Envisioning Our City’s Future: Balancing Development With Maintenance of The Desert Ecosystem
Envisioning Our City’s Future: Balancing Development With Maintenance of The Desert Ecosystem
Paul Razo: So I have lived in the desert a relatively short time now, I suppose. But initially, my family is from a small unincorporated town down the 10, called Bloomington. My grandpa moved the family there after he came back from Vietnam. And as you may or may not know, Bloomington was once a very rural community. And certainly, when they first moved there, very, very rural. When I grew up, it still had a lot of nature around it. My grandpa would take me to the forest behind our neighborhood to learn how to shoot BB guns and everything. it was a real, idyllic place, but it was right off the highway so it did become very urbanized over time.
One part about all the properties that is similar to here is that they were designated rural living, which in the beginning was just a lot of diesel trucks being parked on people's land, renting out space to these trucks. But eventually, so close to the highway, these warehouses such as Amazon saw it and said, well, let's develop here. And you know, it starts off small warehouses down the street, they come in there in the field right behind your house. You say, "You can't do that". They'll say, "Look, we'll pay for the filters on the air conditioner. Don't go outside, but we'll pay for the filters on the air conditioner. So at least you can breathe indoors, it'll be fine." That sense of often now, you'll see the destruction of 177 homes to make way for new warehouses, destruction of my elementary school, of a Christmas tree farm, that used to service the whole county – it's all being gone now to make way for these warehouses.
Why did I bring this up in terms of the desert? Because whether it's a resort, hotel or warehouse, a big gray wall 30 feet from your back door is big gray wall. So we have to look at how we approach development. But we also have to look at how we're going to do it with solutions in mind. Because we do need extra jobs, we do need an economy, because we do need to become a self sustaining city.
Does that rely entirely on tourism? Maybe not. I mean, I love spending my tourist money just as much as anybody else, but we need to find better solutions. We need to find ways to boost sectors, retail sectors, all the empty buildings around town. Find ways to fill them with businesses that are giving people jobs and uplifting this community to where more than just tourists coming in from North Carolina are spending money, we're gonna have people from Yucca coming up to see what's going on in 29, and spending money. And those people aren't gonna stay at a resort, they're gonna stay in Yucca, and they're gonna come here shopping, and we're going to become a destination based on that.
But then there's also other things such as, do we really need solar farms in the middle of residential areas like we're gonna see possibly in District 2? No, but at the same time, I hear people say, "Why do we need it in the middle of a residential area? There's all this free land around us." What does that really help the ecosystem? Are we just making it nicer for our own view in our neighborhood, but we're still uprooting a bunch of tortoises down the road.
So I mean, there's a lot of ways that you have to look at this. I mean, there's people being uprooted. There's people who are having this whole environment that they've known for so many decades being trampled upon, but at the same time, how do we grow in a way that keeps the desert safe and keeps our economy growing? So that's, that's...I don't have a solution. But I just wanted to bring it because I want to pose the question to know that it's not a cut and dry though there are things that need to happen and there is developments that need to happen. We just have to find a way as a community to do it constructively and in a way that's equitable for everybody.
Cindy Bernard: Would anybody like to build on what Paul had to say in extending the conversation?
John Talley-Jones: Thank you. Hello. I'm John Talley-Jones. Indian Cove West, I guess. Or Joshua Tree East. Boy, this is an issue that's been vexing me since I moved here five years ago. What I think I'm seeing is that the city tends to be pretty reactive. An entity will come into the city and identify a project that they want to plop down somewhere and there's very little regard to the ecosystem when this sort of thing happens, which is very worrisome. Because if indeed a part of our economy is based on tourism, that tourism is tourism because of the National Park, right? So we have to be very careful about this. And I guess what I would like to see is when the general plan is revised, that the city becomes more proactive and not reactive. So I think that's my point.
Cindy Bernard: Does anyone want to build on John's comment?
Chris Clarke: I can add a couple of things real quickly. One is that the desert has historically been a place that people mine. People from outside mine for wealth. You know, it was gold and borax and tin and lead and all that kind of stuff before, now it's vacation time and sunlight and wind and lithium. And that's a mindset that is increasingly unpopular among people that live in the desert and more and more of us live here. Not because we have a prospect somewhere although a lot of us do. But because the quality of life is possible here and it's really fantastic and unmatched anywhere else in the country.
