City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. mayor, can you hear us? We are ready to begin. I can hear you. Well, good evening everyone. I hereby call the Palm Springs regular City Council meeting of November 12th, 2025. To order all those able to stand and join in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please do so. And if I can ask Council Member Bernstein to lead us in the pledge, I appreciate that. Of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I acknowledge the land we gather, live, and work on today. Currently known as the City of Palm Springs, is the original homeland of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The Sovereign Band of Agua Caliente people have stewarded this land throughout the generations and continue to steward this land for all future generations. We honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people still connected to this land. City clerk, will you please conduct roll call? Councilmember Garner here. Council Member Reddy here, Councilmember Bernstein here. Mayor Pro tem Soto here. Mayor DeHart here. All members present. Thank you. And to start us off, we've got a presentation. City manager, are you introducing this one? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to have our representatives from Townsend Public Affairs come forward. And they are going to give us a short

presentation on the upcoming legislative session, both at the federal and state level. Very brief, but overview on what's to come and how it aligns with the City Council's vision that you've outlined earlier this year. Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor and council members Niccolo DeLuca from Townsend Public Affairs. Thank you very much for your time this evening. And I'll be brief, because I know you have a packed house and a full agenda. First of all, I really want to say thank you to you all in the city team for the confidence in our firm. As you all know, we are your an extension of staff of of you all in Sacramento, Washington, D.C. and we also help with your grant funding. So I put together a little PowerPoint and I will rush through it and then happy questions. So just briefly, who are we? Townsend Public Affairs we've been around since 1998. I'm a vice president of the firm. I work in our Sacramento office. I'm proud to say I've been with the team for about 18 years, and we really specialize in working with municipalities, proud of our success over the years, where we've had over 150 bills signed into law and helped secure over 3.2 billion for our clients. And then it just shows some stats we like to brag about about how we rank. The next slide is going to go, I'm going to go into a few slides on the state. And what has happened, a few slides on the federal government and what has happened, and then talk about some of our specific accomplishments and then answer any questions you all have. So the state legislative year ended on October 13th, and our governor or our legislature

sent, they introduced 2397 bills. So 200 397,397 bills were introduced this year, 917 ended up in the governor's desk. He signed 794 into law, and then he vetoed 123. I put out those numbers to let you know that one. The legislative session was very busy and it is now over. However, right now is when a lot of discussions start about upcoming themes and priorities and potential legislation. The new session will start on January 5th, and we will be having some new leadership. The next slide is this is just some of the key topics that were discussed during this past year. A lot of them made headlines. One was the reauthorization of Cap and Invest. I say that because there's some really good funding opportunities from there for the city that we could utilize over the next couple of years. The second was they made some significant progress on a six bill energy package. The third was immigration response was pretty big in Sacramento, led to a lot of pieces of legislation that was introduced. Of course, prop 50 and the redistricting. That was a very, very big issue, which took up a lot of time towards the end of session. And then, as I kind of alluded to, there's going to be a new Senate pro tem, Senator Monique Limon from Santa Barbara will assume the duty starting on next week, November 17th. I flagged that because there will be a new slew of Senate committee chairs and others will be elevated to positions of authority. Washington, DC so what's been going on? Obviously, it's been in the news, and I just got an update from one of my team members in DC that the House has voted on that bill that will send it to the president to end the shutdown, which will

take, obviously, a couple of days to unwind. I do want to say, though, as it relates to the federal government shutdown, obviously you all were impacted locally. Many were in the region. The something that is to highlight was the one good thing in in the shutdown was they've been talking about the continuing resolution. They have not talked about taking out district funding projects. And I say that because there was a pending district funding project from Congressman Calvert for the airport at about 3 million, and they have not scraped those projects out of the continuing resolution bill, which they did last year. Then happy to answer any other questions about the shutdown. Then finally okay, so what have we been doing with the team, really tip my cap to working with the city manager in his office for being so responsive, really proud. We adopted our legislative platform that's specific to the city that mirrors your council priorities. Three of you know, we had the very successful advocacy trip in May, which led to a lot of good things coming from there. And then we will be planning an advocacy trip to DC at the beginning of the year. So we really want to thank the three of you for coming up to Sacramento. I know it's very time intensive and feel strongly the more we make these advocacy trips, whether to Sacramento or DC, a lot of greater benefit comes from the city into a lot of the projects that we're pushing and working on. A couple of other additional efforts. I talked about the pending earmark from Congressman Member Calvert for 3000 for the airport. There was also funding in the state budget from Assembly Member Wallace and Senator Ochoa Bogh relating to the explosion that happened here. That was definitely a byproduct of the trip to Sacramento. We're working on modifications to a pending to a homeless award. We're also sending the

team's weekly updates as to what's going on in Sacramento and also in DC. And then proud of our grants team for working with the city team to secure over $5 million in funding. On the horizon is a blank slide. But here we go. Next a 2026 legislative session is coming up. And we're going to be huddling on what specific priorities and pieces of legislation we want to work on. The more involved we are at the beginning, the better the outcome for us. We're going to be talking about ways to get more involved in DC and in Sacramento, and then we're also going to be working with the city team and you all on our state and federal funding requests, also known as community projects. With that said, I'm the one that's doing all the talking. But those pictures are some of my awesome teammates and I'm very proud of that, are part of the team and support our efforts. And I am happy to answer any questions you all may have. And thank you. I have something. If I can, please. Thank you. Thank you so much Nicola, for for this. Really appreciate it. I think there's definitely been some good momentum. I know we're working on moving forward with some of the things that we learned about in May. We're getting some updates coming in from from that trip, but we still have some questions. So we we did get at least some responses from the from the state about how to get more homelessness funding and how to address some of the issues that we have in terms of making sure more and more people can visit and use the navigation center. And so once we have a more full understanding of of those issues, we'll will present

them. But thank you for for bringing us, helping us, guide us along on that process so that we were able to to get some momentum there. Absolutely. Thank you. Anything else from council? All right. Thank you all very much. All right. Thank you. It was a busy month in Palm Springs for proclamations that were presented on October 24th, the city recognized the landmark pride pride flag raising in the heart of the arena's business district, and it was an opportunity to reinforce Palm Springs reputation as a place where love, dignity and acceptance are not just ideals but lived realities. The International Imperial Court System, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ charitable organizations, was recognized on October 31st in celebration of the organization's 60th anniversary that was celebrated at the Renaissance Hotel. King father One Terry City, was also recognized for his dedicated service and unwavering commitment to the international Imperial court system. For nearly ten years, Nicole Murray Ramirez Day was declared on November 1st in the City of Palm Springs. Nicole Murray Ramirez is also known as the Empress Nicole the Great Queen mother of the Americas, and was recognized for her 55 years of leadership in the LGBTQ and Latino civil rights advocacy, community service and philanthropy. On November 5th at the Desert Regional Medical Center,

the city joined in and commemorated the official unfurling of the rainbow flag on the Stergios Tower, and this is a tradition that marks the official launch of Pride Week in the city of Palm Springs. And it was the 10th anniversary of unfurling the flag. Sordid Lives Day was proclaimed on November 6th, in recognition of the 25th anniversary, the film that captured the heart and humor of our city led to a record breaking 96 consecutive week run at the Camelot Theaters, which was a testament to the unwavering love of its fans. Council proclaimed November 6th to November 9th as Pride Week 2024, in honor of the many civic contributions and the resilience of the LGBTQ community in Palm Springs, reaffirming its commitment to equality, inclusion, and human rights for all, Hanna was recognized on Friday, November 7th. The city recognized Hannah Senesh as one of the most courageous Jewish heroines of the Second World War. Known for her poetry, valor, and devotion to freedom and humanity. Mark Hunter Seymour Day was declared on Friday, November 7th, in recognition of his decades long leadership, entrepreneurship, and advocacy for the LGBTQ community. Mark is the founder of Hunter's nightclub in the arenas district. Lastly, on November 7th, the City Council recognized Andy Lensky for his more than two decades of service to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ

civil rights organization. Andy's remained a steadfast leader locally and serving on the Palm Springs Steering Committee of the HRC, and through the years, he's fostered a community engagement and strengthened the support for equality across all of the Coachella Valley. It was a busy month with proclamations. Okay, next on the agenda is we have acceptance of the agenda. City Council will discuss the order of the agenda, may amend the order at urgency. Items. No abstentions or no votes on consent calendar items or request consent. Calendar items be removed for separate discussion. Are there any items staff or council members would like to be removed from the Consent calendar for separate discussion or vote? And I will start with the recusal on one W from myself and one E. Are there any other items? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And council members I believe staff wanted to pull one V off the calendar and we'll bring it back at the probably the next council meeting. It was even written here in super large type and I still missed it. One V is tabled for a future council meeting. Mr. mayor, this is Grace. I want to pull one R. One r. Mr. Mayor. All right. Any other council member? Bernstein I want to pull

one f and one n as Nancy and I have comments on one d and one p. Okay. Mr. Mayor, we're good to go. This is Naomi. I want to pull J as in Jimmy one J. All right. There's a few more letters left in the alphabet that we can go after. Council member ready? You're the lone you're the lone person holding that out. I'm good. Thank you. All right. I'd like to entertain a motion for acceptance of the agenda with items one, R, F n d, o, f, n and j pulled and d and p for comments. We're going to do a voice vote, so we'll need a motion and a second for verbal. I'll make a motion. Sorry. Council Member Gardner makes the motion seconded by. By Mayor Pro tem. Yes. Mayor pro tem, second city clerk. Roll call. Vote. Councilmember Gardner. Yes. Mayor. Pro tem. Soto. Yes. Council member. Reddy. Yes. Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Yes. Mayor DeHart. Yes. Motion carries five zero. All right. At this time, I invite our city attorney, Jeff Ballinger, to provide a report on closed session. Yes. Honorable mayor, members of the city council, members of the public. The city council met in closed session earlier this evening to discuss those items that are listed on the agenda, and there is no reportable action. Okay. Next item is public

testimony. This time has been set aside for members of the public to address the City Council on nonpublic hearing agenda items. Only two minutes are assigned to each speaker. You're asked to please begin your time by telling us what agenda item or items you're speaking on. And, Madam Clerk, we have we have a speaker from the Alzheimer's. Yes. Eileen Lynch, please. Our Parkinson Parkinson's. There we go. Well, thank you for your time today. I'm actually here. First of all, I'm representing Parkinson's Resource Organization. My name is Eileen Lynch. We work to ensure no one is isolated from Parkinson's by supporting people with Parkinson's and caregivers. I'm actually here, first of all, to extend my gratitude to the city of Palm Springs. We were the beneficiary of a City of Palm Springs program grant for $2,000, and we have used that grant money to start an in-person support group at the Mizel center. This group takes place every first and third Thursday of the month, and we just launched it in September. It is already one of our most popular groups, and it has been a really beautiful opportunity for people to connect with others in their community who are struggling with the same issues as them. It's an educational and support program with a major ripple effect. We come with information and support and we watch friendships blossom. I'll give you one quote. I am so grateful because I was alone and I watched people change, exchange phone numbers and and walk out together and they leave with with genuine friendships with other people who specifically understand the challenges they're dealing with. So this has been an absolute blessing to our organization and to the Palm Springs community. Our next meeting is November

20th, and I invite everyone from the council and anyone who's listening or in the room tonight to join us. If you are affected by Parkinson's, or if you would just like to meet this community and see the impact that this funding had on us and my last few minutes, I will invite you to one more thing. This Sunday we will be celebrating Don Cavanaugh Day here at the Blue Coyote Grill. He's an absolute Palm Springs legend who did die of Parkinson's, and we were able to help him in his final days. So we will be dispersing information about our free resources. We will be celebrating this man and proceeds from the day's sales augment programs like our support group. Thank you all so much. All right. Thank you. City clerk. Who's our first speaker, Scott Bowman. Followed by Morgan Williams. Thank you, mayor DeHart, Vice Mayor Soto and the esteemed council members. My name is Scott Bowman, and I'm speaking today on behalf of Enterprise Mobility. We operate the enterprise, Alamo and national rental car brands at Palm Springs International Airport under two separate and distinct concession agreements that are therefore two separate concessionaires. Enterprise is concerned that the airport's current proposal conflicts with the clear and specific terms outlined in our existing operating agreement. In 2011, the airport conducted a competitive bid process that resulted in the selection of five rental car concessionaires. As part of that process, the airport explicitly committed to remaining a cap of five concessionaires throughout the term of the agreement, and any extensions thereof. Despite this commitment, the airport is now seeking council approval to to introduce a sixth concessionaire during the

current term. This action contradicts the language of the agreement and raises serious concerns about the material violations of the commitments made during the 2011 bid process. Enterprise fully supports fair competition and welcomes the opportunity to compete within a level playing field. However, enterprise believes that altering the terms of an active agreement undermines the principles of fairness, integrity, legality and transparency that should guide public and public and private partnerships. Enterprise respectfully request that the council either deny the airport's request or, at a minimum, postpone the vote to allow the time for meaningful, meaningful dialog between the airport and the existing concessionaires. Enterprise believes such a discussion is essential to ensure that all stakeholders are treated equitably, and that the contractual obligations are honored. Thank you for your time and consideration. Morgan. William. Morgan. Let's hear. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mister chairman and council members, my name is Morgan Williams, director of properties and concessions for Hertz Corporation. I respectfully oppose the approval of a non-exclusive operating and lease agreement for six rental car at Palm Springs International Airport, not because of Sixt as a company, but because allowing a sixth operator is a clear violation of the current concession agreement. As noted in our formal letters to you sent prior to this meeting, Hertz fully supports fair and open competition. However, fair competition must take place within the boundaries of the city's existing concession agreements. Hertz and other

operators entered into contracts with the express, understanding that no more than five rental car concessions would operate from the terminal during this term. This limitation shaped every major business decision we made. Section 4.03 of the agreement is unambiguous the city may contract with other providers only if there are not more than five concessions operating out of terminal. Changing this now undermines the integrity of the agreement and the trust placed in the city's procurement process. Operationally, the airport is already at capacity. The loss of overflow parking has made things even tighter. Adding another operator would strain limited space, increase offsite storage shuttle traffic and degrade the the customer experience. If another operator wishes to participate, the only fair and lawful way is through an open, competitive bidding process. Before the move to the auxiliary contract in 2027. This ensures fairness and maintains the integrity of the process. For these reasons, we strongly urge you to vote no or delay voting on this item today as part of the Consent Calendar so that airport stakeholders have an opportunity to share our concerns. Thank you. Michael Joseph Pickens. Followed by Aaron Carter. Michael Joseph Pitkin, this is for all agenda items. Palm Springs is wanting to become a blue zone. I use your recent blue zone info as it can be used for every relationship, business or personal. Blue zones are not just about diet and exercise, they are also how you treat others. John Gottman, PhD, wrote a book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. He puts on Love Labs and he knows the accuracy at which couples are to divorce. He

highlights communicating habits he calls the Four horsemen of the divorce apocalypse number one criticism a you statement is different from a complaint, an I statement criticism your fat a complaint. This dishwasher door keeps hitting me in the leg. What can we do about it? Number two defensiveness. The receiver of the complaint sees themselves as the victim. They start overexplaining. But I've done this. But I've done that. Number three contempt, sarcasm, cynicism, name calling, mean spiritedness, air of superiority, harm, and physical and emotional abuse. Number four stonewalling. Shutting down, withdraws, refuses to engage, so there's no chance for resolution. In another blue zone article, social scientists claim narcissism is at epidemic levels. Narcissists gaslight others, making them think they're crazy. Every parent's child is a superhero. False reality. Years ago, I heard Doctor Love at USC explain on the radio the reason Hollywood marriages end in divorce is celebrities push their partners away so they do not find out how imperfect they really are. Aaron Carter, thank you. City clerk. You've got the stopwatch, don't you? Yes. I originally had a five minute speech, but now I've got two minutes. Good evening. Council members. Mayor. Vice mayor, I'm taken aback, first of all, by seeing this photo. I was today at the top of the San Jacinto Mountain area with the tram, and from that

vantage point, we were able to actually see our community plaza villas, as well as the parking lot where the Nexus Hotel is scheduled to be built. It was pretty amazing because from that vantage point, you really do see the landscape, the harmony that has been brought forth here in our our valley. I'm Aaron Carter, I'm speaking on behalf of the Plaza Villas Owners Association. Our community is 102. Excuse me. I'm so sorry. So you're actually speaking at the wrong time because this is a public hearing. So when we get to that item, then it'll be your turn to speak, and then you will get your five minutes. Yeah. That's why yeah. He put one C on his paper. Okay. Eric Christensen is that is Eric online. No okay. Then that concludes public comment. All right. Thank you. Next item on the calendar is the consent calendar. I'd like to entertain a motion to accept the consent calendar without items 1RNJ. I'll make a motion to accept. Councilmember Garner makes a motion, seconded by I second it. Councilmember Bernstein. City clerk, conduct a roll call. Councilmember. Garner. Yes. Councilmember. Bernstein. Yes. Councilmember. Ready? Yes. Mayor pro tem Soto. Yes. Mayor DeHart. Yes.

Motion carries five zero. All right. May we have a staff report on item one F, please? Mayor. Yes it is. Okay. Good evening. Mayor, mayor, Pro tem, council staff and members of the public. You have asked me to give a brief staff report on one F, which was on the consent agenda, which we're asking you to approve. Professional services agreement number 25Q414 with Lmno two joint venture to provide architectural and engineering services for the convention center. As this council is aware, in early January of this year, the mayor and the council directed the city manager to work with lightning speed at moving the Palm Springs Convention Center modernization project forward. Since that time, the the city manager has been calling together a state, a group of community stakeholders and moving forward with implementation strategies, including the hiring of an architect for the modernization project itself. On September 10th, the City Council also directed staff to continue with the implementation of the Convention Center modernization project, and this is one of the first elements that comes from that. Staff conducted a nationwide RFQ for architecture and engineering services for the modernization of the Palm Springs Convention Center facility and grounds itself. The urban design and the connectors will come at a later date towards the council, but for these purposes, LM and O two are being hired to provide design services, capital program management direction towards owner's rep for contracting for the facility and the improvements. Tabitha Richards, our Director of Procurement, is here as well. If you have questions about the process, and I believe conventional wisdom is here, if you have questions about the

architecture project itself, I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. So I pulled this a couple of reasons. One is because I just want to reiterate how important the convention center is to the city. And hiring the architect is actually a major step forward. And thank everybody who who participated in the process. And also, I just like the fact that it's L, M, N and O two. There's two different companies here. Can you talk about the breadth of interest we had in this project? Yes, I'll ask Tabitha to come up as well. But we had a pre conference discussion and we had 94 architects on the call, which is unusual for this type of RFQ. So we had almost 100 architects interested in this project. Obviously design is iconic here in the city. And so the ability the chance to provide additional design services to an already beautiful structure had held great interest. In addition, daily strategies, our strategic communications consultant assisted our procurement office in distributing this RFQ far and wide. Conventional wisdom was also at several national conventions where they were able to talk about this. So we had tremendous interest in this. I'll turn it over to Tabitha to talk about who we scored or how many firms we scored, and. Hi, Tabitha Richards, procurement and contracting manager. Well, we already said the 94 participants in the prequalification conference, which is the highest I've seen us, have we? That resulted in ten submissions of statements of qualifications by the due date of October 9th. One was disqualified in that and we moved to nine along to the evaluation process, which was evaluated by our panel member of seven or I'm sorry, of nine, that went through an initial evaluation of the statements of qualifications. The highest ranked firms moved on from there. Three were identified as the highest ranked, and those moved on

to an interview panel of the same nine. And that led to the selection of 1102 architects. And thank you, Tabitha. And can you just describe who was on what was the makeup of the evaluation committee? Yes. So we had quite an extensive evaluation committee. Typically we have 3 to 5 members, but because of the importance, we expanded that to include both representatives from economic development, the city manager's office, engineering. We also included. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the chair of the Capital Improvements Working Group project for the stakeholders group that's been created to assist in moving these projects along. We had a representative from the Hilton Palm Springs, and then we also included three local architects from studio AR and Architects Press. Greenwood Architects and John Walsh Architects also were included in the evaluation panel. And I think that is everybody. So there was three local architects, and then one of the winning bids is a joint venture with another local architect who is based here in Palm Springs. So I think that's I just wanted to highlight that because they understand the importance of our local architecture. Yes. The other thing is, I know they're talking about design and documentation services and the scope and will that include style and design guidelines going forward so that as a building, we make sure that any updates are always in sync and that we don't have any? I'm going to ask Rick Schmidt of Conventional Wisdom, who is a licensed architect, along with other certifications, to answer that question for you, Council member. All right. With you. The intent of having this project done in three stages was to make

sure that there was continuity across both the immediate effort to deal with renovations, modernization, looking at future expansion, and setting out guidelines for the long term future of the convention center, and then integrating that into the district improvements that are planned to be done. So standards should be set in place, such as a template that should last us 2025 years. Okay. And and it mentions in the document there's going to be public comment sessions. So there will be available for public on that process. Yes. Mr and council, as you know, this is an ongoing process of public engagement. We're going to be including architecture, urban design, branding, marketing. Those will be coming before you next month, and an extensive community outreach and engagement process will be included. We're working with the communications strategy firm that will be delivering that schedule, hopefully in early January, to the community so they know when the participation will occur, but it will occur throughout the project on a very regular basis. Okay. And just two other comments. In our original presentations on the convention center, there was discussion about having local brands potentially represented the local coffee shop or bar or brewery, and I just wanted to make sure that that's still within consideration. It's important that fab is a key ingredient for the operation of the convention center, and preserving the local authenticity is a key ingredient that's happening in convention centers across the country. So we anticipate there will be elements of that type. Okay. And my last comment is because when we get to economic development later, we're talking about tech. And I just want to make sure that this is the infrastructure and design are tech advanced and sort of how we're proceeding forward. Yeah. Councilmember Bernstein, we actually had Oak View groups, tech expert nationally, who currently runs the Chicago Convention Center, come to Palm Springs. He walked the facility with our IT director, and they've already previewed some of the tech elements that they want to have. So we'll be including all of the necessary disciplines at the table from the city's perspective going forward.

