Meet the candidates: Palm Springs City Council

The November General Election is two weeks away, and voting by mail is already underway in Riverside County. In Palm Springs, the city council will look a lot different after the election than it does right now.

There are three districts that will be electing city council representatives. Among those three races, there is only one incumbent.

This year's candidates include:

District 1

• Grace Garner (Incumbent)
• Scott Nevins

District 2

• Renee Brown
• Jeffery Bernstein

District 3

• Ronald deHarte
• Joy Meredith

News Channel 3 spoke with each candidate ahead of the election:

Why should someone cast their vote for you?

District 1

• Garner: "I'm the most experienced candidate. I have strong community ties. I'm a second-generation resident, and I care deeply about Palm Springs. I have already helped to move our city forward, and I have so much more to give. So I really do hope that I can get everyone's support on over by November 8."

• Nevins: "For me, people who live in District 1 are my neighbors, whether it's the north end, or whether you're in DeMuth Park, Lawrence Crossly, Escena, you are all my neighbors. And I have come to the table with actual plans and ideas with great detail. I understand what it's like to feel unheard. I shared those concerns that we were not getting represented, we were overpromised and underserved across the entire district. Now the North End needs extra special love, I understand that. And we have to do that. But everyone in every corner of District 1 should be seen and heard. And that's what I'm doing. I'm going door to door talking with residents, telling them my ideas, telling them what I would do for them, telling them how I would advocate for them. And you know, I don't like when politicians say I want to be your voice. They have a voice. They want their voice heard. I will help them get in the room and get their voice heard."

District 2

• Brown: "Because I want to be of service to my community. Because I love this city. I was born here. I have raised my children here. I am invested in Palm Springs' past, its present, and its future."

• Bernstein: "I've put my time into having as a small business owner, as a resident. I've worked with over 15 area nonprofits that we actively incorporate into our downtown business. I've been chair of the Measure J. I've been on three different hospitality boards, and I started the Palm Springs Sister City Committee. I've been involved in all aspects of the city. And I'm a bridge builder. So I've worked for the small business, but I work with the big business. I want to preserve our historic architecture, open spaces, but I understand that we need some development to keep growing. So I think what I provide is good balance to our city that I think we need on City Council and to have somebody that actually has to work for a living beyond City Council because I do have to work for a living."

District 3

• deHarte: "I'm a proven leader, and I bring credible leadership to the table. And I'm gonna fight for the entire city, not only District 3."

• Meredith: "Well, I have lived and worked in District 3 for over 30 years. It's my home, I'm not going anywhere. I've raised my children here-- raising my grandchildren here. I love this place. And I am a proven leader for many, many years in this town. I was founder and, and chair of the Police Advisory Board, I was on the hospitality Association board, and then there's Main Street, my neighborhood organization. I was the founder, and I'm still on that board too. So I stick around, and I keep on with the projects that I'm working on. And I just want to live here forever. So I want to make this town the best town that it could be. And there has to be a balance, and I hope that we could find that balance."

On homelessness:

District 1

• Garner: "In terms of housing and homelessness, we're moving forward with our Navigation Center, which will be open next year. We also have current cooling centers and overnight shelters in the city of Palm Springs. So the navigation center will expand on these things."

• Nevins: "The crisis of the unhoused, as I call it, is vital and the most important. The Navigation Center is great, but nothing was done during the planning... I feel like we have to really figure out how this Navigation Center is going to work, how we're going to get the unhoused to not only come all the way to the north end, how are we going to get them to actually take part in these programs to agree to these programs? I think we have to really start talking seriously about how we make that happen. And most importantly, what happens when people don't want to use the programs? Do they go back out into the streets? We're providing beds. Do they go back out to the streets, they end up in the neighborhoods in District 1? That is a big concern of mine. And I'm really finding it hard to get answers and figure out solutions on how we can help prevent that from happening so there are no negative impacts to District 1."

District 2

• Brown: "I think it has to be addressed actively. I think what the police department is doing now is really important. They have created ordinances for downtown, and now they are enforcing them. I think the boots-on-the-ground type of policing, the community policing, is exactly what we need. They do have the bicycle police, which is perfect. And they need to connect with those businesses. And they need to know the chronic people who are unhealthy. Those people they need to know them by name. They're people. They're not just homeless, there are people, and we need to deal with it. Now it is a three-pronged issue. There are the unhoused, there are people suffering addiction problems, and there are the mentally ill. We need a 24-hour urgent care mental health facility."

