HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-09 Item 1UFrom:Brenda Pree
To:Norm King
Cc:City Clerk
Subject:RE: Request to Forward Letter to City Council
Date:Thursday, January 9, 2025 9:05:38 AM
Attachments:image002.png
Good Morning,
Your message has been shared with the City Manager, City Attorney, and council members.
From: Norm King <normanrking@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2025 8:04 AM
To: Brenda Pree <Brenda.Pree@palmspringsca.gov>
Subject: Request to Forward Letter to City Council
NOTICE: This message originated outside of The City of Palm Springs -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments
unless you are sure the content is safe.
Brenda
Could you kindly forward the attached letter to the members of the City Council, the City
Manager and the City Attorney.
Please let me know that you received this email.
Thanks you for your assistance.
Norm King
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
Letter to City Council
January 9, 2025
Members of Palm Springs City Council
We are pleased that the recommendation to amend the agreement with
Architectural Resources Group for both a peer review of the Section 14 Historical
Context study and to “give people in the community that have historical context an
opportunity to provide feedback and documentation to substantiate the report and
improve its accuracy …” We urge the council to adopt the amended contract. And
we look forward to knowing how we may participate.
1.The City Council should establish a review process enabling public review
of the ARG report
The ARG report was submitted almost 600 days after the city council voted to hire
a contractor and 600 days after the council indicated there would be an opportunity
for community participation in the report.
The ARG report was made public late Friday afternoon November 8, 2024. This
provided 3 working days for the public to read, digest over 140 pages of material
and submit comments about the study before the Council met and took action the
following the following week. One of use (Norm) was personally told that I and
other members of Friends of Frank Bogert would be able to meet with the
contractor during their research process but we learned later that someone at the
city had vetoed such a meeting.
2.Friends of Frank requests opportunity to be on the peer review panel.
The scope of work to the amended contract makes mention of “peer reviewers” but
does not specify who they will be or who will select them. Some members of
Friends of Frank Bogert have done extensive research and know a great deal about
the history of Section 14 and we request that such representative be one of the peer
reviewers.
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
3. When will ARG the “vetted list of former residents” required in the
original ARG scope of work?
We are also concerned that it appears the city did not receive the entire product it
paid for. The original scope of work states that the contractor will provide “a fully
vetted list of former residents . . . “affected by the redevelopment of Section 14
land.” No such list seems to exist in the report. This should be completed and
made available to the public.
4. Once again the City has provided incorrect information about the City’s
“Apology” resolution.
We take exception to the characterization of the City’s 2021 “apology resolution”
(in the original scope of work document) which states the City council issued “a
formal apology for the City’s role in evicting individuals from Section 14 in the
1960’s.” The apology resolution did not allege that the city issue issued evictions
and the resolution refers only to alleged actions of the city in regard to Section 14
occurring “from 1964 …” This is a critical misstatement because all of the
evictions, all of which were issued by the Indian owners, were issued to the all
remaining 430 vacated dwelling first years before 1964.
5. There are many major errors in the ARG report – not “minor errors” as
represented in the staff report.
We take exception to the staff report which states that “there were some minor
inaccuracies in the report.” There are many major errors is this report and should
be corrected for the historical record.
6. ARG’s false representation that the 1961 “campaign” was “city led.”
Of particular importance to us is ARG’s incredible and unsupportable assertion
that the 1961 campaign was “city led.” This false assertion is of particular concern
to us because it misrepresents the role of both the City and Frank Bogert in
attempting to stop or slow down this BIA-led removal project.
ARG states: “The fourth abatement campaign occurred between 1961 and 1962.
The City of Palm Springs planned, funded and implemented it in partnership with
the BIA. …..
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
On page 61the ARG report notes in reference to the BIA statement that “The
Indians are just going to have to be cold-hearted and take their property for better
use” that “This is the choice that the Tribal Council and many of the Tribe’s
members – and/or their conservators and guardians – ultimately did make the in the
late 1950s through the late 1960s.” In other words ARG states that the evictions
were a choice the Indian owners made – even if it was “a cold-hearted” choice.
This statement does not support the contention that the 1961 campaign was
initiated by the City.
ARG notes on page 78 that the BIA announced in January 1961 that the agency is
enforcing Section 14 lease limits to 30 days in an “effort to try to get the area
cleaned up.” This statement would indicate a BIA initiated campaign, not the city.