Okay. Terrific. Thank you. Those are my questions. Comments. Mr. mayor, I had a question. If I if I could ask Councilmember. Thank thank you mayor. So the the the cost of the contract here is up to $1 million in your estimation. Is that exclusive of the entire project change orders, or is what can you tell me about the cost of Councilmember Reddy? The cost we identified here is somewhat arbitrary in that the overall design budget right now is $9.9 million. The source of the funding for that design was approved by measure J and subsequently endorsed by this council. So Tabitha and I discussed with the architect what would be the best approach for the preliminary design elements, rather than give them a full approval for the full project. We're starting with $1 million, and I think Rick or Tabitha is prepared to break that down as to how many hours that would get us, or what product and services that would deliver. But rather than authorize the full contract, we decided we'd bring a forward a number that was a little lower so the council could revisit this number going ongoing. Understood. So just just confirm this is just a part partial. This is just a partial. My understanding is architecture is anywhere between 5 and 7% of the overall cost. And the overall cost right now is predicted around $135 million. Right. So so this is roughly in that range. And I presume the the owner's rep will be reviewing the architectural bills as well for the project. That's correct. The owner's rep will be working with the city, the engineering department, myself in reviewing all billing and making sure we're staying on target for the for the design of the center. Thank you. Any other additional questions from council? I'll entertain a motion. I so move, Mr. Mayor. I'll second seconded by

Councilmember Garner. Councilmember Bernstein. Yes. Councilmember. Garner. Yes. Councilmember. Ready? Yes. Mayor pro tem. Soto. Yes. Mayor de heart. Yes. Motion carries five zero. Thank you. Council. Thank you. All right. May we have a staff report on item J. And Mayor Pro Tem will comment on that questions afterward. Good evening. Mayor. Mayor Pro tem members of council David McAfee director of public works. This item requests approval of construction contract number 25 423 with Action Target Incorporated for the design, equipment and installation of new HVAC and and range systems at the Palm Springs Police Department's indoor firing range. The police department's indoor range serves as a cornerstone of officer training, ensuring compliance with California peace officer standards and training. In addition to use by the city's officers ranges utilized by regional and interagency law enforcement partners, fostering collaboration and ensuring consistent training standards across jurisdictions. This investment replaces infrastructure that is more than 20 years old and addresses critical safety and air quality deficiencies, along with outdated target retrieval systems. Replacing this these systems is necessary to preserve safety, meet environmental and occupational standards, and sustain long term operational reliability. Additional work required to prepare the existing range, including remediation, demolition, fire sprinkler systems, electrical analysis, and lighting, will be performed by city

contractors and is not included in action. Target. Scope of work. Approval prior to December 31st is necessary to secure current pricing and avoid anticipated cost increases. Up to 20% on equipment after January 1st, 2026. Staff recommends approval of construction contract number 25 for 23, with Action Target in the amount of $1,455,155.38 to modernize the firing range, enhance safety and ensure continued training readiness for our police department, I'm happy to answer questions. We also have members of the police department and a representative from from Action Target available, should you have questions of them. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, thank you, David, for that comprehensive summary. I saw that this is funded through the Safety Augmentation Fund and the measure J Deferred Maintenance Fund. Can you share a little bit about the measure J deferred maintenance fund. Why we set aside that money and just kind of even upcoming deferred maintenance projects that you have on the docket for the next fiscal year. Absolutely. The deferred maintenance projects really are are important projects for a city. As for the city as a whole, to really catch up is not the right word, but really, it's truly to sort of catch up with things that need to be modernized, brought up to today's standards. And that really runs the gamut from our everything from our police department, our fire department, our parks, and everything in between. So it's a very important mechanism for us to get projects completed that really are a benefit to the community. Anything you want to share of other deferred, important deferred maintenance investments that are kind

of might see this year? Absolutely. I can I can name a few there. I mean, there are many, but I you know, for for example, today we just started a project this morning upgrading our switchgear at the municipal Co-gen plant, which is a very, very big deal and should help alleviate a lot of the issues we've had with power outages and other things at City Hall and, and fire station and the airport that we've had for years. That's a very big deal. Balado garage parking structure and Bristol parking structure. We have money in there for safety improvements. That's just a couple. Gosh, emergency generators. As you know, we had not long ago a very big problem with Sunrise Plaza where we had electrical emergencies and outages. This this fund helped with the repairs. And we have an ongoing project to upgrade. So I could go on. But there are so there are so many new restroom at Victoria Park as part of that process. No, it's it's a lot I appreciate that. And I think really just to underscore, we got to celebrate every maintenance investment that we're doing to in all of our facilities and our public safety and our community centers. This is important for our workers, for our residents. And so thank you for pushing for that fund and for using it, and excited to see that maintenance is a priority for the city. So thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. Any other questions of council? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Can I just have one? Apologies actually for the chief. Chief, just for the public. Again, we've answered this many times, but part of the firing ranges that you allow other

agencies to use that firing range, and you've spoken before about how you determine which agencies can use that firing range and kind of the the relationship you have there. Can you just say that again for the public? Sure. Council Member Garner, thank you for the question. The range will be open to all the local police agencies that are certified by the California Police Officer Standards and Training. Not everybody can just come and shoot in the range. And the purpose of that is to put everybody on the same page in terms of decision making. And that's one of the focal points of the range, is for us to be able to help our officers countywide make good decisions when we use firearms, not just the precision of of when we shoot. So this will be a pretty large step forward. And also, I might add that all those local agencies who desire to use the range will be paying some monies to use the range and offsetting some of the costs associated with us. Any other questions? Back to entertaining a motion. I'll make the motion. Soto I'll second it. Pro tem seconded by Council member Bernstein. City clerk. May we have a vote? Mayor Pro tem Soto. Yes. Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Council member. Gordon. Yes. Council member. Ready? Yes. Mayor. De heart. Yes. Motion carries five zero. May we have a staff report

on item one end, please. Requested by Council member Bernstein. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mayor pro tem and council Harry Barrett, executive director of aviation for Palm Springs International Airport. This item is to approve a nonexclusive operating and lease agreement. Number 25418 for six Rent-A-Car, LLC to operate a car rental concession at Palm Springs International Airport beginning November 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026, with two one year extensions at the city's discretion. On June 15th, 2011, the city approved the Consent Calendar containing item two M awarding airport rental car concession agreements to Avis, budget, Hertz and Enterprise Rental Car Services. That was for a three year term which concluded in June of 2014. At the request of city staff, the City Council has approved subsequent term extensions that extend the current agreements through June 2026. The most recent amendment provides for a two year, two one year optional extensions that, if exercised, would extend the current agreement through June 30th, 2028. On July 30th, 2025, corporate representatives of the three rental car brand groups Avis, budget, enterprise, Alamo National and Hertz Dollar Thrifty were presented with an initial design for the auxiliary rental car lot and the hybrid Consolidated Rental Car facility. As part of the design, the airport included a fourth car rental car brand that represents a new entrant to the rental car company, palm Springs International Airport has a responsibility to make the best use of the facilities and land to generate revenue that support airport operations and long term sustainability. Currently, PSP is served by three major rental car

groups Avis, Budget, enterprise, Alamo National and Hertz Dollar Thrifty. While these long standing partners provide valuable service, expanding competition is in the best interest of the regional economy. In December of 2024, six rental six rental car company expressed interest in joining PSP and bringing their distinctive customer brand to the airport. Airport staff have identified a small area in the north end of the airport baggage claim, without negatively impacting the incumbent airlines or rental car companies. The airport also manages 12 office, warehouse and light industrial buildings at 2901 East Alejo Road, referred to as the Accelerator Campus, and we have identified that area for operations for six six rental car. We are committed to working with our current rental car companies on this. This agreement, but are seeking your approval for the agreement tonight. And with that, I'll take any questions. Thank you. So we heard from public comment. We got letters that there seems to be some confusion about whether there's five concessionaires signing, even though there are two of the companies are are represent multiple which makes it three. So how but it doesn't sound like the language is clear. Is that right? How do we define them in in the contract. The way we've interpreted the language is the city is three rental car brands. And so we when we allocate services for our market share for the rental car brands, it's operated by three different companies, not five. We also work with three different representatives, not five. So we're interpreting that as three different companies. Do any of those three have multiple agreements? Two of those companies, I believe, have multiple agreements. So that would be five. And now we're having a six would be

the sixth. That is not how our attorneys have interpreted that. Okay. We have we clarified this that that when they've signed the agreement that we're counting, when the companies merged, they merged after they signed the agreements. Is that right? That's accurate. So but we never clarified that. Now you count as one the master agreement was not updated. I don't know if that was clarified in the amendment. I don't believe so. Maybe the city attorney? I don't believe so either. Now it just I mean, I, I actually think six is a separate one. And there's another issue about who gets to bid on who can bid on space. But it seems to me that if they merge, we said there was five concessionaires and then two of them merged. We should have told them that they now count as one. Is that right that we said there would be a maximum of five? My understanding is with the initial RFP, it limited to five rental car companies. That's correct. So I guess the question to city attorney if two of those five merge but have separate agreements, do we not need to tell them that they now count as one? I don't think that we're under a legal obligation to tell them that they are now one. I think that a different interpretation, taking enterprises interpretation, would allow them to create many subsidiaries and really narrow the the number of operators within our facility. And so that's part of the the underlying rationale of our position. But those Alamo, I mean, the, the different ones that are all part of the original signatories, it just seems it's a bit unclear how it's done and that we should clarify this if this is the way we're if we limit a number of concessionaires and ones merge, we should reinforce that it still counts as those ones. Does that not make sense? That's not an

unreasonable position moving forward. And we'll certainly incorporate that into future agreements. I don't think that affects our analysis looking backwards though. And so then the other comment that has come up is that because there was this, these spaces for six to be the sixth operator, we haven't we didn't competitively bid that. We just gave that to them. Is that right? That's correct. We did do a direct negotiation with six rental car company. So there's a little I mean and I know they operate a different they have a different product, which sounds good, but it seems a little bit if we had existing ones that would have wanted that space, we didn't give them the opportunity or I would push back on that characterization. So we've worked with our rental car brands on expanding their footprint before. And I'll give an example. Avis budget has done so with their rental car counters as well as with premium space in front of the terminal. So if we're asked to accommodate rental car growth, we're happy to do so where it's reasonable. We were not asked to do that, okay. But if they asked, you might be able to do accommodate additional space. But I think it's not just the rental car counters, it's space for cars, right? Space for cars, but the footprint that six is operating in is currently unused space. So or would be operating in I should say. And so for example they're ready return lot currently does not exist as rental car space. It exists as an employee lot for airport employees. We would be converting that space to rental car space for revenue generating purposes. The same for the building and office space that they would be working out of, which isn't in the terminal. It's actually about half a mile away on the other side of the campus. Okay, so where do the employees now go? I'm sorry, what are the employees now, though, if we're our employees, we consolidated into a separate employee lot. Okay. When we build a new temporary one, while we're building, while we build a permanent one, will this

allow for the existing companies to potentially get extra space they may need? We? Yes, it will. And we have identified that with all the rental car companies. And we would see and we would competitively bid that we would offer that to them first before we bring a potential additional operator in the auxiliary configuration it would be offered to the incumbents as a group. It's only when we go out for the permanent rental car facility that we would look to to RFP that, okay, and these contracts go through. The current ones. They expire in 26 or the current term expires. So they're on one year extensions essentially, and have been since 2014. The next one expires in June of 2026. And then we have the option to extend for a one year term after that or two, one year terms. It would seem to me, before we have any others, before we renew any other ones, that we sort of clarify the legal language and the process for additional space so that we don't have confusion. It's a little bit concerning that they there seems to be confusion, and I think we can work with the city attorney's office to do that. And this would happen for June of 26, do you think? Which might come up and you would you would clarify this before June of 26? Yes. When any new ones come up, I if the city attorney agrees. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Well, I guess, you know, if we can clarify this then, I mean, it would be helpful, but we don't want to be in a situation where, where there's confusion, especially among existing good operators. And we don't want, you know, welcome new business, but we don't want them to be unhappy. Okay. I don't know

if anybody else has any other comments. You. Thank you. It's an interesting product. It's a good product. It's one that the airport, I think really could use a niche that's not there now. So I applaud you for bringing that forward. And so I'm with Councilman Bernstein I agree. So just so I understand when we did this originally in the concern they had was that the, you know, five and then six, that it was five and then they merged. And we're looking that now as one company, even though they operate as separate. It was sort of bid as separate. So it sort of looks and feels like they're separate companies. So I can see their, their position. But just to understand to the city attorney, so what your interpretation is, is that it's we're not having six companies, we're only having four. Yes. Unless they merge again, in which case it could be fewer. So because they merge then that counts less because incorporates okay. So it's more of like the, the the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law because technically it is. Okay. So I understand your point. So I'm a little not sure what to do. I, I support this I think it's a great product, but I do understand the rental cars concerns. So dilemma. But legally we can do this and just. Mr. director, if I could the other car companies are on a year to month to month lease. Now when they're they're on one year, they're on one year extensions. And then when will you go out to do a full rebid again? Do you have any anticipation of when you'll do that? We would have to be in some level of permanent state with the rental car activity for us to do a proposal, and right now we're in so much transition,

it would be impossible to do a public bid. Understood. So do you just and you may or may not know the answer to this question. Do you? What significant impact, if any, do you think that this will have on the other traditional rental cars, that we have very little impact operationally? I know that one of the areas of concern brought up by all three operators was in our agreement. We've outlined a mag minimum annual guarantee, and that may have an impact. That impact is unknown at this time. We have no way of knowing what that will look like. You have that with all the companies, don't you? Yes. And then finally, just as a procedural, you were able to do this as a negotiation, wasn't required to do an RFP or a bid for, for this space. Not legally. No. Okay. Thank you. Okay. It seems just. Yeah. Mayor Pro tem. I'm sorry. Thanks. Harry, can you just describe the. Passenger experience during season? Yes. Right now. So right now, our rental car companies reside within our baggage claim area. During our seasonal lulls, you can throw. A football won't hit anything. When we're in our peak. It's standing room only. And so it's very congested. And we are space constrained from that perspective. The other side of that is with so much demand, we're we have an inventory problem. In other words, we do run out of rental cars very, very, very quickly. And so being able to meet the demand as we grow has been a challenge as well. And so we're trying to basically

pivot and make sure that our customers are well served when they're flying into Palm Springs. So having an extra operator will be able to move passengers in and out of the baggage claim area with an extra counter, and also meet the demand of just having enough vehicles. Right. So so we'll certainly hopefully meet the demand for enough vehicles with inventory in terms of the operation. Sixth, their proposed area is a brand new counter in an underutilized space. So we would have the ability to accommodate more rental car transactions from a customer perspective. And we would also have that inventory. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. So I have a question here or I'm just unclear as to why. What made this process for picking up a new rental car company any different from any other? Bid process that we would go out to bid or select or push put out an RFP? How was this different than any other process of putting out an RFP? So typically when an airport issues an RFP for space, they generally know that that space is going to be occupied for some period of time 15 years, 20 years, 30 years. In this situation, we're in a transitional phase where we're they're going to be a lot of movements over the next ten years. So it's almost impossible to issue an RFP and get any certainty out of what we're going to get in terms of a product from our concessionaires. So it's better to do a direct negotiation in this particular situation given

our transitions. Oh, can I have a follow up question to the mayor's mayor? Can I ask a follow up? Mayor Pro Tem Mayor Pro tem, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And outside of rental car facilities, this was you negotiated directly with Goldenvoice and other retail space in the last year? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Other questions from council? Entertain a motion. To address some of the points that the airport director made. Mayor, that's up to you. There's a request to speak from one of the rental car companies. Mr. mayor, it's your call. Sure. That's Scott who's coming forward. Hi, mayor. My name is Eric Street. I'm a controller here for the enterprise mobility operations, so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak. And council members, thank you. A little bit of a just history lesson, just because myself and Scott, we've been with enterprise for over 20 years and some of our counterparts were actually part of the bid process that happened back in 2011. As it relates to the five concessionaires that operate today is there were actually six before, and part of that bid process was because of space constraints. The airport actually reduced those number of spaces from six down to five. And so certainly in a great way, the airport has grown over the years. Passenger volume has increased, demand for rental cars has increased, so much so that many times over the years, with the

great relationship that we have with the airport director and his staff, we as an industry have actually requested for more space as an industry in order to meet the demands of all the wonderful passengers that fly in to Palm Springs International Airport. Interestingly enough, back in June there was some overflow parking that again, as an industry, we shared, the airport came to us and they said, gosh, we need to take this space because we have to move our employee parking lot. And we said, and I've got copies of emails here if you all need them. We said, gosh, we're surprised by this. We actually need that space because come the season, we need that in order to make sure we can meet the demand of the of the rental car customers. And we already have challenges as it stands today meeting that demand. And so we now fast forward, and now the airport has found space for a no bid contract. While us as an industry, we would love to have a dialog with the airport in order to better understand what space is available, could we potentially lease that space? We've already had a competitive bid process. We have a signed agreement, and we would love to have the opportunity to have a further discussion. And so again, to that end, we would love for this vote to be delayed so we could have a further conversation with the airport we've been doing business with Palm Springs. Yeah. Appreciate your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Council. Is there other questions? Do we have a motion. Is there any sense of. Mayor. Can we have a moment, please? I'm sorry. Is is there any other any other desire on council to delay this, to have that, for them to have

that conversation or are we satisfied? Well, let's put a motion on the table to delay it, if that's what you like. Are the item can die for lack of emotion. I'll make a motion to move the item. Item to a motion to move the item by Councilmember Garner. I'll second, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem mayor. Before the vote, I would just I would just note that this precedes I would I would encourage obviously we have a good working have always had a good working relationship with our rental car partners. And I know the director will do everything he can to continue that. So if there's additional space needs we can do to accommodate them, I guess I speak for the whole council that we encourage that to occur. Thank you mayor. Yes for sure. Councilmember Garner, any other. Councilmember Garner. Yes. Mayor Pro tem Soto. Yes. Council member. Reddy. Yes. Council member. Bernstein. No. Mayor. De heart. No. Motion passes. Three. Two. All right. Next item. May we have a staff report on one R. Good evening. Mayor. Members of city Council, Joel Montalvo, city

engineer. The item before you today is the approval of a task order for IDC for design of the swim center. This project has been ongoing for quite a while. It started as a fairly small project. The renovation of the locker rooms with actually with measure J community initiated projects and it started growing into different requests to do different upgrades. And overall, we thought that we should combine all these small little project requests into one big project. So Maria and her team, IDC have been working on this project for quite a while. We've gotten a lot of community input. The director of Parks and RECs is here. He can talk about how much community input there was and the meetings with commissions. Ultimately, the decision of everyone was to move this project forward. So here we are trying to get that design approved. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. The director of Parks and RECs is here, as are questions. And we also have Maria from IDC. Thank you. So I just because we've had some confusion from from the residents. So the the design of that funding from a couple of years ago was really consent. Correct. Councilmember Garner asked for this item to people didn't she. Oh you did. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought. Councilmember Garner. I think we have the same question. Actually, we've gotten a little bit of people asking about this and just having a little bit of confusion. So you're showing here this final concept design. So can you just explain where this concept design came from and then what we're approving today. Like can you just define both both types of projects that were done. Yeah. So the initial steps I should say. Right, right. So in order to get a project going and to get community input, you need concepts. You need to find out what you think you want to build. Right. What what

