One PS - January 2022 Meeting

Hello neighbors, the One-PS meeting was held (virtually via Zoom) on January 11th, and as always your neighborhood representatives from Vista Las Palmas were in attendance.

The meeting on the 11th was an abbreviated meeting with just major updates from city hall officials and a few of the various city departments usually on the roster. The meeting kicked off with the formal recognition and welcoming of the 50th neighborhood of Palm Springs: Eldorado Palms Estates. The recognition of the new neighborhood was approved by the membership by acclamation.

Mayor Lisa Middleton then spoke about a few topics of interest to the wider community: Two large distribution centers off Indian Canyon, North of the freeway will be built. These facilities will be adding a lot of sales and real estate taxes, with sales taxes revenues expected to exceed $30 million — virtually doubling the amount of sales tax received in the city of Palm Springs. At this point it is a competition between Palm Spring and Desert Hot Springs for the exact location. Lisa said it is not so much a question of if they will be built, but where. Separately, there were strategic planning and visioning sessions done by the city late last year on topic of which was to look at ways of streamlining the city hall meetings so that they are shorter and address the important issues up front.

Justin Clifton the City Manager reported on the city’s strategic plan, which focuses on elements grouped into 1) Quality of Life, 2) Environmental Stewardship 3) Community Infrastructure and 4) Good Governance. The city is in a good place financially and will be looking to spend some of the funds at its disposal, but is constrained by the labor shortage. He also reported that the newly proposed noise ordinance probably won’t be taken up until the end of the year.

Lt. Gus Araiza - Chief of Police told the group there remain some staffing shortages they are trying to address, and trying to maintain service levels by paying overtime and onboarding new officers.

Ted Janka, who serves as the One-PS volunteer coordinator, solicited volunteers to staff the various events One-PS supports such as the planned picnic in Ruth Hardy Park or, the Farmers Market (which of late has been held off). One-PS is looking for additional volunteers so if you are interested, you can go to the One-PS website under the events tab, or email events@one-ps.org.

That’s it for this month neighbors. See you in next month! Your representative to One-PS is Steve Orr, and your alternate is Gustav Swanson. Please feel free to reach out to either of us, or to anyone on our Board, with any questions or comments.