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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/21/2009 - STAFF REPORTS - 00 Charles Sachs 335 W. Mariscal Road Palm Springs, CA 92262-290736 (760) 32"398 t charlessachs@earhtlink.net January 21, 2009 CITY COUNCIL MEETING Subject: Casa de Oro Illegal Tree Removal With relief we see a shift in the city's approach developing an eco friendly environment. Many advocates sadly have vacated the area, giving up, should now be much appreciated, instead of vilified, like Dana Stewart, Roxanne Ploss and others, as we now want Palm Springs an environmental cooler place. Even Edison in television ads advocates planning trees. But, at our January 12' board meeting at Casa de Oro, after four meetings had been cancelled in a year, in my opinion our contemptible, proven liar manager Cindy Anderson of Maryellen Hill and Associates, now pressured by my exposure of her fraudulent tree removal operations, mockingly presented original landscape plans she was directed to annotate by the city for further action. She said staff could not find them_ They found them months earlier after discovered she Illegally cut down, with board approval, using a unlicensed contractor over a year ago, 23 trees radically altering the landscape with heat, lack of shade, ruining the environment including a personal frontal assault on my home by her cutting it early before I called the city for help, told then no permit was needed. She knew then they were. All were illegally unnecessarily cut. She said she reviewed plans, one reason for their destruction. Her mocking a��zr/�zao 9 LffA2�E.S 5�c�s �va�e. Gtiw Across , the valley rivers'de county THE DESERT SUN I SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 2009 1 B5 Man accused of torturIng DWI V es ww stand trial City News Service competency. other's children and turned all MURRIETA — A.man who Based on reports from two against each other, starving tortured his three "wives" and mental health experts,Riverside them so that the children would most of his 19 children while County Superior Com-t Judge F steal food and blame one an- keeping them prisoner at his, Paul Dickersori determined other. Aguanga home is mentally Mrtliuznmed is sane and set a Pictures showed emaciated competent to be sentenced, a sentencing date of Feb. 13, children standing in buckets judge ruled Friday when he will also hear a defense they used as toilets because they Mama Musa Muhutnmed, motion for a new trial. were not allowed to use bath- 55, who claimed he had the The judge dcnied a defense rooms while being punished, rigl t to have multiple wives motion to continue the hcaiing F anaily members testified because he is Muslim, ;Forced regarding one of the mental about being hung upside down two of the women to live in health reports. from rafters and beaten. padlocked rooms and beat the The sentencing postpone- Two of the "wives" and their children with various �insti-u- ment was the latest icy a series of children were not allowed to use meats,including a boat oar and delays since Muhummed was bathrooriis at any time,because a water hose. arrested in 1999. Muhurnmed considered the He was convicted in June on His-case took nearly 10 years toiet a "throne" to which he seven coturts of torture that to come to trial because he filed alone had access. each carry a potential life sen- a flurry of motions, including Investigators found bags of tence, plus a dozen counts of one to remove the district at- human waste in the garage willful injury to a child, four torney on the case, who is now apartments; where the women counts of inflicting corporal in- a judge. and their children were forced juuy on a spouse and two Mulauiruned represented to live. counts of false imprisonment himself for a time and had an Muhurnmmed has bee; in He was to be sentenced in earlier competency hearing, count r jails for most of the past November, but a. judge had According to trial testimony, decade,but he has yet to serve a questions about his mental he made his "wives" beat each day in state prison. r�e��e�zeog 1�F�d�. ��✓rnP Good evening Mr. Mayor, Council Members and City Staff. My name is Paul Lewin and I am a resident of Palm Springs. I come tonight discuss the proposed County Jail at Whitewater, and I want to begin by thanking everyone for their leadership and efforts. It has been heartening to see a strong and responsive government. Let us remember that this is the first ever central jail project. A complex so huge that it will cover 140 acres and double the capacity of all of the county jails combined. No other jail in the county comes close to the scale of this Mega-jail. Nor are the other communities that host these small jails even remotely like our Coachella Valley. The City of Riverside rejected a modest increase of their existing jail by a mere 1 ,600 beds. Even though they are the county seat, a major crime and population center, their residents rejected it. If this was such a wonderful economic benefit, why isn't every city in the county lobbying to have this mega-jail built in their towns? Having heard two presentations now from the County, I must say that I am disturbed by distortions that are being promoted. The layouts and renderings in the Desert Sun are only for the first phase of the project, for up to 2,000 inmates. But the plan before us is for 7,200 inmates. It's ultimate size and scale will be so massive, we will all regret allowing it to be built here — especially since they are not our criminals. Any location in our valley is inappropriate, as it will indelibly link our valley with crime and criminality. Not only for the