does the community want. What what are the swimmers want. And through that process, you know council directed us really to go get community inputs. So we had many meetings through that process. We needed to get someone to do concept level work. We hired IDC, who's one of our on call architects, to walk us through that process to work with the community, work with the former director of Parks and Rec to create a project. But those designs and those concepts weren't really buildable. They're just pictures essentially to tell the story. Once you get to a story and once you're ready to move to construction, you need construction level documents. So this next phase, the the item before you is to actually approve the architect's design process to move this project forward. It is an older building. The infrastructure isn't there. There's going to be a lot of there's going to be an addition, there's a roof. So there's a lot of work that needs to go into this project to get it to construction level. So that's what's before you today is approving the design for the construction documents to get this project out to bid. Thank you. And and are we tearing down some of the the structure in order to rebuild, or is the plan to use the existing to just make it changes to the existing existing structure is going to remain the superstructure, but we are adding office space. Correct. We're adding brand new locker rooms. There's actually the the roof is actually open. So there's a new nice structure that's going to add that's going to be incorporated into the building through the outside, maintaining the integrity of the of the actual structure. From what I understand, Maria, it's not a historic building, but it was designed by a known architect. So we're trying to maintain that integrity while creating a new look. Also very important to this project is accessible Ada access. Currently there is very

limited access. One of the access you actually have to go through the swim center. So this project, as I said a long time ago, when probably in 20 1819, I was tasked, I was asked to look at the ramp. So it's taking this long to create this big project that Maria is now going to design for us. Great. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Sorry about that. So this is different what you're doing now than what was done two and a half years ago. That was concept. This is a real design, correct. What was done before was to try to get the community to give input. Okay. That's what we pay. That's exactly to build the vision. The vision has been built with community input, with staff's input. Really. Right. And I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about what your staff kind of wanted. And Maria incorporated that into the concepts. And now we were able to go move forward with construction. But Nick can talk a little bit about the needs of staff. Sure. Nick Gonzalez director of Parks and Recreation. So over the past several years and since I've come on over the past year, we've really paid a lot of attention to the staff offices, designated some additional space for our manager and supervisor to work out of. If you go in the lifeguard office now, it's just one small, tight room. This allows us to really have enough additional office space for all of our lifeguards and staff members that are at the facility now. We've also taken to account, as City engineer mentioned, the Ada accessibility throughout the facility. You alluded to it earlier, but for someone in a wheelchair, you need to go through the lifeguard office into the men's locker room and then come out of that space to access the pool deck. So this will allow for increased accessibility, accessibility throughout the swim center so that we can get patrons in and out of the facility safely. And we've also looked at

upgrades to the locker rooms and including all gender locker room spaces that will be incorporated into this design, which is really important for all of our users that frequent this facility. So we've gone done a lot of input since I've been here. We've also had several community meetings also to gather input from our swimmers to ensure that their input is well represented in this design, which it now reflects that. And what's the scope of the overall project in terms of cost? So you're you're adding square footage. You're and dollar cost of like how how much. This is a $6 million. It's it's I think it's going to range between 6 or 7. But I think the initial cost started around 4 to 5. So costs are still growing. So right now I'm around 6 or 7 okay. And so a 700 something thousand design is normal for a project of this size. Yes it's 6 million. You're about 12% of the cost. So yeah this is normal and the building because you need to incorporate the, the, the facilities age into you have to take that into account. This has to be testing. There's lots of work that goes into an existing structure when you try to renovate it. So I think the design costs justify what we're going to get. Okay. And it's a huge capital building I think. So I believe you're correct. Is that right. And so it may not be designated historic but it's not. It's one one of the three. Right. That's why the concept of Maria has is to leave the building intact, but build on top of it or around it. Okay. And adjacent to it. Okay. I mean, there's several important architectural buildings in that in this like our library. And so we restoring it makes more sense than tearing the whole thing down. Okay. I just want to clarify that mainly for the public. So thank you. And I'm glad this is coming to to to light. The city manager was introduced to Palm Springs

and his first month here at a swim center meeting with 200 very angry people. So now you get to go to the meeting when this is done. All right. Do we have any other questions from council? Just a quick comment just for the public. Jewel mentioned this at the beginning, but a lot of these initial ideas came in 2021, in the community initiated projects. And just to shows that community input in measure J projects and ideas kind of really snowball into sometimes really exciting opportunities to really re-envision our community spaces. And so to the people who applied four years ago, you know, those comments were were not in vain. We're that it really helped shape this. And in addition to all the community engagement meetings. Right. It's important to note that we when we get requests to do a project and if it if for me personally, if I see that it's a bigger project evolving. Right? We don't just jump on it. We do take some heat from the public for not doing what they want immediately. But this is the result of all the input. And you approved earlier. Demuth Park. Demuth Park is very similar. Request to do parking lot to do some drainage to do maybe the playgrounds Ada accessibility that was measured J as well. So the same thing we took all the concepts and I knew that projects were developing. So we didn't just jump on one. It makes more sense to do a uniform design and build it. So we're doing that. We're paying attention to the community. Thank you so much. All right. Any other comments or questions? Do we have a motion on the floor. So moved second Councilmember Bernstein seconded by Councilmember Garner, city clerk may we have a vote? Councilmember Bernstein. Yes. Councilmember. Garner.

Yes. Councilmember. Ready? Yes. Mayor pro tem Soto. Yes. Mayor. Descartes. Yes. Motion carries. Motion passes five zero. All right. We have comments on item 1D, Councilmember Bernstein, I think it's 11D right. The the and the public arts. The fund is I think so the public is just 1D1D and one P. Yeah one D is just the fund balances. And I just wanted to highlight that. We talk about public arts fund which it shows here as a positive balance. But I think that's mostly encumbered. And we're we're now looking at other public arts expenses in this budget. I know this has come up before, but I'm looking forward to when we can actually review the public arts ordinance so that we can have accurate budgeting and accounting of what is encumbered, what may potentially go back to to developers, and then at the same time, look at whether there's other options for additional funding for public arts by creating a nonprofit or expanding the scope beyond just public art. So I just wanted to make that comment because it does show a fund balance. After we just loaned measure J money to Public Arts. Other than that, that was it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. One p and one P. Councilmember Bernstein. You didn't. I had one P but I think Councilmember Garner had that. I think we both did. Okay. You can go first okay. Actually sorry if our Parks and Rec director here, Nick

I just had one question when clarifying, you're probably should have pulled it. I'm sorry. Can you just explain a little bit more what's happening with the small dog park in this proposal? As far as the improvements made at Demuth? Yeah. So the small dog park is separate in Demuth Park. It's it's it's kind of in the middle of the park, away from the parking lot and separate from the large dog park, which is on kind of the other side of the park. And so improvements will still be made in the small dog park area we've had since I've been on board here. We've had several kind of community meetings with our dog park users, including also creating as part of the parks, rec Parks and Recreation Commission, a separate ad hoc committee to focus on dog parks. And we've had lots of conversations about this. We know that it is challenging to have that small dog park in the middle of the park, away from a parking lot area. For some of our users who may have some mobility challenges. And so we we understand that, but we still want to move this project forward. There's grant funding tied to it. There's been several years of community engagement, a lot of different improvements that will still be made to the small dog park area. And also keep in mind, we still have the small dog park here at the David H. Red Dog Park here at City Hall. So we still have another place where our dog park users can frequent. And so improvements are still going to be made here in this small dog park. We still want staff recommends to still move this forward so that we can still upgrade that amenity, because right now it's just a dirt lot and we want to spruce it up to make it a really nice dog park space there. Thank you. So once you kind of use some of this grant money to do that will there is there still ongoing discussions about kind of how to make it a little bit more accessible or, or do anything there. Yeah. So this whole this project includes

accessibility plans for the whole area, including some new parking lots. It is still going to be a little bit further away, but we'll look at other areas on how we can increase signage and other accessibility so that we can make sure that patrons can park as close as they can to this space, so that they can easily get to it and safe manner. Okay, great. Thank you. And just to just to comment on this, it's really nice to see all of these improvements moving forward. And Demuth Park I mean this is again just some things that will come for for this park. There's still lots of of other improvements that that will happen. And we've talked recently we had folks talk about soccer fields. I mean, there's a lot still to come. But thanks for moving this, these this bundle of things forward. And Mr. Mayor. Yeah, my only comment was just basically say it's great to see all these parks improvements coming. It seems every month that we have something with one of the parks or swim center or playground or something, and so much is coming that's been in the works is either being moved forward or coming to fruition. And these are so important to our city, to our both our residents and our visitors and our brand image. So, you know, kudos to you and the entire Parks and Rec department and the Parks and Rec Commission for all the hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, if I can make one more question or comment. Nick, I know that there's kind of like spots on Palm Springs for pickleball updates and swim center updates, but is there a place where maybe there's kind of like, all temporary potential parks and rec spaces that are constrained or closed? Or there could be like a one spot check here. You know, that might be something because unless you are

yourself a part of a specific community, kind of know which of those multiple landing pages to go, it might be helpful to think about, you know, changes happening in our parks and rec spaces and just kind of a list of all the different ones, and be great to see that list grow and and shorten and grow and shorten. But just something to think about around all the different marketing strategies you're exploring right now within Parks and Rec, there could be like a one spot stop where people can check if there's any changes to where they think they might be going. Yes, we can definitely make that a lot more streamlined for our users to identify all of our spaces and temporary spaces throughout the city. Thank you for moving this forward. Any other questions? Comments? All right. Thank you. Next item is public hearing item two A to consider application by Jonathan Wurtzel for historic site designation of the Carlton Chadwick residence on West Santa Elena road. May we have a staff report, please? Good evening. Mayor, mayor pro tem and members of council. I'm Chris Godwin, the planning director. I'm going to do my best to represent Sarah Yun, our historic preservation officer, tonight, who couldn't be with us to discuss a a request for a class one designation of the Cullerton residence at 572 West Santa Elena Road. The homeowners have initiated this this request for class one status. Located in the Little Tuscany neighborhood, the slot was first developed in 7 with a ranch style home, which was completely redesigned by the influential architect William Cody in 1961. For Cullerton and Chadwick, the home is at the end of the street with two curb cuts. The East Curb Cut is a concrete car park that used to have a covered carport. This is also where the main entry to the home is located. The second curb cut leads to the garage.

These photographs show the home in its current restored condition, showing the placement of the home with the mountains in the back. In the background. The photo to the right shows the unique entry path and covered breezeway from the carport. Sorry. Car park towards the front of the home. The home reads as a hybrid between the vernacular California ranch style home integrated with key components of the modern movement, the home is a great representation of Cody's style and versatility. In order to designate a class one site, it must exhibit exceptional historic significance. The Cullerton Residence is a good representation of residential development patterns in the postwar period, and the redesign of the home combines vernacular design with the modern movement. The architect, William Cody, was still at the height of his professional career when this home was completed, and it is an important example of his work that shows his versatility as a designer. HSB determined that criteria three and five highlighted here were met. In order to qualify as a class one, you need to meet one or more of these, so that requirement has been met. In addition, class one sites must be evaluated for their integrity in these categories. While the home did undergo alterations following Cody's redesign in 1965, many of the important features of the design have since been restored. Most importantly, the design, workmanship, setting all remain intact, and again, HSB has determined that it meets all seven integrity categories. In summary, both staff and the HSB believe this home is an important example of both the architect's work and of the postwar period, and that all requirements for designation have been satisfied. Therefore, staff are recommending City Council designate the site by adopting the draft resolution in your packets. The homeowners, along with the writer of the nomination report, are here to answer any of their questions you

might have. Thank you. Are there any questions for staff? Okay. At this time I would like to open the public hearing. Public is invited to speak on this matter for up to two minutes. City clerk, do we have any speakers? Yes, I have Steven Keelan. Good evening. Mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. I'm Steven Keelan. I'm the nomination of I'm the author of this nomination. I'm also vice president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation. You have the nomination and you you've seen the fine staff report. So I'm really just here to represent the very proud owners who are here and answer any questions you may have. City clerk, any other questions? No more comments. Thank you. I just have a comment. If once you close the public hearing, I don't know if I can do it, I just. Steven, I just want to thank you for the report. It's just I love reading these staff the great documents on the history of the owners. And it's just it's very interesting. And I encourage people to read this for the history of Palm Springs, because and thank you for all the work. It's a lot of work you put into it and we get gets voted very quickly. So but thank you I appreciate it. The public hearing is now closed. Are there any additional questions of the council. This time I'll entertain a motion. So moved second motion by Council member Bernstein. Seconded by. Council member. Ready. City clerk, conduct a vote, please. Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Council member. Reddy. Yes. Council member. Gardner.

Yes. Mayor. Pro tem. Soto. Yes. Mayor. De la. Yes. Motion carries five zero. Next item to be to consider application by the Rest Area LLC for historic site designation of the Ruben Building, located at 457 North Palm Canyon Drive. May we have a staff report, please? Yes. Mr. Mayor, mayor Pro tem and council. Hello again, Chris Hadwen, planning director. This is a request for class one historic designation of a mixed use property located at 457 North Palm Canyon Drive. The new owner called the Ruben Building. The new owner of the site is seeking the designation. This building, designed by Albert Raymond Walker, was completed in 1946. Always intended to be a mixed use building, the site still contains residential uses today on the upper level and has commercial storefronts on the ground level. This is a unique architectural typology that survives in its original state. When observed at the street level, the massing is simple and appears unassuming, but the majority of the ground level commercial storefronts are located inside the arcade that runs through the building. The recessed balcony on the upper level is for the residential units, and the architectural detailing has Regency Revival characteristics. Characteristics. Like the Doric columns and the decorative ironwork, Historic postcards often play a critical re in providing context and revealing architectural details. The report includes this postcard from the 1940s and the architect's original renderings of the building. As you can see, the open arcade and storefront design are important features that remain intact today. In order to be classified as a class one site, it again needs to meet at least one of the criteria shown here on the screen. The mixed use building in the Central business district is in the central business district, and is an excellent example of commercial development that was seeking to also address housing needs in the downtown. The architect associated with the design of the building is also an

important figure. Albert Walker designed many landmarks in the Los Angeles area, and he was also involved in designing the original El Mirador hotel that opened in 1927. HSBC discernment determined that again that class criterion three and five shown here were met. As far as integrity is concerned. The design of the unique features like the open arcade on the ground level, the individual storefronts and the residential units all remain intact. It appears that changes over time have been minimal and most aspects of the integrity are retained. The images on this slide show the existing arcade with the center, atrium, and the interior of one of the residential units. In summary, the Reuben Building meets the requirements to be designated as a class one historic site. HSBC also noted this would be an important addition to the local inventory, given its unique architectural typology. As a rare example of a mixed use building seeking to be designated in the city with its surviving commercial, arcade and residential units. Today, again, this is an owner initiated request and HSBC is recommending City Council adopt Adapt. Adopt the draft resolution in your packets. The owner and his representative is also here to answer any questions. Thank you. C, are there questions from staff? At this time? I'd like to open the public hearing. Public's invited to speak on the matter for two minutes. Up to two minutes. City clerk, do we have any speakers? We have one speaker, Shaheen Shah. Pronounce your last name. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this evening. My company is called Lab Holding. We're based out of Orange County. 30 years in,

we've put about a half a dozen of beautiful buildings on the national registry here in Orange County, California. This is my first project in Palm Springs. We're very excited about this project. I love the history, the culture. My company is called the lab stands for Little American Businesses, and we do not do national tenants. It's all about localization and personalization and customization. And this project, really, we fell in love with because it sort of checked all the boxes for us. Yeah. At this point, we're honestly just a steward for the building and the gatekeepers, and hopefully it will remain the same and get passed on to the next generation. But I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and your consideration. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions. Madam clerk, do we have other speakers? We have no further speakers. Mr. mayor, members of Council, if I could just take a second. It's terrific to see Shaheen here in the audience. A long time friend of mine from Orange County. And it's terrific that he's here investing in our community. She just does tremendous work. You got to see some of his really unique, innovative projects that he's done, especially with small businesses and bringing small businesses to life in a really creative way. So I'm thrilled to see the work that he's doing here. So I just wanted to make a quick comment. Yeah, I'd just like to. Are there any other discussions or additional questions from the City Council? Yes, Mr. Mayor, just a comment. Councilmember Bernstein, I just wanted to also thank the applicant for for investing in the city. And this is a beautiful building. I was actually looking at it during pride. And the residents on the

balcony looking out. I don't know if that was, but it was. It's a wonderful building and thank you for preserving and investing in our community and and being part of Palm Springs. So thank you. Any additional questions? Comments from Council. I'll entertain a motion. So moved. Moved by Councilmember Bernstein. Seconded by. Second. Who? Council member. Ready. Council member. Ready. City clerk. May we have a vote, please? Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Council. Ray. Yes. Councilmember. Garner. Yes. Mayor pro tem. Soto. Yes. Mayor de heart. Yes. Motion carries five zero. Mayor, may we request a brief recess before our next public hearing, which may very be a long public hearing. Of course we can. How long would you like brief? Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Thank you. Ten minutes. All right. Yes. You're right. There's a delay. There's a delay.

We're all here. Hey, mayor. Howdy. All right, are we ready? Next item, item two C, which is an appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to adopt amended. Mitigated. Mitigated negative declaration. May we have a staff report, please? Thank you, mayor and Council. So this project before you includes an appeal of a planning commission decision in September from the Placerville Homeowners Association and also from Safer, which is an acronym for Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility. So the plaza. Oh, I'm sorry, associate planner, the project planner for the city. So the Plaza Villas is concerned about traffic height and impacts on the community of the project. And then Safer disagrees with the SQL analysis and the mitigated negative declaration for the project. So a little bit of history behind the project. There was a settlement agreement that was done in 2021 between the City of Palm Springs and the Nexus development on this property, which is known as the Prairie Schooner Lot. There was an initial study that was done when the submission was made of the project. Back in January of 2025, there was a 20 day review period and that ended in February. The project was presented before the Tribal Council in March, and then initial study responses to comments was published on our city website. On September 16th, the Planning Commission adopted a resolution approving the project, approving the Mitigated Negative declaration, and then a series of planning

conditions, and we'll go over those in just a second. An appeal was submitted on September 23rd by safer, and then on October 2nd by the Plaza Villa Homeowners Association. So looking at the site, this is located in section 14, which is a specific plan on the Agua Caliente Reservation. The box in red is showing the site. It is bound by Andreas Road, Calle El Segundo. The convention center is on the right, captor Plaza is on the south, and that's Tahquitz Canyon Way. And then the Hilton Palm Springs is on the left. So currently it is a parking lot. That is with an agreement with the city that we can use this property for offsite parking of the convention center. And also some of the local hotels use it. So as you can see, it's an East Andreas to the north, Al El Segundo to the west. So the proposal is a 5.64 acre parcel. It composed of two buildings. The West wing is a 125 room hotel seven stories, 85ft tall, and then the residential portion, which is the east wing, is 132 condo units, which equates to 24 dwelling units per acre and nine stories at 99.8ft tall. There also is a restaurant component 6000ft. The setbacks for the building vary depending on if it's the north, which is 62ft, 35ft to the west, and the hotel is located 132ft from the residential development of Plaza Villas. And I have a slide showing that in just a second. So the section 14 specific plan was used to evaluate the project. The maximum height

that is permitted with a conditional use permit is 100ft. They're proposing 99.8. The setbacks. The high rise building section of the code allows for a setback of every foot of for setback for every foot of vertical rise of the building, which equals 100ft. This is set back 132ft. The density maximum is 86 rooms per acre or, I'm sorry, 45 rooms per acre. They're proposing 86 open spaces. Met parking. We have parking chart and then the ground floor facade. Visual interest along the street frontage, pedestrian entrances, display windows and so forth. So evaluating the project against the section 14 specific plan, it meets those requirements. What will follow is a series of slides. This is a showing the site plan. It's an L-shaped building with the restaurant building on the El El Segundo. In the center is a series of pools and outdoor spaces, and then a ballroom or flex space in the center. In showing the setbacks, the slide is here to show that it is. The building is set back 132ft from the property line of the Plaza Villas, and then 34ft from the street frontage on Calle El Segundo for the proposed 6000 square foot restaurant. The applicant has provided a series of building elevations showing what the building will look like, and this is showing the two towers on the top slide. The hotel building is the shorter building, which is 85ft or seven stories, and the building on the on the right is the condo building, and that is 99 stories, 99ft, ten story, nine stories tall. Another

exhibit showing the building elevations, the parking garage that's proposed is five levels. That is on the top slide facing the Renaissance Hotel. So there's a series of photo simulations. This is looking from Capture Plaza towards the hotel. Once again, the five story or five level garages on the right. The tower building is in the center, and then the other building for the hotels is on the right, or, I'm sorry, on the left. This is looking from El Segundo with the restaurant building, with the brown that wraps it and the hotel building behind it. This is a better bird's eye view. With the center building is the flex ballroom space, the pools, and then the restaurant building. This is a good view of the seventh floor of the hotel building will have a social club, and that's the roof portion of the building. This is the view from Plaza Villas looking south. And from the corner of El Segundo and Andreas looking south also. So in terms of parking, the applicant is providing underground parking of 100 spaces under the hotel portion and then the parking structure, 400 spaces in five levels. So they are meeting the requirement for parking. There also was a shade study that was completed. This is showing the different times of the year, spring, summer and winter and then different hours of the day. And you'll see that in summer there is barely a shadow. And then in winter solstice, there is a shadow that would cast

along the very southern portion of Plaza Villas. The determination was that the showed that there was less significant impacts on required sections, and there was a response to comments that was presented on that document. So in for the city Council to make, to uphold the Planning Commission determination, there is a series of findings that you need to make. There's a tentative track map that will combine three lots into one lot. There's a major development permit to construct the 257 room resort, hotel and restaurant, and then the cup would grant high rise exception to the project at 99.8ft, and also include auxiliary restaurant uses. So on September 16th, the Planning Commission approved all of these. Applications. The Cup, the development permit, the track map and then adopted the MND. They did place some fine or conditions on it. One was to reduce the massing and I want to clarify this. It is on the east and south tower of the building. The Planning Commission wanted to clip the edge edges of the building 20ft or two stories, so that it would reduce the massing. And I can show you that in a in a drawing if you'd like, back the rooftop social club to end any kind of outdoor entertainment at ten, the design of the parking garage exterior be reviewed and be more sympathetic to Capture Plaza, and that the landscape utilize a plant palette. So the Planning Commission approved the project and made these recommendations to the Architectural Review Committee, which the

project will go to once your decision is made today. Excuse me, may I just have to ask a quick question on this specific point germane to here? Glenn, could you just tell me the the planning Commission 13 reducing the tower, the 20ft? It does that affect the shadow study that you just showed ine prior slide? Or maybe you can address that at some point. It could. So that would reduce the shadow. And we can talk about that later. But I just want to put a pin in that because that would be a question based on that. Thank you. Yes. So the recommendation is the Planning Commission made affirmative findings and voted 4 to 3, four to 0 to 3 absent to approve and recommend approval to the RC. Given this that the project conforms to the general plan, the section 14 specific plan staff is recommending that the Council uphold the decision. So that concludes my report. The our consultant is here. If you have any questions about that and I can address any other questions. All right. Thank you. Are there questions for staff? I do, Mr. Mayor. Glenn, you mentioned that you could show us a rendering of the the corners being changed. Yes. So in this that yes, in this slide here, what the planning Commission was looking to clip the ends of this building two stories or 20ft in, 20ft down or two stories in. And also this is the North building and also get to it. This building here clip these ends here. And that would reduce the massing. So to answer answer Council

