DHS holds public candidate forum

The city of Desert Hot Springs is hosting a public forum Thursday night as candidates for mayor and city council introduce their plans for improving the city.

The candidate forum was held in the theater at Desert Hot Springs High School from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

CBS Local 2 Anchor Kris Long will also moderated the forum.

All of the city council candidates supported adding a Walmart to the city of Desert Hot Springs, although incumbent Russel Betts wanted to see more studies done before being fully in support of the idea.

All but one of the city council candidates support adding an arts district to the downtown area. Richard Duffle said he could not comment because he is on the planning commission and they are currently looking into adding an arts district.

Each of the mayoral candidates have ideas on how to improve the economy of the city.

“A year and a half ago I came into office with a $6 million budget deficit and the city was broke, today I can proudly say we have erased that deficit and we have $2.5 million in a reserve account. So we have been successful in turning the city from bankruptcy into stability and now we can move forward to all the great projects we need to do and stay moving forward,” said Mayor Adam Sanchez.

“We need a revenue generating plan we have finances that are still in crisis we have made cut after cut but with no revenue generating plan, so I have challenged the that as a leader in the community for the last 8 years I can build that generating plan,” said Scott Matas, city council member for DHS.

If Matas loses to Sanchez in the election he will stay on as a city council member. His term isn’t up until 2017.

Russel Betts is the only incumbent for city council. Jan Pye is not running for reelection.

Take a look at the candidates below:

For mayor (alphabetical order):

Scott Matas
Adam Sanchez (Incumbent)

For City Council (2 open seats):

Russell Betts
Larry Buchanan
Richard Duffle
Asia Horton
Jeanette Jaime
Yvonne Parks
Anayeli Zavala

The General Municipal Election takes place November 3, 2015.