• Bernstein: "What we need to do is address the people who are on the street who either have mental health issues or addiction issues or are criminals and see how we get them off the street. Now, the criminals, the problem is that we arrest them to come back on the street. What we're seeing now is they just voted into a new CARE court, which will actually help the mentally ill to get real help. And the city will get passed to the county they'll have to give them services. So that's a key one on that. What I also think is that we have half a dozen service organizations in this valley in this area, plus another dozen that are involved in issues. If we can get them to all work together to pool resources, and to create a focused effort for smaller groups of these people that need help, and get them help and make sure it's sustained long term, I think we can start to really address the problem. It's a nationwide problem, so everyone's having it. But I think if we come together, like the community, we are, we can actually have a real impact."
  

District 3

• deHarte: "I think the first thing we got to do is we got to we have to bring all the social services, all the churches, all the organizations, the city, the governmental programs, we need everybody to come sit around the table and work together. We need one credible leader that can lead that group and have everybody sitting at the table and talking to one another, and coming up with the proper solutions for the future. That's not happening right now. We do have some groups pockets talking, but we need to bring the entire community together that works on homelessness in the community and really create that dialogue, and then we'll have real progress we'll have a real impact for those who are on the street, because they're suffering a mental health crisis, for those that are just down on their luck. And then also we'll be able to really address those that have drug addiction issues. And how do we get them in into care? How do we get housing for all these individuals?"

• Meredith: "I think that one of the really important issues on dealing with homelessness is the way that we label homeless people in one big category. When really, most people here have a big heart for homeless people that are requiring services or just need some place to live, or they just need a little hand up. Maybe they got their driver's license suspended, and so they can't get a job because of it. There's a lot of little things, too, that we could do to help homeless people move forward. But I think that when people start seeing the people like that live in the wash and sleep in the doorways, a lot of times those are people that have much more severe problems, and they're going to need to be dealt with in a different way. Many people that are committing crimes, we can't just say because they're homeless, it's okay that they've done such and such, we have to make sure that, you know, we're protecting the community and at the same time that we're being able to serve the homeless community by helping them with whatever services we can."

On crime:

District 1

• Garner: "I've been working very closely with our police department. I've also been endorsed by the police, and on their end I know that they are approaching these issues of crime to try to make sure that they're handling whatever's coming up. On my end, I want to make sure that we are supporting the community that we're investing in our young people so that they are prevented from ever going down a path of crime. I've worked with a group, We Are One United, to get a $2.1 million grant that will support violence prevention work specifically focused on District 1 because that's where the majority of our children are and our young people. So there'll be workforce development, mentorship, making sure that we are not getting our youth into a place that makes them feel like violence or crime is the answer."

• Nevins: "We have a great police force, but we need to properly fund and support them. They need more officers... We have this fantastic new police chief. He's doing all the right things in my book going out, giving people his card, saying call me that's my number. If you have a problem, call me. And I think that's important because the community begins to trust... I would support expanding the funding to our police and then work with them and say, 'Hey, how do we do this correctly so that the community is involved? So you have community policing, and that the police forces getting what they need to do the job to reduce crimes, get guns off the streets?' I wanted to do a guns for gas and guns for grocery program where people can turn in their guns, no questions asked. And in exchange would get vouchers for gas and groceries, which are two things people need all over the district and all over the city. Because, you know, people are having a hard time right now. So I think that's important. You develop smart programs, you have really detailed plans that will get people to start doing the right thing, and we start building on that as a community."

District 2

• Brown: "There's only one way to address crime, and that's by training and having as many police officers and actually firemen as you need, as they request. Now, one of the collateral problems is that police officers, when we recruit them, they come here, usually, they have to drive-- a lot of the new ones from Moreno Valley from somewhere else. So here they come here they work, their children and are at home. So I'm sure eventually when they get offered a job closer to home, that's where they'll go. So we need to back to that accessible pricing of like maybe 400 or $500,000 homes, you know, or even less than that. Palm Desert has this great program where the city donated the land. They partnered with Coachella Valley housing, and they built 13 or 14, I'm not sure which, houses, and the person had to commit to working in the city for 12 years. So if you don't work-- if you change your job, then you can get a percentage when you sell your house over above. If you go the full 12 years, you could sell your house at market value. So that's kind of a plus. And I think we could do something like that in Palm Springs. We have a lot of city property. And I think that we need to make sure that those service workers that keep us safe have a place to live."