Member Eddie's question by clipping this section here. Would that help with the shade here. That I can't tell you. Would that be a restudy on the. So there was no specific application requirement to submit a shading study. It was prepared by the applicant. I think in order to justify the application and to to respond to some of the concerns and questions that were coming up through the review. So we might want to ask them what analysis they've done and what impact it would be, would have on potential shading. It certainly within the scope of council to have that conversation. Thank you. Do you, Mr. Mayor? Yes. Go ahead. Council member Bernstein, do you show the rendering of what it looks like on Andreas coming out of the convention center? Which one is that? So that's this slide. So this is Andreas looking towards the mountain. So looking west. So when you come down Alvarado what you would see. And then this is the corner from the Hilton looking towards the building or diagonal from the casino. We don't have one that's coming out of the convention center. What that would look. No sort of that the look I mean, right now there's an alleyway or a street that doesn't connect through Capture Plaza. That's what you would see basically the street continuing on. So this is a driveway. The driveway that comes over here. This is the wall that doesn't connect capture Plaza. And there's a road that runs service road for

the garage and then connects the convention center and that road, that convention. Who owns that? That goes towards to the convention center there. That's privately held. Nexus owns it, the Nexus owns it. And and because we're looking at the connectivity plan for the convention center, but they're just planning to keep it like that. That's this right here with it with the convention center at the top. Right? Yes. Convention center. Sorry. And so that connectivity will just doesn't we can't do anything with that in terms of beautification. Well, so it would dead end at the wall that is currently exists at Capture Plaza, the land to the south of it, between that wall or the south portion of this property. And Tahquitz is privately held as well. And I think, you know, there was when section 14 was developed, there was a plan for a north south connection to be there. But then there were a series of changes to the plans around Capture Plaza. It also became designated as a class one site. And so that connection no longer became viable. And so I think as part of the convention center work there, they're looking at other opportunities for connectivity in that area. Okay. And then the height limits 100ft and they're doing 99.8ft. Like how do you build that to 10th to 2/10 of a foot. Exactly? I mean like it's the the hard work of our, our team and the building department to, to look at that and review that when permitting comes in. But I mean, these plans often come in with very precise measurements. And that's kind of what we work through as part of once it's built, do you actually measure it to make sure that they do final inspections and ensure that everything is built to permit? And if it goes over an extra 3/10 of an inch, I, I don't want to speak for our chief building official, but I believe there is sort of a bit of plus and minus rounding that might happen. Okay. The other thing is the the view from the, the

the residents. I realize there's a shadows. They're always going to lose a view if something is built on that. Right? I mean, they're. They in their appellate their application or the appeal. They provided some drawings and pictures of what it looks like from their view. They're not in our presentation today. But, you know, from a parking lot that has no structure to a structure, they will see it. Okay. So whether it's no matter what height, even if it's three stories, it would probably see it. Right. Well 35ft is the maximum without a conditional use permit for high rise. And that would block their view anyway. It would certainly be 35ft higher than what is there today at minimum. And okay. And the, the I mean they there's a whole report on all the birds that are there and everything. But this is in a parking lot is what that was. Right. Our consultant may want to speak to the birds and critters. Nicole Crist from Terranova. Good evening. Council. The the folks that safer submitted a biological report that is creative in its analysis. There is no native habitat on this site. As you said, it's a parking lot and there is ornamental landscaping. This is not this is not native bird habitat. Okay. And the the ornamental landscaping is something that even if they kept the parking lot could be changed or altered or potentially removed. I don't know if they can

remove it, but I mean, that's correct. Yes, yes. So that still even if you could still remove it and keep it a parking lot and that would still affect the SQL analysis, right? The landscaping could shift. I would also point out that there is, you know, substantial landscaping proposed as part of the project that probably in total is more than what is there today. Okay, okay. And just out of curiosity, is this landscaping and it's not native, but is it the native plants or native trees? I have no idea. Yeah. The existing sir or the proposed existing. The existing is not I mean, it's a mix because it's not in the best shape, but it is not native plants. Okay. I saw in one of the documents the room sizes in the condo. In the condo, they were under 500, right? I have I put the floor plans at the very end, not wanting to get into them, but this is the one of the levels of the proposed. The hotel is on the left and the condos are on the right now. The applicant explained this at the planning Commission. They had the same question. These look very small, but they're meant to be just spaces. There are some two bedroom units, three bedroom units, and the applicant may explain that better than I could. Okay. But because these are five less than 500ft. Is that what they're saying is one bedroom is just space. That would be a one bedroom. So as I understand it, and the applicant can correct us during their time, but you could see some combination of these boxes to get a two bedroom unit, for example, would be represented by two of these squares. A three would be three. So you would get larger units as you get larger unit sizes.

Okay. You talked about the settlement agreement which here. And when does that expire? It expires, as I understand it in January of 2026 okay. So their obligation or whatever obligation is in there to build a hotel project which we know our city needs in this area. If this doesn't move forward, they have made their they've made an effort to do a hotel project and that fulfills their obligation under the settlement agreement. The the landowner is obligated to make commercially reasonable efforts to pursue the development of a hotel at this site until until that five year time period is over, which is indicated at the beginning of 2026. Okay, and without it. I mean, do we think this is a commercially reasonable effort at this point? I mean, they've been working on it for a while, it seems. I think so, I mean, there have been some delays, but they've they've moved things along fairly reasonably. Okay. So if it's not after January that obligation goes away. Correct? Okay. I guess I have some questions about the operation of this. If we if we said something that said we want our condition is that we want to reduce even more height. Is that a denial or an approval of condition of approval? How we said we didn't want anything to go over nine stories. Seven stories. I'm seeing a puzzled look on the city attorney's face. So if he disagrees with this direction, we can have that conversation. But how? We've addressed that in other situations between Planning Commission and Arc is to have that be addressed when it goes for final architectural approval at Arc. Okay. So we're just focusing on the

these two issues then. Okay. That's my questions for now. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I had a question. Councilmember ready. Yeah. So the entitlement the time frame on that it would last I think it's two years initial. Correct. And then could you explain the process. Is that an automatic renewal. Is it how does that renewal. No. Typically extensions of time are a notice. At a notice meeting of the planning Commission. They would consider the item. And there are findings that would need to be made. Typically it can't be something simple. As you know we need more time to find the money it needs. There needs to be some demonstrable effort to move forward with the project to submit for permits. And there may be some, you know, circumstance out of out of control or extenuating circumstance that necessitates the extension. You know, there's flexibility there certainly in how they apply that. But that's that's the way it's written. I've never met a planning commission that wouldn't extend it. So I is the old joke goes, but so is it possible city attorney we could condition this, that any extension would have to come to the city Council. The approval of the city council? Yes, I think you could. Just because, you know, we have a tendency to see these projects there and they never get built. And part of the tools just continue extension this way. It would certainly put put the decision in council's hands. So I just want to clarify if that is possible as a condition. So thank you for that. And just one piece of clarification if I might. So our code only allows one or sorry, an extension of up to two years. So but just so you. Any other questions for staff. At this time I will open the public hearing. The

appellant, Nexus Development is invited to speak for five minutes. Or under. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Madam mayor pro tem and honorable council members. My name is Rob Harris. I'm with the applicant. I also have with me Michael Stromer from HKS architects. First off, I want to thank the entire or thank you for taking the time this evening to review this very significant project. We also want to thank the entire city staff, especially the planning staff, for all their hard work and detailed project staff reports, both for tonight and also for the Planning Commission. Big shout out to Glenn and also Director Hadwin. As pointed out in the staff report and reinforced by the unanimous Planning Commission approval, this is a project that complies with all applicable zoning and development standards. There's a reason why the section 14 specific plan was created, and this proposed project fulfills the vision set forth in that specific plan. I want to talk for a minute, because I know there's been a lot of comments and concerns and skepticism that I have heard ever since the Planning Commission approval, which most ground up developments are, are valid concerns. The one thing I wanted to mention is, or the one comment I get the most, is, how do we know this project will get built? And then the subset question is, how do we know the project will not start and then somehow get stalled in the middle of construction? Well, first off, I think it's important to make sure that you have a strong track record, which we have been in business for over 45 years and a strong track record of completing large projects. Also, we use we use traditionally typical construction financing, meaning that we go to banks for construction debt and private equity to raise our financing for construction.

What this helps protect against is the ability to start a project without having a fully funded, committed amount of money to make sure that it's predictable that you are going to complete the job. We would never start a construction project without having a fully committed construction loan. The second piece of this is you have to make sure you have the right project. You have to have a project with the right fundamentals. We reset the entire property here in 2021 with the city. And since that time, we've been working diligently to try to come up with all the goals and objectives of many different audiences, to create a project that serves the community, that serves the demand of the tourism and that that that can also produce a huge support to the convention center. We feel this is the right plan at the right time. We've addressed the fact that there's a huge seasonality in the city of Palm Springs, which is a challenge to finance ground up hotels by producing the branded residences in the mix of hotel rooms. Together, we diversify that risk, which is a huge, crucial piece of trying to get this project financed. As a marriott autograph, we're able to provide a unique and special design experience that Palm Springs deserves, while also tapping into a huge reservation system of over 250 million Bonvoy members. Again, these are the things that lenders are focused on. We have a mix of desirable amenities, multiple pools, event spaces, signature restaurants, and a rooftop bar serving both visitors and members. We've assembled an incredible team of consultants. We believe this project is economically viable. We wouldn't be spending all this time and energy if we didn't feel that way. Now, even though we comply with all these items listed above, we obviously had two appeals. First, appeal was to use sequel related items as an excuse and distraction. However, we feel that the city's consultant, Terra Nova, has done a fantastic job responding to each of the far reaching comments relating to the sequel analysis. The second appeal

is one that we're sensitive to, as we know that no one likes change, and folks across the street are concerned about the continued commercial development that occurs around them. The staff report does a great job responding to each of the unfounded claims made in that appeal letter. I'm not going to repeat all of those right now. I'm happy to be here for any questions to address those. However, the few things I do want to point out, though, to kind of piggyback on the staff report and I don't know if it's possible to pull up the shade shadow to address maybe some of the questions that the council has mentioned. But I think it's important to note that when we look at the shade shadow, we spent an enormous amount of time trying to minimize any impact to the neighbors to the north, as. Was that you asked to pull that up the shade. Can we pull the shadow study yet? Reference? So we submitted a pre-application in 2022 to try to vet many of these concerns early on. This is not a project that just kind of happened and popped up overnight. In that process, we resulted in pulling back the buildings that you see on Andreas Road further. And as the staff report says, we actually exceed the required setback. That was to minimize shadowing across the street. So if you look at the spring, summer, fall, there is no shadowing that occurs to the residents to the north. It is during the winter solstice. We chose the worst case scenario, the worst day, shortest day of the year to to illustrate this, to be conservative. And as you see in the morning, there is as the sun rises, some shadowing that occurs on the very southern tip of the plaza. Villas three three building structures. Three units are affected by midday. There is no shadowing over the plaza villas in the bottom middle square, and then in the far right square. You see the shadow as the sun sets, casting over. And it's important to note that the building on the left is the six and seven story hotel building, and that shadow only cast just slightly over the middle unit. The shadowing to the

right is actually the nine story building. That shadow actually bypasses all of the condo structures. There's not any residential units that that shadow casts over, which is ironic, because the headline has been the nine stories of this project. Nine story component of this project is only 10% of the overall site area. But again, the purpose of that is that's where the building, the branded residence are. So if we talk about modifications to this plan that was approved by Planning Commission, the risk is that any adjustment to this formula affects the economic viability to get this project across the finish line, which I think is ultimately the goal and why we set this forward in 2021. It's your time. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you for your time. I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Now the appellant, Plaza Villas HOA is invited to speak for up to five minutes. And we won't take away a minute from the first go round. Okay? Rarely do we get a chance for a second opportunity, so thank you. Apologies for earlier, mayor. Madam Pro madam mayor, pro tem council members. My name is Aaron Carter. I represent I'm here to represent and be on behalf of the Villa Owners Association Homeowners Association. But also we have the confidence and support and companionship of two other communities, Deauville and Saint-Tropez, who are also adjacent to parking or empty lots. So this project will set a precedent. This is the stage that's happening. Our community of 100 condos. Everyone knows where it's located right now. I'm just going to skip forward here, because I think there's some couple points that were made earlier that I really want to start with. One is we are not anti-development, we are pro change. This community has is built by people who love Palm Springs, who

respect the character and who are also here to create business. Many owners have short term rentals and we are, you know, providing income to the city. What we are opposed against is runaway, precedent setting development, the kind of impact our community, not just now but for a long time to come. So I want you to think about the other projects that are possibly underway and all the other empty lots that are in our city. We're not asking the city to stop the Nexus project, we're just asking for some guardrails, conditions that ensure it fits within this Palm Springs. We all know the city has always worked to preserve our low slung mid-century profile, and in particular, this site has that we are two stories. The Renaissance may be five, but it is set back several hundred feet. The casino that was built, the cultural center, Agua Caliente Cultural Center, those are all again, projects that were met with section 14 requirements. Anything above these conditional use permits, it's just really going to impact us. My other point that I really want to bring up is we are very much for change. We want to support that. But again, guardrails are what we're looking for. This hotel will be the tallest building in Palm Springs, even taller than the seven story Kimpton downtown. I did want to point out, too, that when we're looking at the presentations, there's very few pictures of the nine story building and also to those nine story buildings. There's also mechanicals on top of that. This does not support section 14. It is it a requirement of that is to be stepped in height, not a 100 foot facade straight up, regardless of what those 132 foot setbacks are, it's the stepped preservation that we're looking for. As witnessed tonight. Another couple of things that we noticed is that developers often like to ask for forgiveness. Once the

building has been built, I think it would be very hard to shave off a couple of feet of a building if it does go over 100. We're also concerned about flows in the approval process. The zoning code requires at least ten days notice to all property owners within 100ft. That was not met. Many homeowners, many of our homeowners did receive that some notice, but it was postmarked late. It was not ten days. I myself did not receive a notice. This denied many residents a fair chance to comment. The initial vote was also deadlocked two two. Very interesting that three of the four of the seven persons part of this planning commission were not even present for this. So again, I do think that there's more city persons needed to take a look at this. Have a second review combined with inadequate notice and partial participation for this project. We just think that this effectively flew under the radar respectively. This project deserves a second look. We asked the council to overturn the approval and simply instruct the Planning Commission to reconsider a version that does take in respectful, thoughtful community. Dutiful participation. I'm a real estate agent in Phoenix. We've done Phoenix had a really big boom in 16 to 17. Lots of building was going on. One of the big mistakes that happened was that there was not there was not significant participation with local residents and even real estate agents to say, hey, what if we could augment this plan? What sort of viable situation can we have for both parties? One of them was a very tall building that actually was supposed to be done in three phases. They ended up doing the last two as one, and it rose over a Japanese garden. That Japanese garden had to had significant impacts on their landscaping and whatnot. Again, I'm just going to tie it back. I was here at the top of of the tram today, looking down at

our beautiful, marvelous space. Plaza villas is a green mark and we want to protect that. It is a natural habitat. I've literally seen birds flocks flying over while I'm walking my dog, so I do think there's some more considerations to have. Thank you for your thoughts and please consider our appeal. Thank you very much. The appellant, Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility is invited to speak for up to five minutes. Okay. For the 100. Oh. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Hailey. Good evening. I'm speaking from zoom. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. My name is Hailey Uno from Lozeau Drury LLP. I am speaking on behalf of Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility or Safer. I'm currently recovering from a cold, so I'm going to keep this brief. Safer asked that the City Council grant Safi's appeal and deny approval of the DND for the Nexus Hotel project. The City Council should instead require preparation of an EIR. Under Sequa. An EIR is required because there is substantial evidence of a fair argument that the project may have significant adverse impacts related to Valley fever, air quality, biological resources, and traffic. First, Doctor James Clark of the environmental consulting firm Clark and Associates, concluded that the project may have significant adverse health impacts related to Valley fever. The MND states that 38,512yd of soil will be disturbed during site grading. This represents a major pathway for exposure to Valley fever spores for project construction

workers, local residents, and community members. The site's location and wind exposure amplify these health risks, and the proposed mitigation measures are inadequate to reduce these risks. Second, Doctor Clark concluded the project may significantly impact air quality. The air quality analysis claims that the project's construction emissions comply with local significance thresholds or LSTs. However, the MND shows LST exceedances for particulate matter ten and 2.5 during construction, which indicates a significant impact. Moreover, the MD failed to provide a quantitative health risk analysis of the air impacts of the project's construction and operational emissions. Third, wildlife ecologist Doctor Sean Smallwood concluded that the project will significantly impact biological resources. Doctor Smallwood found that the project would harm at least 18 species of wildlife, including three special status species, through interference with wildlife movement, bird window collisions, and traffic mortality. He also found that the proposed mitigation measures constituted constituted deferred mitigation, which is prohibited under Sequa. Lastly, traffic engineer Thomas Brohard concluded that the project may have significant traffic impacts, most critically, as part of the first phase of project construction, 700 parking spaces would be removed from a preexisting parking lot on the project site. Mr. Brohard found that the DND failed to account for the removal of these parking spaces in its traffic. Analysis of vehicle miles traveled. An EIR is needed to properly assess this impact for the reasons I've discussed here and in Davis's written comments, we again ask that you grant Safer's appeal and recommend preparation of an EIR before project approval. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Thank you Haley. The public is

invited to speak on this matter for up to two minutes. Madam clerk, our first speaker is Dan Donahue. Good evening. Is this working? Thank you. I'm not a public speaker, but I'm compelled to speak on behalf of all three of the Hoa's, the Deauville, the Plaza Villa and the San Tropez. I've been a resident of the Plaza Villa for 21 years. I will be definitely impacted by the shading. The cutouts will not help and we have our own independent shade study and I will be affected also by the nine story building. So I believe that's been submitted by our board president, Mike louder previously to the council. But I can get you that information. I'm not going to speak very loud because Aaron's our main speaker, but I did want to cover a couple things. I'm also concerned about the infrastructure. And I did bring up this at the mayor's town hall. We do have a chronic sewer gas problems along Andreas, and that sewer gas is now entering our units, and it's getting so bad that we can't sell our units now without the real estate disclosure of sewer gas. So, in other words, even if we wanted to move, we can't because we can't sell our units. My unit will be shaded all except 90 minutes during the solstice, the shortest day, and the cutouts will not help me.

