One PS - December 2021 Meeting
Vista Las Palmas Neighborhood Organization One PS Meeting
December 14, 2021
Happy New Year neighbors. The December 2021 One PS meeting was held in person at the Mizell Senior Center Tuesday night, December 14th. It was well attended for a cold and rainy night. Furthermore, this was the first, in person meeting since the lockdown approximately 18 months ago. Your neighborhood representative from Vista Las Palmas was in attendance so we may keep you informed of current Palm Springs developments.
Administrative activities like approval of the agenda, meeting minutes, acknowledgements were completed. Roll call of the 49 neighborhoods was taken to ensure a quorum was present. A new, 50th neighborhood will be recognized at January 2022's meeting. Please stay tuned to learn about our new One PS neighborhood group.
Ted Janka who runs the Events Committee asked for volunteers for a variety of events including: Annual Picnic, Modernism Week (We need docents here in VLP! Please volunteer!), Appreciation Lunch, Gay Pride, the Veterans Day Parade, and the Festival of Lights Parade. Ted stressed that as soon as an event is held, planning must commence for next year's event. Please reach out to Kevin Comer via the VLP website if you are interested in volunteering and you will be connected to the appropriate people.
Lisa Middleton, Mayor Pro-Tem was attending an event in Sacramento and consequently not present.
POLICE: Palm Springs' new police chief Andy Mills was present and spoke. Chief Mills also spoke at our VLP's Annual Membership Meeting last month. More recently he was the chief of police in Santa Cruz. He started his law enforcement career in San Diego.
PSPD non emergency number (760)327-1441. Chief Mills Cell: (831)212-9801
Mills is talking with all police personnel one on one to better understand department issues and concerns.
Palm Springs is still offering a $30K bonus for lateral movement for officers from other LEAs (law enforcement agencies). All of Southern California is experiencing a personnel shortage. Even private security is hard to find.
Approximately 31 officers on the street. Takes considerable time (approximately 1 1/2 years) for recruits to complete academy training and PSPD training before the officer is street ready.
Identify and establish neighborhood priorities. Officers will be assigned to an area and held accountable.
Most crimes are crimes of opportunity. (For example: a car door left unlocked or ajar.)
Important to close the information loop. Ask for an officer call back to ensure your call was handled and action taken. Many claim no police action has been taken after a citizen calls in an issue. If you do not request a call back the Police will not reach out to the caller.
Chief Mills also discussed our homeless situation at length, and indicated that we need to refine our approach to the homeless population. He said “Arresting people doesn’t work. Moving them from one place to another doesn’t work. The ultimate solution is a home.” Discussed 3 major causes of homelessness: Lack of housing, mental health issues, substance abuse/drug addiction. Police will enforce laws on books which include "quality of life" issues/concerns.
CITY MANAGER's OFFICE: Our new Assistant City Manager Teresa Gallavan spoke on behalf of our new City Manager Justin Clifton who was on vacation. Ms. Gallavan gave a brief synopsis of her background before joining Palm Springs. Ms. Gallavan has approximately 30 years experience in government. More recently she was the city manager of the small agricultural community of Selma, CA. (near Fresno). She also spent 15 years working for the County of Riverside doing economic development. Among the areas that she oversees include: Park & Recs, Facilities Maintenance, Airport, Library, cultural marketing, neighborhood engagement and Communications.
If you recall, our former City Manager Dr. David Ready retired and our Assistant City Manager boomeranged back to his former employer the City of Rialto to take its head City Manager job there.
The City of Palm Springs is redistricting. Attention is presently (as of December 14th) focused on Map C. PSDistricts.com
Several neighborhoods including Historic Tennis Club, Whitewater, Movie Colony East, Araby Commons, Sunmor and Tahquitz Canyon are at risk of being redistricted. In other words, the previously mentioned neighborhoods could be in a different district than they presently are. The Redistricting Commission wishes to keep D1 as the minority/majority district. (LatinX being the minority.). Most likely Vista Las Palmas and Old Las Palmas will stay in D3.
City is working on a March retreat to plan strategically. They plan to develop a couple of surveys (for the public). The Council's priorities are (1) Quality of life (2) Environment (3) Infrastructure (4) Governance.
SUSTAINABILITY OFFICE: Tracy spoke about recent California legislation SB1383 requiring organic waste (think food scraps) be recycled for composting. Styrofoam and single use plastic containers will now be forbidden. Changes to restaurants forthcoming. Green containers should be distributed by mid year. Stay tuned for more information regarding this roll out. Palm Springs trash is taken to the Edom Hill Transfer Station in Cathedral City before being transported to the Lamb Canyon Facility in Beaumont for further processing.
That’s all for December 2021. Our representative to One PS is now Steve Orr. Brenda Mathews and Gustav Swanson are alternates. Please feel free to reach out to them, or to anyone on our Board, with any questions, comments or concerns etc. via our website vistalaspalmas.org