• Bernstein: "So part of it is giving our public safety officers the staffing and resources they need. Our census says we're a city of 40,000. But the truth is that we are population doubles or even triples with visitors. And we know that, so we need to have enough people. We haven't had any downtown police officers for years now, we've just got some new bike patrol, but we don't even have them every day. That's something that needs to happen. Because just the presence of police goes a long way in terms of detracting criminals. We also need to have community involvement. But that takes, you know, we have issues with drugs and violent crime, the police aren't going to solve that on their own. That will take neighborhood organizations, youth programs, and things to really work on that long term. And then there's also community awareness. Some of our issues with theft and traffic accidents that are all part of our crime issue are happening because a community is not fully aware of how best to protect themselves. So I see this both as a resident and a small business owner downtown. But we also need to do it for our economy. Because if we get known as an unsafe city, that affects our whole economy, and then we don't have the funds to do anything."

District 3

• deHarte: "Well, a lot of crime is coming from the community that is not necessarily down on their luck or having a mental health crisis, but they're out living on the street. We have a new police chief, he has got a great vision on community policing, I want to support him, I want to support our police department and give them the tools that they need to focus on those that are breaking the law in the community, and move forward and do something about that."

• Meredith: "'Main Street Palm Springs,' which I have led since 1992, has worked out a program with the city that is a camera program so that they could get a grant towards cameras at their place. Because I think that once people know that we [have cameras] all over, they would be less likely to commit crimes there. The city already has their own program. This camera program is throughout the city of Palm Springs. It's not just downtown. And I think that could really just help people to know that we're not just an easy target, it has been very difficult. The city also has a facade improvement program that also came from Main Street Palm Springs. And that program is for you to be able to do out outside exterior improvements, which might include replacing your etched and graffitied windows or, you know, new signage, a whole bunch of things. So I think that that just all around this would really help us with crime."

On affordable housing:

District 1

• Garner: "We have multiple housing developments that are in the works right now. And multifamily housing that's interested in coming to Palm Springs, so we have a lot of opportunities. And, of course, we have that parks master plan that's coming up to really invest in our parks and our community centers."

• Nevins: "I think that we have to look at the plots of land that the city owns already. I think that we look at the ones that we have available, and we say, what capacity could we build on those lots? You'll be shocked at how much we could actually build. Now the next part is we have to get building faster, we can't do the red tape, we can't have all the time that it takes to get this put together. We need to go now, people. We're losing citizens. Anyone who lives below a certain line of income just cannot afford to live in our city. And I feel like we have people who've lived here their whole lives that are now going somewhere. We don't even know where they're going where they can afford. We should be doing better, we can help our neighbors."

District 2

• Brown: "So what I think should happen is I think the developers should have to, to build a percentage of their developments and earmark it for under $500,000. So that maybe somebody with two incomes could afford to buy a house. I also think that there should be a percentage that is low income and goes by the income. That way, you don't have all of the low-income people in one area. You know, we might get to know our neighbors and find out we're all the same."

• Bernstein: "One proposal I have is that we take a percentage of our vacation rental tax, which is $15 million a year, and allocate it on an annual basis for affordable housing fund. Because we put $10 million in this year, but we need to have an ongoing fund. I think also what we've seen with the latest development, The Monarch Apartments, where it was city-owned land, and they got state grants for $20 million-- that's the model to use. If the city gets land or has land and then can get state grants, then you can encourage developers to come in. I think the other reason with affordable housing is that you need to give the developers an easier time so that they want to work here. Part of that has to do with a streamline permitting process. Part of it has to do with property density increasements. And I think if all of those were the focus, we can actually get more developments in town. We have two that are in the works now. But we should have them coming on a regular basis to do that. And they're tied to income."

District 3

• deHarte: "I want to focus on accessible housing for our workforce, build workforce housing, so our workforce in town doesn't have to be driving 45 minutes to an hour back and forth from work, not spending time with their family not being able to be involved in the community. So I want to make sure that we have hundreds of units available for our workforce, so they can improve their quality of life, live in the City of Palm Springs and participate within the community and raise their families."

• Meredith: "I think that one of the reasons that we have such issues with affordable and accessible housing is because the vacation rentals have taken a lot of the units that we previously had. So I really feel strongly that we should earmark some of the TOT tax that comes from vacation rentals to build multifamily housing that could really help people that are working in a lot of the businesses here. And also, you know, to make sure that we keep people out of homelessness to the best that we can. Because one of the things that happens afterwards, when people don't have accessible and affordable housing, is they become homeless, and then we have more people in those sorts of situations. So I would just really like to be able to use that money, earmark it towards affordable housing. And there's a lot of different partners that we could have, like, for example, the hospitals can partner with us because of their regulations about releasing their patients. If they are homeless, there's a lot of regulations now that go along with that. So there's a good chance that they would want to partner with us, and the city might very well have some land that we could use for a such a need."