I'm one of the units that's most impacted by the shade. We have the city coming out to pump the main sewer lines on both Andreas and Calle Alvarado every week. Now, this is not an a normal kind of thing. We have failing infrastructure and the sewer needs to be fixed before we can hook up any more sewage to the system. Was that my time? Thank you. Okay, that's your time. Thank you so much. Next speaker is Steven Dixon. Good evening, and thank you for hearing us. I want to thank Aaron, too, for his wonderful presentation. So I have very little to add, except for the fact that I really want to emphasize the precedent that's going to be set by this having a 99 foot building in an area that could easily be developed by many developers. So we might end up with multiple 99 foot buildings in section 14, which will have an adverse effect on the whole city. And I just wanted to caution you about that, because it really is it's going to change. It's going to change the complexion of our city. Thank you. Next speaker is Jeff O'Connell. Good evening and thank you. I'm addressing this in the following. I asked the city council, does this development abide by the zoning density and height allowed for this parcel by

the City of Palm Springs? If so, the Council is obligated to approve this project. The zoning for this parcel was agreed upon by the city zoning rules set by the city in partnership with the tribe, which in part allows buildings up to 100ft in height. The Planning Commission already required setback changes in certain areas for the betterment of the neighborhood. This site is in the Convention Center neighborhood and will be of great value to the city in terms of convention bookings and Tot taxes, as well as retail and other economic drivers throughout the city. It is not the government's place, in my opinion, to decide if the projects are economically feasible. That risk is assumed by developers and investors. For those claiming we don't need more hotel rooms or high end restaurants, etc. those risks are not the public's burden. It is the burden of individuals and companies who wish to assume such risks. I ask that you support this project. Thank you. We have one person online, Eric. Kristen. I don't think he's available. Who? Eric. He spoke already? Aaron. Yeah. Aaron spoke already. Aaron was the appellant. We have no further speakers. All right. Thank you. This time we'll provide the applicant and the appellants time for rebuttal. Does the

applicant nexus development like to speak for two minutes on rebuttal? Thank you. I guess one thing I was going to mention is that I believe we submitted a presentation, which I understand is not able to be presented this evening. But if anyone has had the opportunity to look at that submission, some of the questions may be answered. As far as setbacks, we've mentioned that we have the heights broken out on those exhibits. It talks about how the there's essentially five building structures on the property that we're proposing, two single story in the ballroom meeting space and the restaurant, the parking garage, which is four levels with rooftop parking, which is 43ft in height. And then the six story hotel stepping to a seven story rooftop bar deck, and then the nine story hotel, which we've added setbacks to, per the Planning Commission in preparation for the Architectural Committee review, before getting notice that we were going to be appealed to City Council, and we were happy to continue to work with Architectural Committee to continue to refine the design of this project. I think it's important to also note that we've pushed the nine story element and the parking garage as close to the eastern side of the property as possible to again be the least impactful. We also provided some additional shade shadow as well, and zoomed in so we can get a better look at what is actually occurring based on objective third party shade shadow study software. So with that, we again thank you for your time. We ask that you deny the appeal and let the project move forward. Architectural Committee. And I'm also here for any additional questions that you may have. Thank you again for your time. The appellant, Plaza Villas HOA, you're invited to provide a rebuttal for up to two minutes. Persons come from all over the world to experience our specific local space. It is

unlike anywhere else, and that is because of the protections that have been put in place so far. It's defined by its character, its scale that is so important. It's a it's a city known for design and for taking the steps to protect that design and to support it and to celebrate it. We also celebrate our views, our sunlight and our harmony, our harmony between buildings and desert landscape. It's interesting, too, that only after the developer threatened to withdraw did the commission reverse course and approve the project. I do think my colleagues here, my residents, also mentioned infrastructure. I don't see or know if there's any plans that have been reviewed in that the our community was built in the 80s. Many of the properties around have been such and this should have further look. Traffic flows is also really critical. I mean, we're talking about a street here who literally as at a corner and there's two other ways to go out, either past the convention center or in between or on Andreas, you know, with the convention center there. I've seen the entire parking lot used for Palm Springs International Film Festival. We've also got, you know, Coachella uses it for its bus distribution. And when that happens those two days, you know what happens? They block off the streets in order to allow that additional traffic to to manage. So how are we now going to put a 600, you know, a 6000 space restaurant? I mean, there's just more things to consider. And I don't think section 14 really is being supported here. Thank you for your time and consideration. All right. The appellant, Supporters

Alliance for Environmental Responsibility has two minutes for rebuttal. Miss. You know good evening. As I discussed earlier, safer has presented substantial evidence of a fair argument that the project may have significant adverse impacts related to Valley fever, air quality, biological resources and traffic. An EIR, not MMD, is required to adequately assess and mitigate these impacts. Safer is not opposed to the development or the project. We just ask that instead of the city, prepare an EIR before project approval, then the project can proceed with reduced and with reduced environmental impacts and increased community benefits. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Do we have any other speakers? We have no further speakers. The public hearing is now closed. Now. Are there any discussions or additional questions from City Council? Mr. mayor, I have some questions. Councilmember Garner, please. I'm not sure if this is for the city attorney or someone else, but can we just get a little bit more information about the notice that was provided on this project? So we did undertake the notice in accordance with the requirements of the code. There was an on site posting and and maybe Glenn, do you want to come up and correct me in case I'm wrong? And then we we as a conditional use permit, it was mailed out right. So all property owners within 500ft of the project were notified. It does not cover all of the Plaza Villas. It

was within 500ft of the property. Do you still go further than that? Could we? The code does not require it. So it's been our practice to do that for projects like this, particularly in the same. So that did not occur here. That is not what occurred here okay. Thank you. All right. The HOA is also part of that notification. So just to clarify. So the the property owners that were are within 500ft received notice, but and the HOA management company received notice. Or who at the HOA did it go to. We'd have to confirm. But we maintain a list internally of contacts within HOAs that receive notification from our neighborhoods. Team. Okay. Thank you. And there was a question. There was a some comment here about sewer. Is there someone that can talk a little bit more about? I'm not familiar with those issues. I'm not sure if anyone else from city staff is available or Chris, can you just talk generally, you know, when projects like this are moved forward, right? We had a comment about sewer. We'd comment about traffic. Can you kind of walk us through all of the different things that go into reviewing a project and deciding that this is a project that is feasible or not feasible in this location, based on all of the things that are presented to us? Sure. So I think it's sort of twofold. There's a technical analysis is undertaken internally by staff. So we have an internal team of multiple representatives of various departments that are reviewing it, including engineering, public works, fire and safety building us. Who would undertake it to to make sure that it's meeting all of the various city policies, procedures, regulations, and then those result in the conditions of approval that are typically

attached to any approval. So, you know, a greeting is a grading is needed. It needs to hook up to whatever sewer lateral, you know, certain things need to be upgraded. So any of the requirements that were flagged through that process would have been attached as conditions of approval, or would have been the process of the the review of the project before it would ever have come forward to planning Commission to make sure that there is a solution or a resolution to those problems. So I'm not aware of that issue coming up. I think, you know, all of that has been confirmed to be able to accommodate the project. There's also the sequel analysis that's undertaken and that's a little bit different. And I don't know if we did any specific utility examination as part of the analysis, but I might call our consultant up just to speak to what Ceqa analysis might have been undertaken. As it relates to utilities. The we base it on existing on existing information there. So there are two processes. The the process of reviewing under Sequa and the and the the plant has sufficient capacity to process and then the the approval process or review process that was mentioned deals with the need for any additional facilities which would be handled through the processing of the application now and also at building permits. So the wastewater treatment folks will look at capacity. At that time, we also did a comprehensive traffic study, which was included in in the the initial study that was prepared as an appendix and then summarized in the initial study. Great, thank you so much. And then in terms of the I think this might still be a question, the comments that were

there about air quality and Valley fever. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, ma'am. You you received a supplemental response to comments. The commenter. The commenters opinion is noted, but as is provided in the supplemental response to comments, Riverside County has one of the smallest incidences of Valley fever. In addition, this has been a parking lot for well, it was it was a mobile home park before then, when I was when I first was lived in Palm Springs and then it became a parking lot and has had very little exposure to natural conditions in 30 or 40 years. There's there is no substantial evidence that valley fever is an issue at construction projects in Palm Springs or the Coachella Valley, and and the CDC has not identified Valley Fever as an issue. Great. Thank you. I just want to make sure that that was very clear for the the record in the community. And just to to put in a plug for our wastewater treatment center, if you haven't been. I was on a tour not very long ago, and one of the very interesting things that I learned is that our wastewater treatment actually processes less waste now than they used to, because of the efficiency of our sewer system and the just the technology that's available now. So they're actually processing a lot less. So it's really interesting. And there's a lot of different projects that are happening at our wastewater treatment site to improve it all the time. They come quite often on our on our consent calendars. So if residents are interested, there's a lot more we can discuss about about that project is to put a plug in for that.

I'll let my colleagues go, but I might have some more questions later. Councilmember. Ready? Thank you. Mayor. Couple questions I did have for both sides. The I think it was the oh, the HOA that you had mentioned that you had an independent shade study. I have not seen any. I don't know if staff has seen that. You said it was submitted. And does that differ from what the applicant has? I actually saw it, but I don't have it. It was created from an app and we can get that information to you. I was under the understanding that our HOA president already had sent it in to the council. So you definitely do not have that. Nothing submitted from staff that you're aware of. It was in the appeal letter submitted. So it's part of your package. It should be. It's part of the package in the staff report. Could we know what would be the appeal letter from the HOA? The copy that we have is photocopied at a resolution that would have been illegible. So I'm not sure what it looks like in your package. So do you know what page that's on and the staff report. That's one second. Sure. Thank you.

148 thank you. Yeah. So not really okay. Okay. The copy that we have, which is the certified copy that was received by us, may have been submitted as a photocopy and unfortunately isn't legible. Okay. Thank you. Well, is a follow up to that. And maybe for for for Rob the the study that you had. Well that was a professionally done study. The suggestion from the planning commissioner the notches is that going to affect the the shade at all one way or another if you well presumably are you going to do what are you planning to do with the planning Commission suggested? And if you do, what effect, if any, would that have? Do you think so? First answer is yes. We are planning to if we move forward after tonight, we are planning to do what the Planning Commission has requested. With the 20 foot setbacks on the South wing and the East Wing. Point of clarification, I think in earlier presentation. So those are the two sides. It's the nine storey building. Initially we pushed the south wing back by 20ft and the east wing back as I had shown the shade shadow study. If you want to pull it back up again, that nine storey component, it actually doesn't impact because the south wing that's pushed back. So that doesn't affect anything on the shade shadow study. And then on the East Wing. That would be a benefit for the convention center if you were at the kind of front door of the convention center. So it's it's by redoing the shadow study for that 20 foot notch on the east wing, it wouldn't have any material impact. The shade shadows that you're looking at tonight. Okay. Thank you. And while you're there, the other question. So are you anticipating for the project requesting from the city to participation in the hotel incentive program. So we are not requesting a tax incentive for the hotel.

Part of the things we wanted to look at in the economic analysis we studied on is how to make a project stand alone, and that is how we've approached this project. So and obviously, the debate and I understand your argument on on the financing and the, the seasonal market, we've been obviously been dealing with, if it was eight floors or seven floors instead of the nine, so you would not be able to do the project at that point, or you still could do the project at that point or have you finalize that analysis yet. So we we, we studied this project every which way from a density perspective, from a building perspective. And so said simply, if you were to reduce the height of the nine storey building, you would lose units and density. And by losing units and density, you would then affect negatively the pro forma of the project. And so if you didn't have this, and what would you plans be for the property going forward if this was not approved. So we don't have any alternate plans at this time, because ultimately, if we didn't move forward with this project, then we start from square one all over again. And the goal there would be to figure out what is a viable development project that would meet all of the city requirements and zoning codes. So what's before you tonight is a project that meets all the city's zoning codes that we believe is economically viable. We would literally be looking at a project just like this one to say this is what is viable. And final question, and this is partly a question for you in the city attorney, I think we had talked about in up till now, the city has had the ability to use that parking, which is important for the convention center and particularly during film festival times and other large events. And we have the ability to lease those parking spaces from you now until you begin, in essence,

until you begin construction. And I just want to confirm that in this agreement, Mr. Attorney, you had mentioned that we have the ability to continue that relationship until if and when they begin construction. Yes. The license agreement provides that once the applicant obtains their building permits, the license will continue unless terminated by either either party, either the city or by them. And do you have any opposition to the city using that until you begin your construction? We do not, and actually just point a reference. I think it's important to point out that even though the license agreement calls for the city to actually be paying us rent on that, we've never collected a dime from the city in the entire time of that license agreement being in place. So right now the city is using that actually for free of charge. But we have no problem keeping the license intact until such time as we start construction. Thank you, thank you. That's all. Thank you. Mayor. Council member Bernstein. Okay, so I have some questions because one of the issues is traffic in this area. And do they have to do a traffic study or and there was a traffic analysis conducted as part of the project. We'll call our consultant up. Yeah. I'm just the public view. Knowledge. There was a traffic study done by a licensed traffic engineer. It is part of your record and part of the initial study. Okay. And so the the claim I know safer has claimed that there there wasn't one or that it that it's not accurate or that it's not safe or that. The appellants claim is that the VMT analysis because under sequa traffic flow, the traditional what is called level of service

traffic flow no longer applies, we still study it from a perspective of city policy, but you're supposed to study from the vehicle miles traveled. I'm sorry, I tend to talk in acronyms. Okay. That their experts claim is is that the the vehicle miles traveled by people who are going to the convention convention center will now be extended because they will be parking, having to drive to the parking lot on the other side of the building. As the council is aware, that's a distance of a few hundred feet. I think it's it's in the supplemental response that I think the the longest distance is 1000ft. And that in theory assumes that everyone is coming from the West and therefore has to drive longer. The argument is fallacious and does not apply. And that was my question because they're not. First of all, it's they're, they're it's a hotel and convention hotel. Where there's lots of traffic. So people going to convention centers aren't always driving. And, and we have no idea where they're actually coming from, if they are. And, and from a local perspective, hotel located in downtown, right next to the convention center is likely to have lower vehicle miles traveled because folks don't need to drive everywhere. Okay. And any development on this project would remove it from being a parking lot. Basically, yes. So unless it stays a parking lot forever, they're going to park on the east side, correct? Correct. Okay. And the other question, just because along the lines of

traffic, because often the Jackie, the eastern plaza gets closed and potentially may be permanently closed. So and maybe it's for the applicant. They show the drop off hotel drop off is on Andreas. They would have to turn back around and go up. Up it. To that last inset is if Alvarado is closed, you would come in. Kelly El Segundo, this is the hotel at portico. And this is the residential portico. So either way they would go in and out and go back up the same way. Okay. And when we were talking about because this is key to our connectivity from the convention center to downtown as a walkable thing. So that area along all of that is still I mean, I know that we're looking at the north side for also for walkability, but that still allows hotel goers and convention goers rather to walk that. Correct? Yeah. There will be a full sidewalk along Andreas, and then you can see sort of substantial landscaping because of how the buildings are set back from the property line to meet the section 14 requirement that it be set back because of its height. And then in addition, of course, the city is undertaking its study and design of the other connectors, which will be located within the right of way. Andreas. So so there will be what this project is doing, and then there will be what the city is doing within its own right of way to sort of expand beyond that and make the pedestrian connectivity to downtown that we're talking. And obviously that's still in design. So we haven't actually presented that to any of the residents. The beautification, the shade, the correct, the wayfinding, the landscaping. That's all planned for that area. That's right. And there is a condition of approval

attached to this that obligates the developer to work with us on on enabling whatever plan is developed by the city. Okay. I have some questions for for Rob, again for Nexus before you. So there is an entrance on Calle El Segundo. I'm not. Yes. This is the entrance to the restaurant. This is the restaurant building. So this is the motor court for the restaurant building. And also this is back of house. So deliveries trash. And also there's an entrance to the parking decks here. But you can get into the hotel from El Segundo, can you or. No. So all the traffic in and out is going to go on. Andreas. Correct. It's close for the film festival are. Right. Oh well, it won't be. If it's not used as a parking lot, then the closure will not have to change. Right? So on this, because I've been there during the film festival and I know exactly what it looks like and how they shut it down. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. We appreciate we we understand. We do understand. It doesn't I can't hear it gets cut off on El Segundo. Thank you. Thank you Erin I just just want to say that we we can change the way that things are. Roads are closed if this development moves forward so it doesn't have to be closed the exact same way. In fact, it wouldn't because of the development. So things, things will change. It's been clear that the film festival, when this gets or other events that use this parking lot once this is developed, would no longer be able to rely on that. And the road closures as well. And this is actually we haven't presented this to the community because we don't have it. But this is

key to the walkability of the convention center. So it's being designed as a much more walkable, friendly street down the line. So but but I do have some questions for Nexus if that's. So you you mentioned your strong track record of completing projects and your traditional financing. So you're not going to start until you're fully committed. Financing. And you'll share that with us, that fully that financing so that we know it, it will actually be finished. We have no problem providing, you know, some form of of evidence of financing. Not a problem if when that time comes, okay. Because you know, as you are well aware, we have a history of project starting and not finishing due to financing. So I appreciate you saying this upfront and that is something we would want to see before you start construction. So we do not end up with a 15 year construction project. Yeah. And actually there's one point further, we ultimately most of our general contractors we work with require to have an evidence of financing for that very reason, because the general contractor is going to be starting a project and wants to know they get paid too. So we're again, we do it as a as a matter of practice and we're happy to provide it. Okay. Is that a condition we can put in or. I don't know if that's. Yes I think you could. Okay. The other question is and this really goes to, you know, the the neighbors as well. You know, there's going to be a construction period. I don't know how long that is from when you break ground, but I assume it's a year, 18 months or what. We estimate about 24 months of actual construction construction period. Okay. So part of the issue and we've had this with other projects is that is often a, you know, it's there's issues with neighbors, whether it's dust, whether it's beautification, whether it's inconvenience and that, you know, we do I want to make sure that if I

don't know if this how this works, there is some guidelines that there's nicer fencing, that there's, you know, a number for somebody to call and answer. There is community meetings or availability on how to handle issues. I guess that's for Chris. Maybe. I think we've seen conditions of approval attached to projects previously. I can think of some recent ones, including Serena Park, where we've said, you know, we want construction fencing approved by, you know, whoever it is to to make sure that it fits into the community. Looks nice that there's on site posting with the contact information for any projects. So for any problems. So if you wanted to attach that we could certainly consider are you okay with that. You're completely okay with that. And again, as a matter of practice we typically do that in our projects. So we don't want those ugly fences. Okay I have a question also because you're doing this as a as a just in terms of the viability and and just going back to that actual design, the one bedrooms are 400 and something square feet. Is that correct? Yes. I didn't have a chance to clarify that. Apologize. So what you're seeing on the screen, and again, I think Glenn mentioned that one of the planning commissioners astutely kind of pointed this out. So these are simply just room bays that you're looking at. And when we go into actually the density and the spreadsheet of all the square footages, you'll see there's kind of a calculation where it says, you know, 336 room bays, right? That equates to 121 units based on either mix of how many one bedrooms, two bedrooms, how many three bedrooms. Right. These are conceptual plans. So this is just more of a yield study to find out how many rooms you could fit inside of that envelope. So these are just room bays. They're 14ft by 30 34ft wide. So a typical hotel room size. So when you look at the hotel building on the west, those would be hotel rooms absent a hotel suite option. And then on the building to the east again, those are the

