as well, so we have to find that balance. But when we talk about golf carts, what exactly does that mean?
[00:57:01] Staff: So, there was a question at one of the previous City Council meetings on allowing golf cart, or classifying golf cart sales as retail. And we actually are anticipating bringing that back to Council ahead of time. We've done some research on some of the history where it did come before you and cleaning that up, but that's what that is.
[00:57:27] Council Member: Okay, thank you. Then when we talk about the citywide light ordinances and the downtown revisions, views analysis, all of those things are what make the city attractive to not only attract residents but attract businesses. So, I think they're all important. At this point with pickleball, we have a vacuum. We have nothing that speaks to pickleball, so we should make sure that we address that. The golf cart, as you said, you're bringing back. But a number of these items on here, when we talk about the light ordinances, I think that's really important before it gets too bad, because there are some really questionable uses of lighting that we're looking at. And that's another thing we addressed in the hillside. We recognize how important that is, and it's equally important downtown and in our residential areas. So, and then the views analysis, so important. It's foundational for everything that we're doing. There will be a component of that as we make all sorts of decisions. And if we went through here, I think it would be almost every other one where we'd say, 'Well, the views analysis would be part of understanding how we go forward.' So, I do think we should look at those quickly, in that they really are foundational to so many other things we're looking at.
[00:59:02] Staff: Perfect. Thank you.
[00:59:04] Council Member: Yeah, I agree. And thank you for not letting that one slip by. Number 25 is an important consideration, and I want to know, is there one particular thing that prompted us considering those revisions? I mean, how old are most of the ordinances or zoning codes?
[00:59:18] Staff: So, each one of these came up very differently in a very different times. I know that like the lighting ordinance came up through Council goals. Pickleball has been a brewing issue from various, you know, just day-to-day stuff that we deal with the public. So, we're bringing that one forward. So, for us, it was more we want to bring these forward, but we just didn't know if that was a priority for you all so that we can pause our consultant a bit, help us with these items, we push those forward, and then they can continue on with the UDC, which will probably push us to another quarter. We just wanted to make sure...
[01:00:00] Speaker: That that was okay with you all, um, that we are using our consultant to make sure that we're bringing forward the best ordinances that we can, um, and not necessarily trying to do both internally with staff and then our consultant working another parallel. So, um, that was really the, the, the direction we wanted to, to get from you all.
[01:00:20] Speaker: Perfect. Thanks again for bringing that up. Number 25, I think that's a priority for sure. And...
[01:00:25] Speaker: ...yeah, and in terms of the golf cart, I didn't realize that, uh, this was pertaining to my request for action to look at this, at the zoning of golf carts as automotive versus retail. So, and the City Manager had told me it's coming up...
[01:00:41] Speaker: ...in, um, at the next meeting, right?
[01:00:46] Speaker: In May. Have we—I'm sure if we set the schedule, the actual date yet.
[01:00:50] Speaker: Yeah, May. May or June. Has to go to Planning Commission first and you all, but yeah, it, it'll come up...
[01:00:55] Speaker: ...within the next few months.
[01:00:56] Speaker: All right. Thank you.
[01:01:02] Speaker: Okay. And staff has clear direction. Everything's good. Okay. Cool. All right. We'll now transition into closed session. And I guess it's my job to call to order. And are there any public comments on closed session?
[01:01:16] Speaker: No public comments.
[01:01:18] Speaker: Okay. Terrific.