And we have a lot to say, we have a lot to say from the miners, the miners writ large, nothing against the people that go out with a pick and shovel. I've done it myself, it's fun. But people that see this only as a place to extract wealth from to take somewhere else.
You hear a lot about desert species having big problems, Joshua trees – 29 is not known for its Joshua trees as much. That's, that's really a Yucca thing. But the tortoise just got uplisted in the state of California. In 29, you can walk behind the Staters up that way a little bit, go 200 yards behind the Staters and find a tortoise. I mean, we have an absurd wealth of natural, amazing things. We have plants that are thousands of years old, in vacant lots catching windblown plastic grocery bags. We have tortoises, we have kit foxes, we have all of this amazing stuff that is still here, is still living, and is sensitive to a kind of unwise development that John mentioned.
And so not only do we have a lot of room to have wins, but we have a lot to defend. So it's just really important.
Janet Kodesh: My name is Janet Kodesh. I am a proud graduate of
TPHS, Class of 1973. Was gone for a while for many years, up in the Oakland area. And then a few years ago, I inherited the Desert Ace Hardware store. So I am now going back and forth, back and forth. And one of the reasons you know, when I inherited the store, the question was, do we keep it going? Or not? Keep it going or not. And the thing about a hardware store is it's an important part of the ecosystem. It supports…it's obvious -- So lots of nodding heads. People get it.
And the other piece of it, talking about ecosystem and thinking well, how do you develop, create development in a way that builds jobs at the same time? And retains wealth and community at the same time. So when I saw the fourth Dollar Store going up on Two Mile - Here! (points). Does Twentynine Palms really need four Dollar Stores? Yes, there needs to be a grocery store at that end of town. But couldn't it be developed in a different way? There's not a lot of wealth in this community overall, but couldn't it be developed in a way that's more community oriented?
So that's the question in my mind thinking about development, thinking about that stretch of Adobe between Two Mile and Downtown. There is property there…bringing in business that is, really…it gets back to that idea of being proactive instead of reactive. But I would really like to see businesses where the question is posed, how can this be...how can money stay in this town and not go out of town? That's really the bottom line. So that's my two cents.
Paul Razo: And also a great job on the hardware store. Because I agree. I mean, we’re friends with all the businesses downtown and the DBA, and everything going on down there. But like I said, my partner and I opened our business in the Historic Plaza, and we sort of see it as these two plazas as pillars. And it's just a matter of building our way across Adobe. And there are some great spots for lease right now. So if you know anybody, put them in there. But I mean we need art stores, we need places for people to buy shoes. I don't know, if you're a little boy where do you go buy cool school clothes? …I mean a Party Supply Store. I mean, there's so many businesses that we could have here that could be used on a daily basis. And it's unfortunate that they're not here yet. But I hope that they're there watching and they have the idea.
Mary Kay Sherry: I'm Mary Kay Sherry and I live in I guess, the Chocolate Drop area. And playing on what you said, I came to Twentynine Palms back in the 50s. And I moved here in 1971, with my Marine husband, and I’m still here, and I'm active with organizations in town and on base. And I'll tell these young spouses when they come here, when I first came to Twentynine Palms, you didn't have to leave town for anything. You had everything here, I used to work at the little hospital, which is now a church on Adobe Road, as a new nurse. So we had medical care, we had Benton Brothers, we had shoe stores, we had dress stores, we had Paint Pot. I mean, if I had a list of all the things that we had – we never had to leave town. And it was all mom and pop businesses. And we were a community that cared for each other, we supported each other. And we had a trophy shop, lots of markets, not supermarkets. But, you know, you could buy your meat -- I lived down by KB Mart for years. And, and we've lost all of that. Or a good portion of it.
We had music stores, we had culture – our kids – we had a high school band, a marching band. I just hate to see that we've lost so much.
And I won't even go into the solar farm and the disruption of the soil with this proposed solar plant. And the tortoises that I see, when they're in season, every day. Don't mean to get emotional, but they're my buddies. And I love them and everything, all our desert creatures. I mean, everything from the simple creosote plant. They're here. They've been here longer than we've been here. And they'll be here long after we leave. We have stewardship, we have to take care of that. And we can't be bullied into accepting a lot of the things that we're accepting now.