branded residence condominiums. So almost all of those are going to have at least two bays associated with the unit if it's a one bed. And then again, so on and so on. Okay. And so these ones and just, you know, part of the reason, you know, we have the city has acquired, I guess, that you come up with a hotel project because we need a hotel project for our convention center. We need it and we need that for our tourism economy, which drives our whole economy in the city, you know, and also pays for our police and fire and parks, all those great things. So, you know, the hotel part is fine. The the condo part. So the question is, and you've mentioned this before, is, you know, a lot of people, why would somebody actually put their condo into a hotel pool? And so what why would they and what evidence do you have or numbers that show how much you think they would be part of this? And understanding whether this is the project that makes sense for us as a city, does that make did I say that correctly? Sure, I think so. I'll try to answer, let me know if I answer it correctly. So yes, again, the the whole intent here is having the ability to have a hotel and then a branded residence that's associated with that hotel. And what that does is it allows those condo owners who are making a real estate transaction to have a choice. We can't require legally that they have to put their condo units into a hotel inventory, but they also can't just rent it on the free market to an Airbnb or Vrbo or whatever, right? There's going to be a HOA, right? Guidelines. So if they choose to put it in the hotel inventory, then it now becomes a hotel room. For all intents and purposes, it gets the Tot tax a hotel. Guests could book it on Marriott.com. When they come through, they're going to come through the hotel lobby. They're going to check in like any other hotel guest. They will have no idea that they've booked a condominium. They are going to think they booked a whatever room type a two bedroom suite, right. And they're going to be just

given the room key to go to whatever room they've, they've rented. So but the condo owner now gets to share in the profit or any, any proceeds that are made through that rent. So not only are we giving the Tot tax to the city, but then we're splitting as the hotel operator with that condo owner a share of the profit as well. And in your estimates or experience, what percentage at any given time of those rooms are part of the hotel pool? So according to Marriott, in a resort project such as this, in their portfolio, they're showing an average of 85 to 90% of the owners are participating in the hotel inventory at any given time. So that is why we believe that, again, crucial part of the financing mechanism here is that the risk of in the off peak times and the slow times of the year, we're only having the risk of filling up 125 room hotel because the other branded residents have already been sold, and those risks are on the property owners that have bought those. However, when it's a peak time or when it's a film festival, or when it's a key event and there's there's high demand, then we have the ability to flex up to that 257 room count, which is crucial for the convention center. If they wanted to book a 200 room block of rooms for a, you know, for instance, one single hotel, there's really no other hotel in the city that has that many rooms other than the Renaissance in one single building that has more than 200 rooms in one single building. Right. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So so these are because obviously, you know, obviously people who at those critical high times, if you're a resident, that's when you would, you know your real condo liver. That's when you, you would, you would want to have use of that space. But these are really affect more like I know they're not. But timeshare people who are coming here for limited periods of time versus a primary resident putting into the pool. Right. It also depends on the motivation of that

individual. Right. If that person is buying this and wants to maximize their investment on the condo they purchase, they may say, hey, I want to get the biggest revenue share. And by doing that, I'm going to put my condo into the inventory on the peak time because I know there's going to be a premium. The rates are going to be higher in that peak time, right? I'll go use it in the slow time, because I'm not going to get much of a share or, or, you know, revenue from that. So the primary reason they're doing most of these people are really as an investment versus a residence. I mean, again, if 85 to 90% are yes, I think that would be a sound conclusion. Okay. So but if you're not in the Tot incentive program, you're not in the convention center hotel thing automatically. You're just available potentially. Is that I don't know who's going to answer this. Sure. About okay. I guess I could have asked Councilman Wayne Olsen, Chief Economic Development Officer, could you repeat the question? So so they're not in if they're not in the incentive program, they're not. We you know, we have a I mean, it's not really well required, but there's a convention center hotel pool that we have in our in our agreement. Correct. Which doesn't really require them to, but it requires them to potentially make them available. What's the difference between what they'll be apt to do and someone who gets a Tot incentive? Effectively? If I'm understanding your question correctly, Councilmember I if they aren't in the Tot program, we can't place any requirements on them. And so the market would drive the decision of whether they would block convention center rooms or not. And those would be agreements between convention center sales force and visit Greater Palm Springs and those conventioneers and convention planners that would block hotel rooms, but without the tot instead of the city doesn't have any regulation that I'm aware of as to require

those in the Tot incentive program or we just we don't actually put strict requirements, do we? I, you know, this is for another topic, but that incentive as it's listed currently probably needs an update. But yes, there is a requirement that those enrolled in the incentive program engage with the convention center in providing room block nights. So effectively, they're going to be just like any one of our other large hotels when it comes to booking conventions. Pretty much right as it stands right now, I believe none of our large convention center hotels are currently enrolled in a Tot program. And therefore, yeah, I believe that would be correct. Okay. And just sorry, Robert. Sit down. So the planning commission you said basically said if you cut down height you it doesn't pencil out for you. That's right. Correct. Losing losing units would would no longer pencil. But you're okay with the what planning Commission has their conditions of approval. We are. And the reason being is as I mentioned earlier with the room bays, we and I know the presentation isn't presented tonight, but in looking at cutting back the south wing and the east wing as the Planning Commission had conditioned us, while we may be losing a couple of room bays, we're not losing any units. That makes sense. Okay, I got that. And so if if all goes as you would like, when would you see construction starting and occupancy starting in this project? As soon as possible. So I mean, realistically, you're not being facetious. Realistically, it takes 12 months to get from a concept level that you see on the screen today to a full set of construction level drawings to where it's actually able to be submitted for building permit review. So in our in our opinion, in our experience. So we would think 12 months and I'm looking at my architect and he you know he can go faster than great. But but 12 months is typically what we would see at this type of project. And then we would submit for building permit on average, I want

to put the building official on the spot, but we would see an average six month period to permit a project of this size. So you're looking at probably an 18 month process if this project were to move forward today. Okay. And just to clarify, if we don't approve this, you don't have a plan B ready to go in your in mind yet right. We do not. If you did something do you what do you think the likelihood of a hotel project would be? Can you answer that if you did not get this? Not sure I understood the question. So I mean, hotel projects are difficult to begin with. Yes, residents are easier. Would it be easier for you to do this project if you did not have any hotel rooms? Do you think? I mean, I think the beauty of this proposed project is that it blends the residential with the hotel, and so that's what's making it work. Okay, if there was no residential component to the to this project, I don't believe this would be a viable project. Okay. If there was more residential, it might be better for you. Hard to say. I mean, in one hand, yes, but the other hand is that you still have variable costs when it comes to hotel operations. And so you kind of have to find a sweet spot to make sure that you have enough hotel rooms to, to offset your fixed your fixed costs. Right. So having two few hotel rooms and more residential, but trying to make those residential branded, it starts to tip the scales the other way a little bit. I think I understand so and I understand you can't answer this because you haven't come up with another plan. And I guess it goes really what I'm trying to get at is, you know, obviously at nine stories is not ideal for the city. You know, it is an exception now and you're setting a new standard. But our zoning code does allow it. And the issue really has to be what's the best use of this land. And we know for a fact that we need convention hotel rooms.

We're going on $135 million expansion of our hotel convention center. I'm sorry. And so it doesn't sort of we sort of need this and, and other hotels in the area. The convention center uses are not really up to par. And having this hotel there may would, would, we would expect almost force them to upgrade their facility to compete effectively and so that they don't lose all the rooms to you. So there's a benefit in terms of that. We're also building this walkability creating from the convention center downtown. So I wanted to ask you, I think in your agreement, you have to construct that or but you don't have to pay for it or design it. What is it exactly? So it's my understanding I'm not an attorney, my understanding. And I'll defer to the city attorney. But the way it reads is that the there's no cost for us related to the design and construction of the actual walkway, whatever that ends up becoming. And then only if the construction of that walkway occurs during the time that we're under construction on the hotel, would we then have our general contractor actually be the builder for that construction, if that made the most sense? The idea being there that if the general contractor already doing work right here can can be efficient and can provide probably a better price, I would imagine the city is going to bid this out. And if the city looked at our general contractor and didn't have a competitive price, they have the freedom to make whatever choice they want to make. Okay. And it's probably I don't know the exact timing, but I think we're looking to complete ours in three years, so the timing may coincide. I don't I don't know, but that's out to bid right now. But ideally either way, this whatever is on this

place property should should mesh with the whole rest of the plan that is being built, which is to our advantage and obviously to your advantage. I think that's all my questions for now. You would be okay with you under the financing and and making sure that the beautification is there and you understand that the entitlements are limited time period. And it's not going to go on forever. And you're giving us your word you're going to do this. Well, since we blank slated and reset the button here, we believe we've been doing everything we said we were going to do, working diligently on getting a project that is a win win for everyone. And this is a project we feel that, again, we've had the benefit of seeing other projects like the Rowan, like the Thompson come through and see, you know, what has been the pros and what has been the cons. And in looking at how we've developed this site plan in partnership with all the departments of the city, trying to figure out a way to have the the breakout meeting space to support the convention center, have a restaurant fab outlets be able to utilize the fact that we have a rooftop area, but maybe not put the pool on the rooftop. Put the pool actually on the ground so you can have a more elaborate pool setting. Creating the multiple I think it was mentioned the multiple portico shared access entries trying to hide the parking, but have enough parking that meets all the code requirements right and then be able to pump in again. This wasn't able to be presented today, but it's in the the information that was presented earlier this morning was the economic impact. And we're estimating based on the Greater Palm Springs Economic Impact study, a $12.7 million year, one general fund contribution. That's the Tot tax. That's the property tax and that's the sales tax. The three that go right into the general fund, that's a 12.7 million direct benefit growing from there. And

then there's other multiplier economic information in that slide as well. So the idea here is that it's economically viable. It provides what the what the city needs from a support standpoint with the convention and the massive investment that they're making. And it's a huge benefit for the city long term. And again, I know that that we're sensitive to anything that's new, that's different. I think the Rowan, you know, is at the 85 foot mark. Now, you can talk about stories, but it's really about the footage. Right. Because your floor to floor heights can change. So you could be, you know, three stories and 50ft. You could be five stories and 50ft. So at the end of the day, I think what we've tried to do here and we've tried to show is that we're really stepping back. Over 60% of this site is open space. So and we've tried to push the height as close to the Renaissance where it's minimally impactful. And so while I get that it's different, I guess that it's new, it is allowed. And I think it creates a win win situation. So just again I just want to reiterate. So it's 15ft higher than the Rowan on 10% of the property. Correct. Is that correct okay. All right. Well you also did hear the applicant say that developers often come back and ask for forgiveness, and you're well aware that you're walking into a city that has less appetite for forgiveness and concessions, with developers given nothing to do with you necessarily. You know what? What other has happened with other properties, particularly ones around the convention center in our downtown that are hotel properties? And so you're going into this with eyes wide open. We've been developing in Palm Springs for 20 years, and we're confident that we're going to be able to meet the codes and get the proper checks and balances. Okay. I just wanted this on tape so I can watch it. Yeah, you got it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Other questions actually, Rob, if you could stay. Sorry. I know it's

been a bit. Thank you for the context around the kind of the economic feasibility and the hotel and residential mix. We spent a decent amount of time talking about the potential variation on bays to actual units. Can you just share a little bit more about the hotel side around kind of the hotel brand and a little bit of that, what that hotel experience, at least in your current proposal, what you're anticipating for for that side, specifically around the kind of apricot or apricot, the autograph. Autograph. Yes. Yep. Yeah. So again, one of the things we wanted to do is did an extensive brand study as part of the agreement with the city and talked to almost every hotel brand there is. We landed on is Marriott Autograph for several reasons. One obviously is as I mentioned before, the Marriott engine is is massive. They have the largest amount of reward members of any hotel company, but the autograph allows it to be independently branded, independently designed without the typical courtyard or your residence. Inn Marriott has very strict guidelines of what falls into one of their quote unquote branded hotels. But as an autograph, you're a soft brand. There are no design guidelines, per se. You don't have to have a certain type of sign, not even the same name. So you can literally name it anything we want. So an example I think I use a lot is that if people don't know if they go to Las Vegas, the Cosmopolitan Hotel, that's Marriott Autograph, you go to Marriott.com, you can book that. You don't see Marriott autograph on the building. You see cosmopolitan. That's what it's known as. Right? So we haven't developed the name specifically for this hotel. We'll go through that exercise. It'll be independent. It'll feel unique, which we think Palm Springs deserves. But it allows us to kind of fall back to the tried and true Marriott engine to help drive that revenue. So you

have kind of. The kind of business backbone of the Marriott, but an opportunity to really have a Palm Springs specific design experience and individual kind of look and feel to the hotel. Would that be accurate? Correct. Okay, great. And then can you share a little bit about maybe some of the the example of the cosmopolitan is is really helpful. Is there any other examples in terms of the resident and hotel mix that might be helpful for our community? This is different, right? And I totally understand that need to make the economics work. But is there an example that might be, you know, ring a bell for for community members of a similar project that you have or is this new for you? We have not done a branded residence project per se. We've done an autograph project and we've done condominium projects, but we haven't done the branded residence project. We've studied it extensively for obvious reasons. So but it's highly successful. It's becoming more prevalent. You know, you hear Ritz-Carlton hotel, you hear Ritz-Carlton residences. You know, the auberge is under construction in Dallas right now with the Auberge and Knox Henderson district, which again has hotels and branded condos. So the model is proven out. It kind of started with the condo hotel and then a condo hotel, and it's kind of just gotten refined over the years. And what's the motivation to try that here in Palm Springs? What what is the kind of can you speak to why the seasonality of our market makes it actually. Kind of might motivate having that mix. So I think there's a few things. I think what motivates it is that it's a it's a proven model. And so being able to, as I mentioned earlier, actually de-risk the hotel component of this project is the crucial kind of linchpin of

this whole entire equation. Right. And so being able to sell those as condos and then as far as the user, the end user, their choice of saying, well, do I want to go buy a vacation home and then have to go through the ordeal of trying to have a house manager or who's taking care of that property? Who's maintaining that property? Am I putting it on Airbnb? Am I paying them commissions? All those things that go into having a second vacation home versus like a timeshare? I think it was brought up. It's just I can lock and leave. I come when I want to come. I tell the hotel I'm coming this day, I'm staying that day, and I'm not paying the hotel because I already it's my unit, but I can come and go as I please. And and having that flexibility. And I don't need to think about anything because the maintenance is taken care of, the operations are taken care of. Any tenant complaints, noise, all that's taken care of. Right. It's professionally managed. So that's part of the motivation. And then being able to they say, oh on a peak time I can actually make this as an investment vehicle and potentially share in revenue, I think are the motivational factors of why people are wanting to buy that kind of a unit. Great. And definitely any examples of that in Vegas again as well. If you book a room and then suddenly see you have a longer walk and you're in the condo tower, right? Right. Okay, I have some questions. I maybe for Chris in the planning. Thanks, Rob. When we're thinking about density and walkability across the city, but across downtown, can you share a little bit about what's not happening with it as a parking lot and the opportunity for. Walkability improvements, but just really the concentration of people and connecting the convention center and downtown and about what we're hoping, I mean, beyond the hotel rooms. But can you share a little bit about why

density here might make more sense than somewhere else downtown? Sure. I mean, I think it's been said by a few folks already tonight, but I think when we think about appropriate locations for heightened density, I think finding the most walkable, connected areas of our city that already exist and sort of building upon them is what makes the most sense. So this area is, of course, directly adjacent to the convention center. And as we're hearing, it's going to be marketed to convention goers who will be able to potentially come from the airport or come from wherever they're coming from without a car, be in this location, you know, go to the conventions and be within walking distance of downtown, especially with all of the exciting work that we're doing to build out those connectors to our downtown area, walk to shops, restaurants, you know, spend money in our city. So sorry. Just and right now, convention, convention, convention attendees who are further out are getting more likely. They're getting in a car and they're not walking. Right. Well, right. I think, as I understand it, and others probably have more statistics around this in terms of what the actual numbers are, I think the convention center has identified a fairly significant number of rooms that are needed, both today and into the future as we expand the convention center. But without those rooms in this location now, as I understand it, convention centers are spread out throughout the city, whether they're in hotels, Airbnbs, wherever they may be. And of course, there are significant portions of the city that would be much less walkable than this area. So I do think that there is an interest to the city in terms of concentrating density downtown. We're obviously having that conversation citywide as part of the zoning code update. There's a lot of conversation to happen on that. I certainly appreciate that. There's a lot of state law coming down about where we need to find opportunities for height and density to accommodate the growth that the state is projecting, and to solve the housing crisis that is happening throughout the state. So I think we have a policy framework in place today

that supports buildings of up to 100ft, that supports the density that's proposed here. Those rules were developed by the tribe in partnership with the city. And what we're seeing now is, is, you know, understandably, for everyone who's concerned in this room, the first example of a project coming in under those rules, but they really have been in place for many years for all of the reasons that we're talking about because of this location. Great. And then. Lastly, can you pull up the slide with all the entrances? Okay. There's just been several conversations around traffic study needs or what what it includes and what it won't. Can you just reiterate where there will be entrances? So there's two on East Andreas, one on El Segundo, and then where's the parking lot. Right. So this is the entrance to the hotel. There actually is a ramp that goes down to the underground parking garage here. And it's a drop off area that would come around and then the residences entrance and drop off areas here. If there is a valet or a South Park, this is the parking garage. So they would drive down the alley here and into this entrance. And this is a five story parking structure over here where the restaurant is. This is also a valet situation. And they would drive down the alleyway here and into the garage. And then there's. Oh, sorry, I was going to say what we understand from the applicant. And it looks like he might want to clarify. They are looking at the 500 space garage of being or 400 space garage being valet access only. Yeah, sorry. Just to clarify. So so starting kind of left to right, you

have the portico share there with the restaurant building. So that not only is for the restaurant, but it also would be a drop off for the ballroom meeting space breakout space. So again, trying to bifurcate where traffic is coming from. Right. And this has all been studied as, as Nicole mentioned in the in the traffic study analysis. But the idea is and we've had this study by multiple valet companies. So the idea is that everything circulates right turns only now you could go left, but it causes more traffic congestion. It takes longer. Right. So everything is designed to be right turn. So if you come out, the valet could go right around to Andreas and then into the, into the parking garage right up a little higher. Right. There you go. There's an entry to the parking garage right there off of Alvarado. So same thing if you then go to the hotel lobby portico. Share. As Glenn mentioned, you can drop into a one level garage directly beneath that. So you could self-park or valet, but then again, the valet can pick it up, swing it around, right turn only, right turn only into the garage. And then same thing with the branded residence. And then if you're in any of those three locations and the valet calls for the car to be brought up, they can exit out the south side of the garage down that private alley drive, and then they can whip right into each of the respective drives. So again, we are trying to segregate the traffic a little bit based on who's coming and what for what purpose. Got it, got it. And then the garage goes down one floor right. Or one level garage that's directly under the hotel is just one level below. And then the on grade garage to the east is it's again like I was mentioning, right. It's four stories. Right. But you also get the chance to park on the roof. Oh that's so you get five levels of parking for a four story garage okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Those are my questions for now. Thanks. Other questions from council. Mayor. Just one question. Rob, do you have to have a requirement? Are you going to have to have so many of your condo units pre-sold before you actually build, or are you just going to build and then sell then? So because of this type of branded residences, we have not seen historically, lenders requiring presale. Now with that being said, I don't know what the lender requirements would be when that time comes if that changes. But as of right now, we don't typically have a presale requirement that we've seen needed. So so let me ask you, let's say you're approved this evening and you have all the good intentions. And we've seen obviously it was 18 years ago. We started the dream 19 years ago on almost 2020 for the dream, 18 for the Thompson, this one we've been dealing with for at least ten years plus, you know, and we can cite several others. So let's say you get your approvals and you just can't really get financing. You can't pull it together. What would you anticipate doing with this parcel three years from now? So in short, we don't know. We'd have to see what the dynamics are. If there's a reason why the project's not getting financed, we'd have to look at why is it not getting financed? Right. In the meantime, it would be operating as a parking lot so you wouldn't get in a situation where there's a partially built or a construction fence that that's just kind of endlessly being there. Right? But we'd have to look at that when that time comes. All indications by again, diversifying the risk here would show that we're in good condition to get financed. But, you know, no one has the crystal ball.

