Fair Political Practices Commission investigates Palm Springs City Council Member
4/28 – CLARIFICATION: Further review of the Form 700 documents shows that Chris Mills is an investment partner at Ramon Partners LLC. That partnership includes a parcel of land at 4001 E Ramon Road worth between $100,000 and $1,000,000. The income from the partnership is under $500 according to the forms.
ORIGINAL STORY: Another scandal rocks Palm Springs City Hall. KESQ has learned the Fair Political Practices Commission has begun an investigation into another member of the Palm Springs City Council.
This time they are looking into some of the financial earnings of council member Chris Mills.
Eloise Mohsin has been looking into the practices of Palm Springs City Council members even though she no longer lives in the Coachella Valley. Mohsin pulled almost five years worth of Form 700’s filled out by Mills along with other documents. All elected officials have to fill out the forms which offer a level of transparency on how they receive their income.
Mohsin saw some strange differences in the forms over the years.
“The Planning Commission reports lists Ramon Partners with different other names like Ramon Office Building LLC that did exist but it has been suspended status. And in the other planning commission report listed a Ramon Partnership and I looked into that and that company doesn’t exist,” said Mohsin.
Ethics task force looks into government transparency
On some of the forms, Ramon Partners is supposed to have a location in Santa Monica, but Mohsin says that doesn’t exist. Some of the forms also list an address at 4001 East Ramon Road in Palm Springs but that address is just an empty lot. Mohsin is not sure how the Planning Commission approved something from an applicant that she claims does not exist.
We reached out to council member Mills who said he has no comment, but he did tell us he is cooperating with the investigation. No other council members were able to comment.
“I have a concern for the community that we have transparent leadership and leadership that is free of corruption so I just decided to continue to look into because I did already have one FPPC report that I had filed on Pougnet,” said Mohsin.
You may remember the FBI raided Palm Springs City Hall last year. That investigation into former Mayor Steve Pougnet is still continuing. So far there doesn’t appear to be a link between this investigation and that one.
Stay with KESQ as we continue to follow the investigation.