Lori Cosgriff: My name is Lori Cosgriff. And I...the emotion behind all of this. 40 years ago when we came, we stayed because this was the kind of place where we could see the wildlife. We lived in a city where people cared and people watched out for each other. And as my children grew up and ran wild on the streets, the neighbor called me before the sheriff came, so I appreciated that.
About 20 years ago, a high school teacher told my daughter when she came back from college, “Why would you come back to Twentynine Palms?” And thank God she had a litany of reasons to stay. But I think that that's where the future is. We have to watch that there's something for our children to come back to. We have to applaud the young people who are building businesses, and have come back and are staying in Twentynine Palms and are bringing their young people here.
It's a much different world than it was 40 years ago. And this community is definitely different than it was 40 years ago, or in 1974 when we first came. But it is still a good place and everybody's hearts are in the right place. And I think that talks like this, the opinions of everybody, the emotion behind the words, I think that these emotions need to be felt by our city council. And I think that the people that represent us do feel these emotions, and we have to appreciate them.
But I'm recently retired and the one thing that I saw as I was retiring from the school district is that young people who should be entering the workforce in Twentynine Palms are not seeing a huge example of work. And I think that that's something that we have to overcome if our community is going to continue to grow. They have to want to go to work, and they have to want to work here.
Supinda Siri: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Supinda Siri. I came to Twentynine Palms, because I actually did go on to the city's website and I love the mission. I love the diversity. I am also a fellow New Yorker, as was Carrie, and when I ran for college board, I was at the farmers market every weekend, and I fell in love with everyone that I spoke with, regardless of their political affiliation. And I teach yoga at Twentynine Palms Inn and the tourists that come and take the classes – they're interested in knowing and learning about our city and what do the locals do? You hang out and it's June and it's been over 100. It's not tourist season, but we're all still here. And I think it's important that we realize that, sure, we might have a tourist economy but we also have to take care of our people. And I hope that the city – the citizens and business owners – everybody keeps that in mind that we're still here when the tourists leave. So if businesses can be conscious of the fact that the people that are going to keep coming, are the folks that live here. Those are the ones that support me as in what I do, so thank you.
Sara Lyons: I don't know, I mean, I feel like we’ve kind of moved away from the conversation on the ecosystem. So this is more piggybacking on what has been spoken of already, and not so much on the desert ecosystem. I hope that's okay. But I just wanted to kind of reiterate, I agree with what both of you have just spoken about. Oh, I'm Sara Lyons. I own Scorpion Lollipop. I'm also the Secretary of Rediscover 29. And like Paul, I'm on the Public Arts Advisory Committee.
I have lived here for two years, my business has been open for one and a half. So this is my second summer as a business owner in Twentynine Palms. It's better than it was last year, but it is still bad. And so to kind of follow what Supinda spoke on, and what I have heard, not only from just this week to this afternoon. When I do get members of the community that have been living in Twentynine Palms for many years to come in, I often hear this sentiment that people used to not have to leave 29, and that they could get everything that they wanted here.
And I think this kind of ties into what Kimberly and what Rhonda said about how we are going to attract future community members, teachers, creatives, people that are going to build businesses here that can grow – we need to have that consistent support. These businesses, like you said – an art supply store, a shoe store, a party supply store – that we need in this community, unfortunately, we're not going to come unless we continue to have that consistent support from our community members. We are fortunate that we get more community members patronizing our businesses, than for example, the businesses in Joshua Tree. But still, I see less locals coming out consistently than I would like to. A lot of the people that I hear these sentiments about that you used to be able to get everything you wanted in town, those are the same people that come into my business that's been open for a year and a half and they say I didn't know any of these stores were here.
So I think what I'm getting at is that I understand we are not a wealthy community financially, but I think we are really wealthy IN community. And I have lived in a lot of much larger places than 29. And I have never felt so welcomed immediately, and so encouraged to be an engaged part of the community. But I think what will continue to attract new businesses and new entrepreneurs is that continued community support and we really need our community members to patronize our local businesses, and to continue to patronize them. I know, I don't sell anything that anyone really needs. I need beer and wine but that's not a necessity! But we need to have the community support to show other businesses it's worth it to come here and to give us those things that we need. I think I'm probably going over so I'll stop. I don't know if that was anything. But I am optimistic about the community. But I do feel the more support we can have from our locals that are here, as you said, full time, the better it is and the better it's going to continue to be.