And I can't sit here and guarantee you we get financed or in three years this is no longer feasible. I don't know why that would be, but again, the question would be then what is feasible? And we've gone through this exercise because we've been involved in this project for 20 years. As you know, we got the RFP from the city to buy the property in 2005. And so we've had the, for better or worse experience of sitting here saying, what about a 500 room hotel that was approved that was much larger in mass, that didn't end up becoming economically viable? And then going back to the drawing board and going, well, let's do a residential project that's only two and three stories. And we went through that process and actually got denied. And now we're back again to the reset here of saying, how do we get a project that we think really works with what the city is going to allow for its zoning, and that's going to be economically viable. And as of right now, this is the only answer we can come up with. And just you may not be able to answer this. If you had the hotel incentive program, could you take a store, make it eight instead of nine? So if we were to apply for some sort of tax incentive, that's the question. Then in our study and research, we would then fall into some sort of prevailing wage category as well. And then all of a sudden now the benefit of the Tot tax incentives is going to wash out on the prevailing wage cost increase to the overall project cost. And so it's you're really not making much of a headway there. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I have a question. I think it maybe it was Chris on the in the staff report. The appellants. Shade plan. You I thought I heard the word certified. Oh in in the copy that was officially delivered to the city. So meaning not the photocopied

or reproduced version that's in all of our packages. It is the engineering. Is it an architect? An engineer? It looks like it's come out of an app, which is what I think the appellant suggested. But it just the quality and the version that was supplied to us doesn't seem to be legible. So unfortunately we didn't have the benefit of seeing it correct certified and being stamped and received by the City Clerk's office when when the appeal was filed. Got it. Okay. Not certified from an engineer. No, no. Sorry. Yes, I meant I meant I was looking at the original version I have. Yeah okay. Very good I appreciate that. The I think having heard the the developer's comments on the willingness to adhere to the planning commission's conditions and seeing more of this shade analysis, I'm I'm. Less concerned than I was originally about the project. And I think the other thing that I'm sitting with is even if we came in with another 4 or 5 story senior living facility, we are going to, you know, be having an impact on. The, the, the, the So just about, you know, anything that's going to go there is going to have an impact on sight lines. So I think that that's just that's going to be an ongoing challenge for anything that would be built on this site. I the

one condition that or that the Planning Commission asked for was the social entertainment ending at 10 p.m. I, I think it's it's wonderful for us to start off with that. But I think, you know, making something that is going to last forever. I would like to see that that could be reevaluated after a period of a few years, you know, to, to see, you know, is there an impact and is there a possibility that, you know, 1030 is is workable, but that that's just one of the one of the items, the exterior facade improvement on the parking garage. And I'm happy to hear the developer is is intending to work on that and, you know, help that be more blend more in with the the Palm Springs. Vibe. Plant scape obviously is extremely important. It's an important to this project. The project is really, you know, part of the beauty is, is the incredible landscaping that's that surrounding it. I agree with Council member Ready's thought on adding a condition that any extension is must come before council. So I think that's that's an important condition to add. I liked I agree with, I think it was council member Bernstein's. Condition, adding a condition that we have evidence of financing is provided to us. I'd also

like to see that that we add requirements for quarterly meetings with the community that that not only the the fencing and the banners, the construction fencing is appealing, but that there are beautification requirements of the exterior space perimeter of of the the construction project itself. So the neighbors are not having to to live in in something that is going to look unkempt or fall into disrepair. Weekly site inspections. I'd like to see that as part of the condition that there's weekly site inspections, especially when the fencing goes up to make sure that there that any, any breaches in the fencing or materials that have fallen down, they're being fixed immediately. If landscaping, landscaping is being addressed on a weekly basis, the weeds are being pulled and we don't create this unsightly, you know, development site for for the neighbors. I think those are all important to add. In addition to the reducing the east and south tower by that 20ft that the Planning Commission called for, I think, you know, those are all things that. Oh, plus, getting a website posted once construction begins. So the neighborhood knows the progress, they

see the updates on what's happening on the site, but that a website with those, those weekly or bi weekly updates to keep the community informed, they can go online and check it out at any time. But we want to have, you know, a very open line of communication that's constant for the the neighborhoods is something that I would like to see. Not having them rely on going to a city website, but going to this development's website and get the information and we require that it's it's updated with weekly or bi weekly progress reports. So the neighborhood's truly feel that they're they're an important piece of this, this development in their own neighborhood. Those are my thoughts. Mr. mayor. I have something, if you can. Yes. Council member Garner. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for those comments. I agree with the conditions imposed by the Planning Commission. I think those are really helpful in the comments that you had in terms of communication. I think that's that's really important. You know, we heard tonight that that the neighborhood didn't feel like they had enough communication from the developer or from from our from the city. There are there are requirements that were followed. But I think what we're, we're kind of seeing in this area, as there's developments proposed, that there is a kind of desire to do a little bit more, which I think, you know, we've done throughout the city for different projects. And

whenever there's something that's big, it it makes sense to do a few a little bit more outreach than a smaller project because of the the desire for the community to communicate with us. You know, this this project, I've been reading over all of this information and it conforms with our zoning code, with section 14 specific plan. It it makes sense for what we're looking for in terms of additional rooms for conventions. And again, all of any money that we obtain from projects like this goes right back into the community. So our ability to make all of the different park improvements, to spend tens of millions of dollars on affordable housing. All of this is possible because of the robust tourism that we've we have in our city and because of investments that we've made. We are it is challenging to build hotels. We saw that the Thompson took extremely long time, but now that it's here, it's wonderful and people are really happy with it. I'm hopeful that this project will move forward quickly, but one of the things that makes me feel a lot better about it than some of the other spaces that we have stalled projects, is that it is a parking lot right now, and it's a very useful parking lot as it exists, which means that if the project after 2 or 3 years doesn't move forward, it's still just a parking lot that we're still using instead of a, you know, a falling down building or something

like that. So that that makes me feel a little bit better about the uncertainty of of any big projects. I appreciate that you doing this shade study. And that does help a lot. I know that there was some public comment about using an app. A lot of these these apps are not as accurate as hiring an engineering firm to actually do these studies. We have the same problem with the apps that are used for noise. They're not accurate. And when we use our actual accurate tools that are cost a lot of money to purchase, we we find that they're wildly different. So I just want to preface that some of these tools are really interesting, but they're not always accurate. But but thank you all for coming here and talking about this. And to the developer for bringing this forward. I think it has a lot of potential here and I, but I totally understand the concern about height. It's it is something that is different and not what we're used to in Palm Springs. And this is where I grew up, and I'm still hesitant about it, but I, I don't see. I don't think that height is a legal reason for us to not move forward with this project, if that's the main concern. I just Mr. I just want to reiterate and, Mr. Mayor, that I think you summed up all of the the conditions and other things we wanted to put in in terms of very well. So I support all the ones you said, all the ones we had said that you summarized, as well as a couple that you added on

with the meetings and website. So I think I think the communication and just to the developer, I know you followed the rules. I believe in the city that it is a much easier process of building if you over communicate with the community and and not just the residents, but also the business community around the hospitality community, the other the other businesses that are in that area, including across the street. And it'll be a much more productive in the long run. So especially when you're coming in with something that is unusual for this city. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. mayor, I do have one more question. Yes. Thank you. On a procedural issue, just recalling that this is part of the specific plan that was approved by the Tribal Council is this is on tribal allotted land. Correct. So. But it is on so so let's just say we turn we did not approve this project. They would have the ability to appeal to the Tribal council, correct? No. But if it's on reservation, don't they have the ability to appeal to the tribe? No. Okay. Only allotted land. Right? Yep. I did, I did pass over one item that I definitely wanted to include as a condition is that that the developer would. We work in collaborate with the urban

walkway plan that is being worked on now that that we work together on that project? And I know we talked about it, but if it's not in writing, we've learned things just don't really happen. So I'd like to see something along along the lines of the developer committing to collaborate and work and to incorporate the urban walkway planning. Is there anything else we have? Council. Mr. mayor, just make a couple more comments. I would also, you know, in full support of the recommendations that the mayor has recommended on over communicating to the community. I would also encourage even some, you know, quarterly meeting or check in with staff specifically, as this is a new model for us in terms of hotel plus residential. And so, you know, and maybe even presenting back to council on, you know, this is like further along. But you know how they're selling what the experience is. I think this would be useful information for the council and the economic development team to understand this specific hotel model and and its appeal and viability in Palm Springs. The other thing I would just communicate as well. And, you know, Council Member Gardner mentioned that this is currently a parking lot. It is a useful parking lot, but it is still a parking lot, and there's not a lot of places that we can kind of build in the city. There's not a lot of space downtown that has the space and proximity to the convention center. So I think I just really

appreciate the planning committee staff and all the work to kind of make this project as to, to meet really the goals of our Palm Springs tourism needs. And at the same time, as we develop downtown, there are residential units nearby. We're building mixed use. We have mixed use buildings downtown, and so we have to establish what we as a council, we as a city, have to establish what those expectations and norms are. When developers are building near where people live. And so. That Overcommunication, I would like to see, you know, really standard on this project, but on all projects that are happening downtown. And we're seeing that more and more across the city. And so really stressing that this is an hopefully a new city norm and not just this Nexus project. Mr. mayor, I would just note with regard to the quick note with regard to the sewer issue, that the condos are depending upon how I presume once they hook this up, this actually may solve the problem. I I'm not saying that because I know, but but it's a significant connection and if it the system needs to be expanded pipe whatever. There could be a positive effect. That may be something that staff may be able to check out and can report back to you. Mayor, if I might suggest we've heard a lot of different suggestions and conditions from the diocese, it might be a good idea to have Mr. Hadwen restate those just to make sure they comport with the Council's desire, and then also have a representative from the applicant stand up and indicate whether they are agreeable to those revised conditions. All right, Chris, are you prepared to do that? Well, let's give it a try. I have that any extension of time

after the initial two year expiration be considered by the city council? I have that there will be quarterly meetings with the community to provide updates on the progress of the project, that a beautification plan be pursued for the perimeter of the site, that there be. Nice construction fencing that screens the site and keeps it secure. And that is contextual within the neighborhood that there be evidence of financing provided at the appropriate time, that there be weekly site inspections to ensure security and maintenance of the site. That, and we may need some clarification on this one, that we revisit the Planning Commission condition to end all outdoor entertainment at 10 p.m. at some point in the future. I don't know if you want to assign a time frame to that, Mr. Mayor. I would say in two years, two years and two years that we maintain all of the Planning Commission's conditions of approval, including the ones that describe the notching of the height by 20ft in the two corners, that the applicant establish a website to go live when construction begins, to provide the community with updates on the progress, and that it be updated bi weekly, that there be quarterly check ins with staff as the project progresses. To make sure that we're aligned on this sort of new model that we present back to City Council on regular intervals to keep the council and the public updated on progress, and that the applicant agrees to cooperate with the city on the design and construction of the downtown promenade that cover it. In quarterly meetings with the community. Yes. Got that? I heard you

say quarterly meetings with the staff. Oh, I said both. So there was a quarterly community meeting as well as a quarterly staff meeting. Beautiful. See how good you are. Tried to take notes. Fantastic. All right. So the conditions have been restated, Mr. Mayor, we might hear from the appellant. Yeah. Perfect. The applicant will come and speak to the condition. Yes. We are agreeable to all the conditions. As stated, the only clarification was just on the weekly inspections. I want to make sure we heard that that is during construction. Right. A weekly inspections of the site and the fence and all that during construction. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're good. Thank you. Rob, is there anything we missed that you'd like to see included? I think the one thing we mentioned also was that they can use the parking until you start constructing. Is that do we need to state that you had you had said that, that we could continue to use the parking until you start. Yeah. I guess it's a question of of we have a existing agreement in place. So I'm kind of looking to the city attorney to say that's stated in the. Isn't that stated in the existing agreement? We need to restate that here. It does. It provides the the either party the ability to terminate after the building permit application has been filed on 30 days notice. So I think it might have been asked if there's still some time period after the building permit and actual construction starts, whether you'd be willing to allow access during that time period. Yeah, I guess my only conceptually, no problem I'm trying to think through right now is if there's a situation where you have a construction loan pending, and sometimes lenders don't want to have a change of priority before you start

construction. So I don't know how to wordsmith that, but I'll defer to the city attorney. We can deal with subordination issues later. Okay. Yeah, okay. And so it would be in support. Yeah. Okay. Does that license expire or is it just 30 days notice or 90 days notice anytime after after notice it outside of breaches. Yeah. After notice by well, let's just say the project doesn't happen for four years. So we could does this license agreement. Did you say it expires in 26 or can we use it until that time when the if the if the if the five year time period does expire, I believe it provides for the ability of the property owner to to terminate it. Yes. The five year ends when in beginning of 2026. Okay. So I guess well, not to confuse things then do we want to include that here? I mean, because this could this could be a several year proposition. Yeah. As long as it's a condition of approval to the project, if for some reason the project duration was not extended, then that condition would no longer be correct. Yes, absolutely. We have no problem with that. Good. That gives you leverage then a little bit too on your side. Okay. And then we get the benefit of the parking. Until then we call that a win win okay. Thank you. Okay. Do we have a motion on the floor with the conditions as restated by Chris Hedman. With the addition of the parking language. I'll make the motion. I'll second mayor pro tem and seconded by council member Bernstein.

City clerk. May we have a vote? Mayor Pro Tem Soto. Yes. Council member. Bernstein. Yes. Council member. Gardner. Yes. Council member. Ready? Yes. Mayor. De heart. Yes. Motion passes five zero. Okay. The next item is item two D, which is a public hearing regarding the consideration of economic subsidy reports between the city and eight hotel owner operators. May we have a staff report, please? Good evening. Members of the council. My name is Wayne Olsen. I'm the chief economic. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. We have one more public hearing item 2D. Yeah, that's what we're on. 2D. Oh, okay. Sorry. You're presenting the right one. The wrong presentation is on the screen. Oh I see, okay. Thank you. My head is. Good evening. My name is Wayne Olson. I'm the chief economic development officer for the city of Palm Springs. Tonight's report that you're going to be reviewing on a public hearing regarding the consideration of economic subsidy is largely a housekeeping report required by the state. I believe the city attorney is going to cite some statute that needs a correction in the report. But ultimately, the eight reports that you see before you are hotels that have participated in our incentive program and meet the terms and requirements of the statutory report for AB 562, which is economic subsidy. Your action is to open a public hearing, accept all of the eight reports and move those

forward. And in addition, there is a small housekeeping item with the Yarra Hotel, which is not included as part of the AB 562 because it is not participated in the program for five years. But there is a correction to the baseline that you passed in earlier this year in the spring. So there's one correction item that you find in the Hotel Covenant Agreement. If you have any questions, staff is available to answer those questions. And I don't know if the city attorney wants to comment. Yeah. In the main body of the agenda description. It contains the correct government code section in one portion under the recommendation, there is a there's a letter missing in the government code section. I don't think this impacts the ability of the Council to consider this, since the agenda itself was described properly. All right. Thank you. Are there any questions from Staff Council? Yes. Mr. Mayor, Council member Bernstein. So just some questions on this. So these hotels all got the hotel incentive and they did pay prevailing wages. So the status of the hotel incentive program requires that the applicant work with the Dir on paying prevailing wage. And so the issue is between the applicant and the Dir. But I would ask the city attorney to endorse that. That's that's correct. Our ordinance and then our agreements, at least since 2019, have expressly provided for the requirement of prevailing wages to be applied, those the enforcement of prevailing wages is largely a matter of state concern, though not ours. Okay, a couple other things. So we have a update. The hotel update to the incentive program is coming back next month. I believe, Mr. City Manager, that that is our hope to bring something back in December with a

programmatic framework and then code in the early part of 2026. Council member yes, we have it scheduled. We and I'll talk more about it in our in in our tentative upcoming meeting agenda. Okay. And I just highlight it now because these are examples of hotels, you know where it worked. And it was a win win situation. And and we have other ones that are waiting for other potential variations on, on the existing program. I would actually even say there were 24 programs and 24 properties in total that have participated in the incentive program. These are the only eight that were that meet the state requirement for reporting. So since the program's inception, there have been 24 hotels that have participated. That's great. Great. And also, we brought this up before with the with the convention center. There may be additional ones for hotels if we actually they commit room blocks to the convention as opposed to just be available potentially available. Councilmember I believe that would be an element of the proposed Tot incentive code update. And just one last point. I wanted to highlight that this, you know, we did have a the Business Retention and Economic Development subcommittee, and this hotel incentive program was developed as part of that back when before I was on council. But it was very productive. So thank you. Okay. Any other questions for staff. All right. At this time I'd like to open the public hearing. Public's invited to speak up to two minutes. City clerk do we have any speakers? No public speakers. Public hearing is now closed. Are there any discussions or additional questions from City Council? Motion to approve. I

entertain Councilmember Garner move to the motion second. Seconded by Councilmember Ready. City clerk, may we have a vote? Councilmember Garner. Yes. Council member. Reddy. Yes. Councilmember. Bernstein. Yes. Mayor pro tem Soto. Yes. Mayor. Yes. Motion passes five zero. Thank you. Council, before we move on to item three A, can I ask how long do we think this item is going to take? City manager slide. Mr. mayor, I think we have a short PowerPoint presentation to go through. We can get through it as quickly as council would like. We obviously we plan for any questions and discussion from council members, but we leave that up to the to the council to decide. Well, how long do you think the presentation is going to be? Mr. mayor, I estimate the presentation will be about 15 to 20 minutes. Okay. That excludes discussion. If we can keep it at the 15. I just assumed we were going to need a lot more time for discussion on the item. Well, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, that's only for the presentation. If the discussion that's that excluding council discussion on the item. Yeah. Well, and it's 1240 my time and I'm just concerned about mayor if I, if I may I mean, this is so important to the community and probably needs to be a lot of discussion. It may be best to move this. I

would support that. Mr. If I can just add on to this, and I have been pushing to get this done as soon as possible, and and I will say, when you put a tremendous in the team, and I know a lot of work into this, I do want to make sure I mean, we can start it. I don't think it'll it'll take a while to finish. And I don't want to shortchange you at all because put so much time and effort and I think it's important. The other thing is, I think there are some people I know who have not had a chance to see this until until this week, probably. You know, we also had a busy weekend and for all of our business community. So and it was in the agenda last week. So a lot of people, including some people I've talked to with Main Street and Arena District, haven't seen this until today. So. Or I mean, they've seen versions of it, not the final one. So, you know, I don't want to shortchange their comment, but I also don't want to delay this I don't know, do you have a comment on this? It's going to take a very long December meeting. Yeah, I agree this is really important. We've pushed it more than we've pushed it a couple times already. And so I have a bit of hesitation pushing it again, especially into December. I guess I know you have the consultant here as well. Are you local or. No. Okay. Mayor Pro tem, they're located in Los Angeles. Okay. And. If I might, Councilmember Bernstein. Mr. mayor, I don't know that a partial discussion would benefit the discussion just from a staff perspective, but

we're here at the pleasure of the council and the mayor, so. It it'll make a Long December meeting, which I don't know. I have a special meeting. Yeah. I would rather see a special meeting that we could devote entirely to the strategic plan when I certainly Thanksgiving in two weeks, we at we have had discussions with the city manager and with consultant on potential study sessions, but I don't want to lead the council to a conclusion that they weren't. It couldn't be a January time frame. I mean, there's nothing in here that's going to happen before the end of 25. You know, there is a lot of there is a lot of interest in this and there's a lot of concerns and people have seen it and there's a lot of people this has been going on over. I mean, we've only just presented it to some people, but for other people, it's been going on for, you know, a lot of part of this year. And so people are looking for this and it is very much setting the framework for next year. And so it would be I in my view, it really does need to be done this year. So it either makes a very long December meeting or we have a study session at some point. And I don't know if that's even possible timewise, but. Council Member yes, I will talk about in the tentative meeting agenda when it when we come forward at the end of the meeting and we take a look at this December agenda. Obviously we have a number of ceremonial procedures to go through and other things, and we typically try to manage that in a way that we're we don't load the agenda down

too heavy. In fact, there's some items on the December calendar that I was going to have council members take a look at and say, do you even want to? Do you want are there 1 or 2 items on that that you might want to move to January? But again, we can look at that in when we get to that on the agenda. Do we think there's a time to do a devoted study session before the end of the year? That would be at the discretion of the council? Ron, Mr. mayor is trying to speak. Yeah, I, I could find a week where I've, I've got a a night open or early afternoon. Just depends on how the rest of council feels about doing, you know, special meeting. I'm I'm okay with this necessarily. Mr. Mayor. I'm. I'm okay with the with the special meeting with just this item. I would want to really limit it to just this. I don't think we need to be adding on to to the agenda, and I, I would only I would only agree to a special meeting if it was focused entirely and only on the economic plan. Not great. Just looking at the future calendar. Is there a particular week that makes sense for I for next week are we think? It's not great for me at the next I could maybe. We're talking

about a potentially a two hour time block. Is that correct? Do it justice. Yeah. What to do it justice. But I mean, it's not more than that. That would probably make sense. Of course. Our December meeting is on December 10th. Next week. And then we have Thanksgiving week is after next week. Plus we also have the mayor's State of the city speech coming up that we need to keep in mind. City event. Yeah. Mr. Mayor and Council, I would just note that my consultants who have been waiting patiently indicate that December 8th is the week of December 8th is challenging from them. From a scheduling perspective. I get that right next week for everybody. We have supreme confidence in you that you can do that presentation. I'm happy to do that. Just just be mindful. There are Plaza Theater events next week in the evening. So if, if I may, it's it's very hard to calendar from the dais. So I would suggest that if we're all in agreement that we should try to move forward with the study session, then we should send dates to probably Nora and Alyssa and coordinate from there. I believe that I would request, with respect to the council, what the notification notice is for a special session at the time. 72 hours and does. Yeah. What's that? 24 hours for a special meeting. And does it have to be at 530? No. Yeah. Me too. But also the communities. Or we could do it now. So the businesses.

