Meet the candidates: Palm Desert City Council

A lot of change is on the horizon for the city of Palm Desert as voters prepare to elect two new city council members with a recently implemented Ranked Choice Voting system. 

Five candidates are vying for the open seats ahead of the General Election on Nov. 8. 

News Channel 3 spoke to the five candidates about some of the issues they care about most and new changes to the voting Palm Desert voting system. 

The candidates for Palm Desert City Council:

• Gregg Akkerman
•  Evan Trubee
•  Gregory Meinhardt
• Jan Harnik
• Carlos Garcia

What is one of the most pressing issues facing Palm Desert that you would like to address with your candidacy?:

• Gregg Akkerman: “I'd like to make senior care more accessible by creating a city run website that brings together all of the resources that are available for caretakers, or the seniors that they're taking care of. I have a 91 year old mother and I'm very happy to be able to be her primary caregiver. But what I found is that there are wonderful resources out there, but there, you have to go find them. And they're very spread out in different places. So it'd be nice if the city could bring all those stakeholders together and create a single resource for people like myself and the seniors who need the better care.” 
• Evan Trubee: "I've run a business for many, many years. This is the taxpayer’s money.  This is a huge responsibility to spend it wisely. To maintain-don't run into deficits, I think we ran into a $7 million deficit during COVID but we were able to maintain that or to do that, without any loss of services, because of the success of previous administration and so we maintained our services wihtout a blip thanks to the good stewardship of previous City Council."

• Gregory Meinhardt: "There's a lot of money right now. But it's gonna get tighter, and they're gonna make cuts and I just want to try to steer that ship away from the state that's gonna hurt people.” 
• Jan Harnik: "Through my position as president of the Southern California Association of Governments, we have put an emphasis on broadband throughout Southern California. So it's critical that we're all connected and connected. We saw through COVID, when people couldn't continue their education studies, they couldn't have telemedicine, they couldn't even work. It's "tele-everything". When we can connect everybody with appropriate bandwidth, then we can see more thriving in our economy and for our future."
• Carlos Garcia: "Between 2010 and 2020, was a big jump of a third in the poverty rate went from 9% to 12%. That's a big jump. So what are we doing about that? I mean, how are we attending to the food needs and the basic housing? These are the basic issues that are faced by many of our seniors. I suspect many of those at the poverty rate are actually seniors on fixed incomes. As prices have risen, and the economy has grown, and the average income of Palm Desert has risen quite a lot, their’s has not. So there are a lot of people who are struggling. We need to be a city that represents all of our residents, that supports all of our residents, and really helps them get by to make Palm Desert not just a good place for rich people but for everyone who wants to live here."

On Ranked-Choice Voting: 

• Gregg Akkerman: “Ranked-choice voting seems to increase the quality of candidates who get elected but it's still a wild-card since we've never used it before. I'm suggesting voters rank at least two choices in case their first choice is eliminated. Previously, the top vote-receiving candidates would win even if the percentage of votes they received was quite low. In this election, each seat requires a minimum of just over 33% so a candidate can't win with only fringe support. They have to appeal to a wider set of interests and I think that's a good thing.”

• Evan Trubee: “I do not like it and no residents that I have spoken with while campaigning like it.   It has taken a simple system and made it unnecessarily complicated. It creates a system where a candidate can earn a seat with fewer first place votes than the next candidate.”
• Gregory Meinhardt: “Regarding ranked-choice voting, reminds me of the short lived 60’s craze “New Math”, who knew we have been doing it wrong for 200 years? You can successfully argue the moon is blue in state court but then it ends up in federal court and guess what? Never lost a federal case I brought to the USAO, lost one in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals but the decision was unpublished and so absurd the AUSAs were embarrassed. I know what I’m talking about on the redistricting measure makes sense to me so therefore it will make sense to a federal judge!”
• Jan Harnik: Ranked-choice voting is confusing to most voters.  In time, voters will understand and feel more confident with their votes.  The issue that makes rank-choice voting difficult is not the voting but the tabulating of the votes and most voters who have shared their opinions strongly object to the method.  I view the traditional “one vote, one person” method of voting as a strong, straightforward, part of our democratic process and prefer it to ranked-choice voting.
• Carlos Garcia:  “The ranked-choice voting system was part of the court settlement that gave us the two district system.  I think it alienates voters, it confuses them, and I fear a great many votes will be tossed out because people misunderstood the process.  If we had a five district system, we would not need ranked-choice voting.  Just one person one vote, and the highest vote getter wins.  Why is that so complicated?  In the last election, something like 60% of voters in District 2 only voted for one person even when they were allowed to vote for two because two seats were up.  People just don't like having two votes and they don't like ranked-choice voting.  Just keep it simple, please.  One person, one vote, with each part of town having its own representative.  That is the American way.”

On Measure B: 

• Gregg Akkerman: “I support Measure B and moving Palm Desert to district voting. The current system of one large district and one small was created by an agreement between lawyers and never voted on by residents. I do not believe it was intended to be a long-term solution and is unfair to those living in district one, so the best plan to fix the mess is moving forward to multiple voting districts.”
• Evan Trubee: “I am opposed to Measure B. It would take a bad system and make it worse. Residents in District 2 currently have four votes for City Council Candidates...Measure B would reduce this to one vote.”

• Gregory Meinhardt: “Vote yes on Measure B; because, redistricting is going to happen, just a question of whether the city pays a law firm, who could care less about the merits of the case -they get paid anyway-a fortune to fight it unsuccessfully.”
• Jan Harnik: "Measure B was placed on the ballot to get a read on Palm Desert’s voters’ feelings.  When we get the final results from this election, the council will consider the will of the voters and work from there."

• Carlos Garcia: “I am a strong proponent of Measure B.  A five district system would bring equity and balance to our city council, instead of having all city council people come from one (wealthier) area.  Being able to wage a campaign in a district of 10,000 residents is much easier and less costly than the "at large" District 2. I find it odd that the council's argument against Measure B is that people in District 2 should not give up an unfair advantage they now have over District 1.  Is this an argument or a confession that they know full well that the current system is completely unfair?  And if the new council does not implement a five district system, this leaves this city exposed to a likely lawsuit. They've already spent one million city dollars to protect their seats.  How much more of our money are they willing to throw away?  And this from a council that touts their fiscal responsibility.”