tourism impact, but also because of the disproportionate impact. We have 25% of the population, and under this plan we would have 70% of the criminal population. That's just not right. This mega-jail will be a magnet for criminals and their families. Hundreds and hundreds of parking spaces are planned for the jail — and this is just phase one. I want to point out that the plan is to take the sewage from these criminals process it, and then lay it out in sludge drying beds and infiltration basins. This is right next to the Whitewater creek, a major source of aquifer replenishment for our valley. Simply put, this facility can only threaten our water quality. Who will be housed here? A sample article from Saturday's desert sun will suffice. Man Accused of Torturing his three wives and 19 children. The article is too disturbing to repeat here, but it involves starvation and hanging children from rafters while beating them. The closing line is this: "Muhummed has been in county Jails for most of the past decade, but he has yet to serve a day in state prison." This story comes from Murrieta, Riverside County and I submit to you that this is exactly the kind of dangerous criminal that will be housed in this new Central Jail. Can anyone here really believe that bringing this element to our community will be good for us? That their family members and friends won't also move here? Another myth is about release of criminals. Release policies are administrative policies. They can change at any time. Moreover, they can be released in Indio or Banning, or even perhaps at our newly expanded Palm Springs courthouse? Why not? As budgets get squeezed, won't the county have to look for the most cost-effective way to deal with these thousands of criminals? Please keep up your good work, please look out for the safety and welfare of our valley. Please don't let us become the dumping ground for the criminals of the county. Thank you very much. Palm Springs Hospitality Association On November 18t , 2008, the Palm Springs Hospitality Association wrote a letter to both the Riverside County Supervisors and the Palm Springs City Council to express our concerns about the County's plan to locate a County Jail facility alongside Interstate 10 between the Morongo Casino and the Highway I I I exit. We were among the first business organizations to express concerns about the jail's potential impact on tourism here in the Valley, and have now been joined by a number of others, including the Palm Springs Economic Development Corporation, MainStreet—the downtown Palm Springs Merchants' Association, the Desert Gay 'Tourism Guild, and the Small Hotels of Palm Springs. We have also been joined by hoteliers throughout the valley. It is important to note at the very beginning that all these organizations certainly understand the need for the jail, and we are supportive of adding beds so that early releases can be reduced. Our specific issues are business- focused, and related to this particular location. They are as follows: 1. Location. Loading docks and laundries are necessary to our businesses, but we would never put them in our lobbies_ So with thirty other potential locations, several other"finalists," and more than 7,000 square miles of Riverside County owned land, it just seems to us that there MUST be some other location for this jail instead of in our Valley's Lobby. This location is the primary entry point for travelers driving into the Coachella Valley from points West. It is the literal "gateway" into our valley for the all-important "Drive Market" as well as for visitors arriving at regional Southern California airports. And to somehow believe that we can "bide" the fact that this very large and highly visible structure is a jail,just doesn't seem realistic to us. ev/;? r/z&o 9 Paoe 1 1/11109 Rest assured, people will know it's a jail. They may not know the first time they drive by it on the way into the Valley, but they'll certainly know by the time they leave. And if they do know, you might ask, so what? Well, several things... First, having a Jail at the gateway into our Valley will almost certainly create an association that will negatively impact the overall Palm Springs brand — a brand that all our cities have finally agreed to use as the banner for our regional advertising efforts. Imagine adding the word "jail" to the list of brand attributes associated with the Palm Springs Brand. Imagine what will happen when this facility eventually becomes known as the "Palm Springs Jail." After all, the Indio Jail isn't REALLY the Indio Jail. It's really a County Detention facility. But we all call it the Indio Jail. 2. Safety. We know from consurner research that safety, and the perception of safety, is a primary concern for travelers. We also know that the Palm Springs area is currently perceived as a"safe" destination. But what happens to that perception when we have a county jail located so prominently nearby? Well, the County says it should make everyone feel safer because locations that have jails have lower crime rates. But all the tourist sees is a jail. While the County can explain all the details about the jail and spend money educating local residents about why it's a good thing, we have no such opportunity to educate valley visitors. Nor do we think that is an appropriate conversation to have with people who are coming here to relax and unwind. When we talk about escaping to the Coachella Valley, we'd like to think of that as a good thing. We certainly don't want tourists worrying about escapees from the jail running around while they're here. raaa? 1i?1m9 3. Criminal Activity; both perceived