Yeah. I say next Wednesday. Or maybe it's hard. We can send dates and at least get I based off of the consultants time frame. All the possible dates and then the council can react to that. Since this is their presentation. And, and we're thinking about late afternoon time frame 4 to 6 sort of expect my calendar is pretty booked out. So it would I would anticipate it being an evening meeting. An evening meeting. But it could be 5 or 5, 30 or 6. I mean, I don't know, not after five 5 or 530. I mean, our council meetings are 530. Yeah. I will adjust to whatever works with the rest of council. Would would Mr. Mayor, would the council and yourself appreciate if I worked with the scheduling staff and the consultant to find a time agreeable to the city manager and the rest of your schedules? Yep. That sounds good. Thanks, Wayne. Sorry for coming out. It's not going to work. Yeah. Uday and Adam, appreciate your your time and effort. And I'm sorry that we we're going to have to reschedule. They are waving to you, Mr. Mayor. So, are we just tabling this item or do we

need a motion on it? You can take a motion if you'd like. It's. I don't think it's legally necessary. I think staff understands the direction is to try and schedule a special meeting as soon as possible to cover this tonight. Okay, let's move on to public comment. Time has been set aside for members of the public to address the City Council on items of general interest. Urge speakers. Got two minutes. First speaker. Madam City Clerk Jacqueline Bowman, followed by Anne Welch. Wilkes. Good evening, City Council members and mayor. I like the background screen of your zoom call. There. Golf courses. That's what we're here talking about today, specifically Tahquitz Creek Golf Course. I'm the president of the Taco Tacos Creek Women's Golf Club. We are 120 members strong. I think we had about 30 gals in her earlier, and we were kind of shocked by the rate increase that we heard about. And that was on October 23rd, on Thursday, that there would be a 65% rate increase on green fees and 71% on weekend play during the high season. So with some input, we're very encouraged hearing that from park and RECs. There's a ad hoc committee already formed to address the issue. So we appreciate that and the responsiveness of some of you through email responses as well. So we're hopeful that we could. We'd love to see the City

council just put a pause on any fee increase at this time. And we hope that the fees at our local municipal golf course are in line with other municipalities in the Coachella Valley, namely Palm Desert, La Quinta, Indian Wells. All residents. Pretty much. It's about a $50 green fee. And one thing about our group over here, we play public links golf course. We don't have the money to join private country clubs, and it's really important for us to have affordable green fees to get our recreation in. So I just asking the council to put it on pause. And Nick and his team could examine it, and they've been very responsive and communicative with our group when we went to Park and Rec. So thank you very much. Appreciate that. Miss Ian. Oh, I had him too. You, Anne Welsh, also with Tahquitz Creek Golf Course, to follow on to what Jackie said we were we were surprised when we heard about the increase. The information that you're, that you're seeing is information that I put together based on information that I found from the the city's budget book for the golf course, as well as the proposed rate increases from the consultant. So we just again, we were shocked when we saw the increases 47% to 73%. Tahquitz Creek has four patron green fee rates. The Degas, which is highest,

Coachella Valley, the Palm Springs resident, and then a Golf Vantage cardholder rate. The only rate that was addressed in as a part of the consultant's study was the Palm Springs resident rate. And I think by virtue of of of looking at just that, I think there was a fallacy. There was an error in the calculation. My my numbers here. Look at just a back of the envelope calculation. If we look at the the deficit, the bond payments that are going to continue through fiscal year 2627, if we say that the deficit is about $1 million for the golf course operations, including that bond payment, and we have 100,000 rounds of golf, we're looking at about a needed $10 increase to cover to break even, which is what the goal was. Right? So when our increase is, on average closer to $40, I think there's some there is something wrong in the calculation. So. And and again the the bond payment is completed 2627. So once we get beyond that, the course itself right now as it's operating is close to break even. Right. So you know, if we take the debt service out of the equation, we're at about a. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Yeah. Sorry, mayor you didn't get a copy of it but good information chair. So thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Michael Joseph Pickens followed by Patrick Weiss. Michael Joseph Pitkin, more info about myself when I was in Boise, Idaho, 2006

for my HIV care doctor. Sky blue Native American physician refused me Viagra for when me and my then partner knew my testosterone levels were low and I wanted to feel more able. The doctor said, I do not want you running around like those stupid idiots infecting others with HIV. He then reported my name. The only HIV patient in the entire nation names reporting to Atlanta CDC. I took him to court. After that, everyone with HIV in America had to be named. Reported to Atlanta when I worked for Hughes and then direct TV under Rupert Murdoch around the time of nine over 11, I wrote two separate customer service legal documents that were accepted and went to the United States Supreme Court. Again, two different cases. I have friends who are attorneys and they have worked their entire careers hoping for a case that would be moved and would go all the way to the US Supreme Court. I am not an attorney yet. My work on the NFL Sunday Ticket and my work for local channels on satellite positively impacted the entire United States. In Palm Springs, I have individuals who come up and tell me how stupid I am. I may not have a college degree, but I believe these three legal national cases speak for themselves. Patrick Weiss. Hello, I'm Patrick Weiss, I'm a

resident of Palm Springs, and I wanted to bring your attention to an issue that's come up recently about a recall and regarding that, at least 40, at least 43 American citizens were killed in the October 7th, 2023 attack by Hamas and Israel, an extremist Muslim Brotherhood, or jihad group. At least two of these Americans came from California. Hirsh Goldberg, Poland. Poland was born in Berkeley, California, was killed at the Nova music Festival. Daniel Waldman, originally from Palo Alto, California, was also killed at the Nova music Festival. Other individuals had diverse connections to the US, with origins spanning various states and towns. On October 12th, 2023, the Palm Springs City Council passed a resolution expressing its support for Israel and stated, Whereas we, the City Council, further emphasize that this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. Unfortunately, parties hostile to Israel and the city council have threatened to recall all the city council. I believe this threat will unite all in Palm Springs as extremism, whether it comes from the far right, anti-Semitism or far left, antisemitism will not be tolerated or welcomed here. People within the Jewish and Palm Springs community felt anxious and worried about this massacre from many nationalities. This city council has a record of supporting human rights. This resolution is a continuation of that tradition, and I thank you very much for doing that.

Thank you. Jake Epstein, followed by Jane Dodd. Good evening. My name is Jake Epstein. I'm a nurse living here in Palm Springs, and I want to thank the Palm Springs City Council for quickly moving to heal our community after the massacres on October 7th, 2023. Your leadership truly represents the people of Palm Springs by adopting resolution 25 147. The five city council people, three of whom sit on the council tonight, upheld community values and spoke up on a critical issue affecting human rights. Spac facts speak for themselves the proposed recall of the City council by recall them all is irresponsible and negates human rights by punishing you, our elected officials, for representing the values and priorities of Palm Springs residents. Palm Springs folks believe in democratic institutions and the importance of our local government. This recall of you is about destroying trust, dividing neighbors, and dismantling accountability, thus ensuring that Palm Springs will no longer stand for the responsive, transparent leadership our community needs. Palm Springs deserved, elected elected deserves elected officials who listen, who act with integrity, who put community interests of personal or political agendas. This council has upheld these basic standards and I applaud your efforts. You had our community's backs in 2023, and I will have your backs

tonight and moving forward. Thank you. Our last speaker is Jane Dodd. I'm here today because the mayor told me at his town hall meeting that he would not comment on the question of rescinding the emergency resolution in support of Israel, but to keep asking. So here I am, our CodePink group, which is predominantly LGBTQ plus, applied to be in the pride parade three days before the deadline online. We were approved an hour after submission, then unapproved the next day, citing there wasn't enough room and we were late, even though the deadline was not for three more days and the application link was still open. I'm sure it wasn't politically motivated. We set up at Frances Stevens Park with a banner we had made that said No Pride in Genocide. Early in the parade, a man marched up to us, attempted to grab the banner and got right in his face screaming, you shouldn't be here, and took off. So much for the city's claim of inclusion and diversity. I thought I'd give a little update on Israel's recent actions. On Monday, Israel Israelis cheered two of the five suspects in the gang rape of a Palestinian detainee, which was captured on video as they appeared in court. IDF soldiers raped the detainee so violently that they exploded his intestines and ruptured his rectum. He underwent 20 surgeries, including a colostomy and urostomy, and still has complications. Israel released him three weeks ago. He was never charged or tried. They likely released him so he wouldn't be able to testify in court against his rapists. The victim is now fearful of his life. He could be killed in Israel in any Israeli Israeli strike to cover up his atrocity. The IDF lawyer who opened a sham

investigation into this incident a year ago, has been fired, detained and under investigation. She only launched the probe because this one was caught on camera and the victim was hospitalized with a detailed medical record. So she started her investigation to prevent the ICC from intervening. This is who you want the city to support? Not on my name. We have no further speakers. Next item the City Council and City Manager's request for upcoming agenda development. Thank you, city Manager. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of council. Just taking it a quick look at our last council meeting of the year on December, our last regular council meeting December 10th. As I mentioned earlier, we have our procedural appointments of Mayor and mayor pro tem and other appointments that we'll have to make as we traditionally do. Council meeting schedules, appointments to external organizations, and the like. I do want to call your attention there. So we do have some other items on the calendar. The Tribal Conformity report is actually a business item. It's not a public hearing. So I wanted to make that announcement. But we do have to have that item on the calendar. You'll see the other three items at the bottom the hotel incentive program. Council member Bernstein mentioned that we have a cannabis ordinance update, and we have a building code ordinance update that I don't think that I think is a routine update item and should not take too long, but I did want to just get

some feedback from council members about the hotel incentive program, the cannabis ordinance update we could leave those on. They will take a bit of time potentially. So I wanted to get some potential feedback from council members for the December 10th meeting. Please know, just so this is the the tentative this is the agenda or are you asking for these are these are the primary items. So certainly be a few consent items as there always are. But these are non consent items that that we could have on the agenda or. You know move to one of the January meetings. Well I just want to mention that we have a hotel that's been waiting for this incentive program for a while. I don't know if it's easier to do something separate or I don't know, I think Wayne is left with it is. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. I don't know if you can hear me, but you asked about delaying the hotel incentive program. I think Wayne has left, but I think he's aware of one that has been waiting to do it and getting waiting for the get move forward with their project. I don't know how we deal with that. If we don't do it, we do. We do have one particular hotel project in the works that's interested in that. We wanted to do handle that as a one off and talk to them about what their specific requests were. I don't think we've had a formal request for them yet. And the and Mr. Olson was working with him on that. So we would have something specific in writing about

what their requests might, might be. The hotel incentive program that's on the on the agenda is more of a comprehensive look at at what a total program might be, and getting council's feedback on that. Okay, that sounds like that can move to January. That wasn't my understanding. But the concern of somebody that is hotel is pending. But if they haven't filed the paperwork yet, I'm not sure that. So, Mr. Mayor, they have spoken to Wayne about their the incentive thing and they've been waiting for it. So I'm not sure what Wayne is waiting for on this, but I, I know because they've told me and asked when this would be on. So typically, you know, on an economic development project such as the the hotel in question that I think we're talking about is they would submit some sort of request to the city for some form of economic development assistance in some form or fashion develops. Give us a program proposal, tell us what they want to do, what their expectations of the city are, what their requests are. So it would be something that we could evaluate. My understanding Wayne's not here, is that he that was going to be in this, so we could check if it's happened in the last day or two, then maybe there's some update that I'm not up to speed on the other. And then the other item is the cannabis Ordinance update. Now, I don't know how anxious council members are for that to come forward right away. Can it wait till January? Just wanted to get some thoughts on that as well. Well, that that was one that we've had several

requests from the cannabis industry. So just it should be simple to bring them into conformance with state law. That allows like the comedy clubs. It's a minimal change. So you know, they're trying to get that done so they can take advantage of it in this season. So that's why we're hoping to get it on by the end of the year. Well, maybe what I could suggest. It doesn't seem like a 30 minute conversation to me though. It seems like we're we're just bringing our ordinance into conformity with the state law so that one shouldn't be a long conversation for us, that that's very that's helpful council. And so we can we can put that on and with the expectation that it'll it is just updating state law. As you indicated, we didn't know if there were going to be a lot of other commenters or energy around that topic. So we can plan to do that. And maybe for Council Member Bernstein, I can do some follow up tomorrow on the other case and see where that stands and try and get a feel for for that. So I'm happy to do that. Thank you. And then the last thing I, I, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention real briefly just a really a shout out to all of our city employees over the past week who have just been, I know, council members. You were all over the city doing a lot of things. Certainly mayor DeHart, with all the events, with the pride weekend, we were all involved everywhere. But we had, you know, four days of pride activities Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, starting with Village Fest and Arenas Festival on Thursday, continuing all the way through the parade. On Sunday we took a day off and then we had the Veterans Day parade yesterday. That was a real

nice success and I just wanted to give a just a some kudos to all of our staff who put in a lot of hours. Police, fire, all the parks and RECs, people, public works, all of our communicators. I could go on. I'm going to be forgetting some people. But just thanks to all of them. So that's all I had, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. All right. Thank you. And I echo those kudos for staff. Incredible effort on behalf of the city across the board, council members, any other items for agenda? Yes, I do, Mr. Mayor. So one question I had is what action would have to be taken if we did want to pause the golf fees? Does that have to be agendized? What? How? What is that process just so we can let our folks know? Yeah, I'm I'm not sure. Is is that Nick in the back. So one of the, one of my thoughts was my understanding was there was going to be some, maybe some recommendations brought back to the Parks and Rec commission and have them consider that for a possible recommendation. And then we could determine, can they do that administratively? Do we bring that back to the full council for approval? So this is I don't know if you have. So this is already in discussion. Yes. So we're currently working with our golf course operator to do an analysis. And if the council would like us to bring back a revision of those fees, we are we would be prepared to do so at the next council meeting. Yeah. And if I may, I'd recommend that we actually bring it back to council in December. But but your group does

their review and, and they could make a recommendation because it is going to have to have council approval because it's a fee change. Mayor and council members. It does go into effect on December 1st. So can we. That's why I'm asking can we freeze it until it comes back to actual to actually discuss that. Right. That's what I want to know is what are what right what opportunity do we have there? I would say the city manager has that authority, but the city attorney tells me it does require council approval. We were just kind of saying, I know we said we weren't going to add anything to the special meeting. We're not even sure what date that is, though. Well, I would offer that if if, based on the city manager had does have some discretion and we have supreme confidence in your discretion if you're enforcing a certain fee, unless it's a problem from us, for us it's probably not a problem for you. And then you could agendize it come January. I agree with that. A pause could be done, and then a future meeting could be a new recommendation, right? Yeah. That's true. Question is there is a pause okay. Yeah. So I yeah that's what I heard you saying is just is just pause it until we can make some decisions. Bring it before the Parks and Rec Commission get their recommendations and then bring it back to council for approval. Yes. You certainly don't have the authority to charge more, but you certainly can do less. So. Right. All right. Thank you. It's not a legal just the other the other thing I just wanted to remind council about that we discussed last year when we at our December meeting when we discussed the calendar. I do want us to discuss going having a

meeting in the first week of July and then being dark until the end of August, or some other variation to accommodate shifting schedules on this council, but also school district who goes back to school early August. So I'm just reiterating that now. So everyone has well in advance notice to look at your calendars. Thank you. I just have one. It's not just one note this evening, the Desert Desert Regional Medical Center Cancer Center had their 35th anniversary of providing just the most utmost quality care. And so congratulations to them and sorry you missed it. Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Council member. Just if we're going to have a discussion about the change in date, we might want to make sure boards and commissions know in advance to a couple other things. We had talked about a quarterly budget update and. And that would that will be on the December council agenda. It's a receipt. It's a receive and file item for the council to review the report. And we could have a lot of discussion about it, or maybe not so much, only because as the first quarter report, it's the the impact is going to be pretty limited for July, August and September as opposed to getting the second quarter. Third quarter, fourth quarter reports when we'll know a lot more about revenue, expenses, that sort of thing. But we will put it is we do have it going on the agenda so council members can look at it. The finance directors put a lot of work into the report. So I'd like, you know, you and

the public to be able to look at the format of it. It's going to be a living document going forward. And you might look at it and say, hey, we need more of this. We don't need so much of this. So we're we're putting that on for discussion. Then depending on what the the meeting is in December, we may. And since it is the first time, we may want to bring that back again. And I realize that there's not a you know, the important point is that we told the public we were going to do the quarterly reports and be able to respond and react to how our city is doing. We may not be able to do it this time, but having the first quarterly report should enable us to come up with ideas for how we use it going forward. And we'll have the second quarter report, we'll be on the agenda and probably late January or February and and then so every quarter you're going to receive this. Okay. The other thing and it's come up again was the parking study implementation plan at some point. I mean it's been I think it's been a while. So there's a lot of recommendations that were made and it keeps coming back up. So if we didn't have that, of course that was the report that was funded by PS resorts. And we've had some internal discussions looking at that report, how we can implement some of the initial low hanging fruit and going forward. The other thing I don't know if if the mayor mentioned this at the beginning, was the city's HR award from the Human Rights Committee. This campaign this weekend, last weekend, which is really thanks a lot to our staff for getting 100% score. And so I also want to thank the staff and I want to thank the mayor in his role as the head of pride, because it really was a terrific event, and I think it was probably one of the best one ever. It was. I know our businesses did well and community enjoyed it, and there was just a lot of great touches, a lot of hard work into

that. And your whole team and and everybody. It was just it was a really great way for Palm Springs to shine. So thank you for that again. Council member, I do want to just very quickly thank Jeremy Hammond for all his work on that HR report. We received 100, a perfect 100 score for two years in a row. Now that very few cities have been able to accomplish. And, you know, you know, we we got some really nice recognition at the garden party event over the weekend. That's it for me. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, that was fantastic. I do have an item to bring back, you know, that goes to council's original intent to relocate the Bogart monument. We've received a letter from the historical society, and. They are. They've offered and to assume full responsibility, including financial, for the statue's transport installation and ongoing maintenance for relocation to the village green. And we've also received a letter from the chair of the Arts Commission, who is. Asking to the city manager, asking that council give some direction. To the commission. And I think I think it's time that we we follow up on our original intention to have the statue relocated and ask

the Arts Commission to take the item up for potential relocation to the village green, I support that. I do as well. That's fine. Does it have to? I mean, you're saying Arts commission instead of council? Yeah. It goes. Yeah, yeah. It would not be required to come to council then since they're paying for it. I support that. So you have three. No no no no. The the historical society's offer to pay for all the expenses to the relocation and, and ongoing maintenance. You had at least three yeses to move forward, to move forward with taking it to the Arts Commission. Yes. As as a reminder, this is for future council items. This is not for the council to make decisions. So the question is, does the council want it to come back to council? Come back to council so we can send it to the. Well, it wouldn't have to. The city manager has heard some discussion. He can decide to send it. So I'm hearing the council does not want it to come back to council. Okay. So but council I'm unclear. So the council is asking it to be agendized with the public Arts Commission for them, for them to discuss it. Well, we're fine with it. We're ultimately you have that discretion. So. Yeah, if we just got we just heard four yeses to have the item. Not on tonight's agenda, I would I would advise the council to stop discussing

this because it's not on the agenda. And staff will take it up at a later date. Any other council requests? Hearing? None. Mayor. I'm not clear. So I've asked. So I'm we're going to have the item agendized for the a future council meeting. Mayor I, I did not hear support for bringing it back to city council for a future agenda item. If the council thinks I misheard that, you can correct me. Clarify if you believe the city manager doesn't have authority to send something to the Arts Commission, then I guess we would. The question would be, do we want to bring it back to the agenda? I think he has the legal authority to send things to the Arts Commission. And the arts. Well, the Arts Commission can take up items on their own independently too. Yeah. But I'll be happy to convey the, you know, the discussion here with the chair of the Arts Commission. Okay, then maybe it needs to be agendized in addition to

the conversation that may happen with staff. I think we're good. Okay. Let's see anything else that we have Council for agenda items. I think we're good. Okay. Then what are we? Well, we're journey to the next regular. What's. Where journey to the regular city Council meeting to be held on Wednesday, December 10th at 5:30 p.m. Thank you all.