Mike Usher: Hello my name is Mike Usher. I own GRND SQRL and soon, Twentynine Palms Beer Company. I moved here when I was five, my proud alumni of Twentynine Palms High School, went to college and left for about 15 years and then I was also the teacher at the high school for seven years before opening GRND SQRL after the pandemic. I think one of the things that is difficult about the public perception of owning a business in 29 and the reality of owning businesses in 29 – Excuse me, is there water?– is that if there were no Amazon dollars coming into 29 Palms, we could probably sustain a lot more businesses.
And I think that more than anything, the way that I see it in the merge of all of these ideas, is being conscious of how you are spending your dollars. If there are things that you can buy in a local business that you would normally get on Amazon as a convenience, that's a choice that you're making, but it is also affecting the thing that you want to positively impact which is a growth in things and sustainability in 29. So just being a little bit aware of that because as a business owner, it is different and difficult to express how different the seasons are.
And I think that it is a bit of a misnomer to think that Twentynine Palms is only a tourist economy, because if you are going to be successful here, you have to have local support and it has to be for the duration of 12 months, right? The thing that I have learned or at least in my personal experience, the locals keep your bills paid for the entire year. And when the tourists are here, that's when you make your profits. And I think that finding that balance between having enough businesses to provide what the community wants and needs, and also having that same buy-in from the community that like we are going to support these things and be conscious of these little ways that we can be spending our dollars in local businesses versus Amazon or these other things. And that's how we actually find some way that we can have sustained development and business increases, because we have a lot of momentum right now. Right? I think that that's clear.
Even in the last three years, since we opened up GRND SQRL…like Twentynine Palms has never been cool in my entire life. Right? I have been a big lover of Twentynine Palms my entire life. The people, that community, has always been consistent and has been something that when you get here you figure it out, but it was never cool, right? And now all of a sudden, we're cool. We have some momentum.
We have a lot of new ideas and young people who are putting their money where their mouth is as far as trying to do some actual development, because that's the other part of this conversation that everyone is underestimating is the actual cost to redo some of these local buildings to code and all of the things that have to happen to make a new restaurant or a new concept that hasn't been done before. It's a lot and it's not, you know, the discount in local housing has also permeated into the local business economy too. So all of that stuff is more expensive.
But I'm rambling now, but my point being, I think we all want the same things. And we all need to just be more open and communicative about how your dollars matter, especially during the summer months. And then new and prospective businesses should realize more that you need to pitch to locals and then have an idea that also accommodates tourists.
Chris Clarke: And you're not gonna find chicken sandwiches on Amazon anywhere near…
Not Identified: I don't know if this goes at this meeting but one of my main concerns would be to try to get the kill shelter to be a no kill shelter. And get this city to get more money to that because that's actually killing animals. So we're worried about tortoises and all those other things everyone agrees but I wonder if everyone knows that animals are being killed in the shelter wherever it is right around here. And I love doing things to help in that front and I like to do some fundraisers for them but it would feel even better if the city with alot more money towards turning that into a no kill shelter. Sorry if this doesn't go with this meeting.
Kimberly ZZYZX: Kimberly ZZYZX again and I promise I won't hog the time. I appreciate it – so much of what everyone has said and to go back a little bit to the conservation comments earlier. You know, one of the first lines of defense our community has against inappropriate development are the folks at the building and the land use departments and I've seen some minimal growth in their staff in the time since I moved here in 2016. But we all as business owners know what it's like to have 55 different hats and to have to learn all of the things about getting things up to code and how to fund that renovation or how to do it yourself if you can't afford it.
But when we're talking about making sure that new development is keeping in mind things like native tortoise habitat and other concerns that we have, the first people who are in a place to notice that are the folks who are getting the proposals, right? And so I wonder what it would look like to put more money into the staff of the city, if that's something we even can afford, to have more personnel who are also trained to be looking at development with that kind of an eye.
Because I remember working, or at least speaking, alongside Chris Clarke and many others against the Wonder Inn project when that was in front of the county, so a little different. But that development group was proposing things that were, you know, they would get a survey of the supposed tortoises on site, and they would do it completely in non compliance with some of the regulations around how to do that. So if you have enough funding and enough personnel to notice these things when they first come up, then that's sort of like the first line of defense. So I just wanted to throw it out there that the city employees are really overworked and doing the best they can but they could use a little support too.