and real. As with Safety, the jail's proximity may create a perception among tourists that there IS a great deal of criminal activity here in the valley—hence the need for this giant jail. We also worry that if the jail ever becomes a release facility, there could be a very real increase in criminal activity here in the valley. We do understand that the County does not currently plan to release inmates from this facility. But once the jail is built, it could become a release facility at any time. The County says not in the "Ibrseeable" future. But we all know how quickly situations can change, and we all know that once that building is in the ground, the County will use it as they see fit. 4. Size. Size is another area of concern for us. This is a very large facility with a very large footprint. No matter how its presence is "minimized," it will be hard to miss a 7,200 bed facility, and hard to miss any "support community" that fills in around it. Gauging the Financial Impact. As you know, the hospitality industry here in the valley works hard to make even slight gains in occupancy. We recently worked with the CVA and, with the help of all our City Governments, and the County, we were able to create a Business Improvement District that will hopefully enable the CVA to help us up our occupancy. So from our standpoint, introducing an element like this jail that would even have a slight chance of negatively impacting our occupancy and revenue seems ill-advised. Example One: Impact of Reduced Occupancy Let's assume the jail has a very minimal impact on valley-wide hotel occupancy— say 1%. To understand what that would mean financially, we went to Wheeler's —the market research company that focuses exclusively on the Coachella Valley. They say there are between 1 .5 million and 2 million hotel-based visitors who visit the Coachella Valley annually. They also report that the average spending per person per trip is S 1,080 (2007 numbers). That means that a naaa ; 1/?I/(IQ one percent drop in occupancy would result in between 15,000 and 20,000 less people visiting. Now, if we multiply those numbers by the average spending per person per trip, it means that a one percent drop in occupancy will cost the valley between $16.2 million and $21.6 million. These are HUGE numbers! And that's assuming only a 1% negative impact. What if it's worse? The economy is already having a dramatically negative impact on our local tourism business. Adding the jail will create yet another potentially negative situation for us that we believe we simply cannot afford. Example Two. Impact on Jobs The County says that building the jail in this location will result in a net gain of up to 1,400 jobs. But if our tourism businesses have to cut back by as little as ten percent, we could lose more jobs than we could gain. According to the State of California Employment Development Department, as of the beginning of 2008 there were 20,967 people employed in the Hotel/Amusement category in the Coachella Valley. Now obviously, there are other Categories that derive a portion of their revenue from tourism, but let's be conservative and ONLY consider the Hotel/Amusement category. If we lose just 10% of those jobs as a result of a drop in occupancy, we will end up losing around 2,100 jobs. We cannot predict the degree to which this jail location will adversely affect tourism. But tourism stakeholders throughout the valley believe there will be some impact. And we are not comforted by the County's assurances to the contrary. Because we know that even a slight impact— 1% - will be a HUGE impact. Ultimately, we would like to see the County consider another location for this project. We are disappointed that the County has flatly refused to /09 consider the potential negative impact on tourism, and disappointed that they do not intend to even engage in a dialogue with our Cities, our Business Community, and our citizens. The potential for loss is great, and needs to be given consideration. COURTESY NOTICE of e��M s n A+ry R, A C9gFOAN�P City of Palm Springs Department of Building & Safety 3200 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, PO BOX 2743, Palm Springs, CA 92263 Date of Issuance: January 13, 2009 - - -To: Dmm7K--Troupe — - - - - 69348 Woodside-Av. Cathedral City CA 92234-7900 We are sending you this Courtesy Notice to advise you that a building code violation has been determined to exist on the property described below. In order to prevent any further action by the City, it is necessary for you to contact me at our office within 15 days of this letter. I. The violations exist on the following property: Street Address: 360 W Racquet Club Rd. Palm Springs Ca. Legal Description: .42 ACRES M/L IN POR NE 1/4 OF SEC 3 T4S R4E APN: 504-140-055 II.A description of the conditions/violations that were found on Your property are listed below: Palm Springs Municipal Code Section 11.72.080 Zoning Ordinance Violation. Palm Springs Zoning Ordinance Section 93-19.00 Property Maintenance Standards III. The codes that pertain to the violations listed in Section I are: Same as above. These conditions must be corrected by January 30 2009 in the following manner: Renew permit and obtain all required inspections relative to obtaining a final inspection As the owner of the property at issue or as the individual or entity responsible for the violation,you are individually responsible for correcting the violation. If you have any questions you can reach me at (760) 323-8242 ext. 8725, Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thank you in advance for your compliance of ,2d/Zdd 9 rl�3l Rain Licon Building Inspector