On page 77 ARG states that the “City forged ahead in May 21, 1961, occupants of
22 houses complained when the city directed power and telephone services be shut
off to their homes and a contractor began demolition.” However, ARG also notes
that “this was done at the request of a conservator … who served the occupants
with eviction notices.” In other words, ARG falsely represents that the city took
the lead when in fact it was the legal representative of the Indian owner.
Furthermore:
Neither the city nor Frank Bogert evicted any resident. All evictions were initiated
by the BIA, the rightful Indian owners or their representatives and were executed
for the purpose of eliminating Section 14 sub-standard conditions and to enable the
Indian owners to benefit from the value of their land.
Contrary to the city’s apology resolution which states, “By 1964 the city of Palm
Springs began executing a plan to demolish all existing property on Section 14,” in
1961 Ray W. Jackson, director of the Palm Springs office of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs “explained that the individual Indian allottees, court appointed guardians
and conservators, in concert with the Bureau, had determined that all residential
buildings must be removed . . . . . . to permit redevelopment for its highest and
best use.” (Quote from the Desert Sun July 14, 1961)
In the spring of 1961 the BIA issued eviction notices to all remaining 430 homes
and Ray W. Jackson stated that “the tentative date for completion of this removal
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
project is June 30, 1961; consequently time is of the essence.” (Quote from the
Desert Sun, July 14, 1961)
On page 80 ARG states that after a June 23 meeting Mayor Bogert “declared a six-
month moratorium on evictions ...” This falsely implies that the City initiated the
evictions. Rather newspaper accounts indicate that the city was not informed that
these notices had been sent. Thereafter, Mayor Frank Bogert brokered a six month
eviction moratorium with the BIA (which for most homes became a four year
moratorium). Because of this residents still living in Section 14 in 1965 had able
to stay at least four more years after the first 1961 eviction notices. In other words
the eviction notices issued by the land owners in 1965-66 were the “second”
eviction notices given to the 112 remaining occupied homes.
The above said we should also point out, as we did previously did in the document
”The Exoneration of Frank Bogert” (November 2024) the ARG study and
exonerates Frank Bogert from past allegations made by the City, invalidates the
City’s justification for removing the Bogert statue and confirms contemporary
accounts of his “tireless” efforts to help Section 14 residents.
We appreciate there will now be a process to correct the record in regard to the
major errors in the ARG report and the many other city initiated, reports,
documents and other city-generated documents in relation to Section 14 and Frank
Bogert.
Norm King and Doug Evans
Friends of Frank Bogert
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U
From:David A Vignolo
To:City Clerk
Cc:"Bill Mitchell"
Subject:Public Comments for Consent Calendar Item #1 (U) - Agenda for City Council Meeting of January 9, 2025
Date:Wednesday, January 8, 2025 11:16:14 AM
NOTICE: This message originated outside of The City of Palm Springs -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments
unless you are sure the content is safe.
Dear Mayor deHarte, Mayor pro tem Soto, and Councilmembers Bernstein, Garner and
Ready:
We respectfully request that you reject Staff’s recommendation to approve Amendment 1
To Agreement 24s123 with the Architectural Resources Group, Inc (ARG) for a peer review
of the Section 14 Historical Context Study which ARG completed. Considering the recent
settlement with the Section 14 survivors, this seems unnecessary in our opinion. If, as has
been alleged by a local historian that there were some minor inaccuracies in the report and
that a peer review was not conducted, then we feel it is incumbent on ARG to fix the report
at their own expense. ARG should meet with people in the community that have historical
context and give them an opportunity to provide feedback and documentation to
substantiate any minor inaccuracies.
As much as we all would like to have as accurate a report as possible, to award ARG an
additional $32,500 seems to be a waste of taxpayer funds. If there are inaccuracies, ARG
essentially failed to perform. The City should not approve an additional expenditure of
funds for a peer review in an amount not to exceed $32,500 and should not revise the
agreement amount of $107,490 to pay for a peer review and to finalize the Section 14
Historical Context Study. What assurances does the City have that ARG will get it right
this time and that an updated report will still not have “minor inaccuracies?”
Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to hearing back from each of you.
Regards,
David A. Vignolo and Bill Mitchell
2041 S Madrona Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92264-9220
(202) 409-5113 – David / (443) 545-4509 - Bill
01/09/2025
Public Comment
Item 1U