Cindy Bernard: That's definitely true. But I would also just remind everybody that we have a city council election coming up for District 1 and District 2, and once those two people are elected, there's going to be two Planning Commission seats that will be appointed and that everybody is able to apply to be on the Planning Commission. The last time out, they got 15 applications for the three seats, but they reappointed the same three people. So you know, it's changed. It's changed because since then some people left and there are younger people on Planning.
But I just wanted to bring that up –– that we do have some power at the commission level when it comes to our Planning Commission, and encourage our Council people to appoint Planning Commissioners who actually take our planning codes seriously and enforce them. Or have creative solutions to help businesses come to our community who think about that.
My idea in putting a talk like this together comes a little bit from a general lack of vision that happens within our city. And so if it's not going to come from the Planning Commission, if it's not going to come from some of our City Council members, then it needs to come from us. And then we need to try to make that happen through our power as citizens of the community and our votes. So just wanted to append that. I can see that Octavius is going like this (waiving hand) (laughter).
Octavious Scott: I'm sorry, I'm back. I just wanted to address a couple things. Just because it was mentioned, I just want to talk about the reason why the city doesn't have a no kill shelter. Part of the reason why we don't have a no kill shelter, is because once we become a no kill shelter, we actually could turn away animals. Right now being a kill shelter, I guess for lack of a better word, we're obligated to take all animals. And so when you have a no kill shelter, there's actually a lot of animals that are being turned away. And those animals are in the street. They're often not put in the best situations. And so that's one of the reasons why that's not a thing that the city has moved forward.
I will say the city has prioritized spending more money on our animal shelter. And I just want to say I appreciate the staff over there at the animal shelter – they do tremendous work in our community, making sure that if we can save animal lives, that's our number one priority. And I just really appreciate the work they do. I will say that our staff over at the shelter has been successful in actually getting us a quarantine vehicle donated worth $250,000. And so that quarantine vehicle will be able to be used if there are some animals who are sick. We can put those animals in that quarantine shelter while they're not being exposed to the other animals. Because you know, this is not just killing animals, sometimes things are happening because of other circumstances. And so we want to mitigate those circumstances the best we can.
What I really want to talk about though, is I grew up in Palm Springs. I was born and raised in Palm Springs. And when I go down to Palm Springs, and I meet with a lot of people down there, they often ask me where I'm from. And I tell them I'm from Palm Springs – nine times out of ten they never believe me. And the reason why I'm bringing that up right now because we're talking about sustainability, right? I saw how Palm Springs basically blew up. It's no longer the village. It's no longer a small town like it used to be. And it's always had its ups and downs with tourism, it was up in the 50s that it went down and then in the 80s during spring break, it went up, then the 90s were dry. But they still built all this infrastructure up and had all these empty buildings and things like that.
And so we have to balance…I think it was Mike Usher that said that we have to balance our growth with, also, our culture. We want to maintain the culture of Twentynine Palms. I just saw that Palm Springs became an unaffordable city. And when I moved back to the desert from the Bay Area, I couldn't move. I mean, I don't think it was possible for me to really afford to live in Palm Springs, and that's why I moved to the city of Twentynine Palms. And I love the culture here. And I don't necessarily want that culture to change. We do need to figure out new revenue streams for our city. We do need to support our businesses, our existing businesses, and hopefully we can get some new businesses in the area as well. But we really need to be mindful about developers coming into the city and dictating what they want to do. The people in this room dictate what we want to do in the city.
Cindy Bernard: I just want to toss out an idea that is occurred to me and it doesn't really solve the business issue with regard to getting locals to come over the summer – and all of those challenges that exist with the summer. But I did notice in my research of the TBIDs when I was writing about the TBID, that there are some TBIDs that take a portion of their funds and use them to give grants to local businesses to help them through the summer. And maybe that is something that our TBID could also consider, so just tossing that out there. I'm not gonna get a response on that because we do have to move topics but I had to toss it out there. So Carrie, do you want to kick off our next topic?
Index
Next: Creating an Inclusive Community
Previous: Creating an Affordable and Sustainable City
Leave us your thoughts in the comments below. Please note that we do not allow anonymous comments. Please be sure your first and last name is on your profile prior to commenting. Anonymous comments will be deleted.