District 2 Candidates Respond to Questions on z107.7

A subscriber only special: Twentynine Palms City Council candidates discuss storm response, short term rentals, sewer and infrastructure

Sep 10, 2024

District 2 candidates Jim Krushat, April Ramirez and Paul Razo

On Friday, September 6, the District 2 City Council Candidates, Jim Krushat, April Ramirez and Paul Razo, participated in a question and answer session with the z107.7 Up Close Show host and station co-owner Gary Daigneault. Questions ranged from “Tell us a little bit about yourself” and “Why are you running” to inquiries about the recent storm response, STRs, sewer, arts and culture development and top priorities.

Thanks to z107.7 for providing the community service of broadcasting this first meeting of the District 2 candidates. We are publishing a few of the candidates’ answers as a service to Twentynine Palms residents and our subscribers.

Heading into the Desert Trumpet live, in-person forum on Saturday, September 14, we encourage our readers to consider the candidates’ responses to z107.7 when you formulate your own questions. You will have two opportunities to submit questions — by email to editor@deserttrumpet.org by Friday, September 13 and from 3:00 to 3:30pm on Saturday, September 14. Please read our guidelines prior to submitting your questions.

We’re going to dive into selected issues by publishing six of the approximately 15 questions posed on the Up Close show. Below are the candidates’ complete answers to z107.7’s questions on storm response, short term rentals, sewer, priorities, and infrastructure. We recommend listening to the entire Up Close podcast since these questions are just a small portion of the entire show.

Although listener questions were solicited by the station, only one of the questions asked was attributed to a listener. Most of the questions, according to Daigneault, were written by Daigneault working with reporter Heather Clisby. Questions and answers are in the order asked and given. Response length varies as answers weren’t timed.

After each set of answers we’ve added a subscriber reaction poll which will be active for 24 hours from the time of this article’s publication.

THE Z107.7 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

STORM RESPONSE
Gary Daigneault: The district you are running for was hit the hardest by recent storms. Some residents feel the City didn't do enough with recovery and do enough with preparation. How would you implement prevention strategies, knowing how vulnerable the area is to those weather conditions? How would you grade the City’s response?

April Ramirez: Actually, my home was hit pretty hard. We lost, I want to say, a good quarter of our roof, and we were flooded. So I think we could sit here and we could point the finger, and point blame, and say, you know, this should have been done, or that should have been done, but it's…where are we? Now, you know what some people have said, “This is the worst storm that they've ever seen, as long as they've been here.” And so I think realizing that the City did the best that they could with what they had at the time, whether that's notice, whether that's resources, but to really understand, especially with my connections at a county, state and federal level, that flood control actually comes from the county.

So I think that what I would do is, day one, is automatically, instead of focusing and using our resources on putting out fires, I think we need a fire prevention plan in so that we are being more effective. Should this happen again. So one of the things that I actually am in the process of doing right now is reaching out to flood control and the people that I know, could probably help us get that under wraps before the monsoon season. So starting day one, I would make that a priority.

On the City response, Ramirez responded, “I'd say that everyone did a good job.”

Paul Razo: I think prevention is the big statement there, because we know that this happens. We know that we have a monsoon season. I think we just have to start getting ahead of it and letting everyone know ahead of time. “Guys, it's coming. Get your sandbags!” Let's get Rubicon in here ahead of time and show them how to set up those sandbags and other solutions. We know the roads that flood, let's have detours in place beforehand, at the beginning of the season, in case they do happen.

And we also just need better outreach and ways to give information to our citizens. You know, when I was out there collecting signatures, it was a lot of our older members of 29 Palms that were at home, and they were wondering, “Well, what is the City doing?” I told them, “Well, the City has this going on at the Senior Center. They recently had Rubicon in,” and they're like, “Well, I'm not on Facebook. How am I supposed to know that?” You know?

So it comes down to reaching these people and making sure that they're aware of the resources that are even available. A lot of that goes back to traditional media. What we're doing here, newspapers and also just if there's a way that we could, may be an extravagant idea, but appoint some block captains around our district that people could turn to and say, “what are the resources here?” But yeah, it's really just we have to get ahead of the problem.

On the City response, Razo said, “I was at City Hall a lot during that time, and it was, it was a scramble, maybe, maybe you don't agree with what they did, but I promise you, they were doing the best with what they had. And letter grade, I'll give it a B.”

Jim Krushat: I think one of the first things I would do is go back and look at our emergency response plans and kind of do an after action. What did we do? Well, what did we not do? Well? In the long term, I know that we also have to do a reevaluation of our floodplain plan. I don't think that's been done since 1950s and that would be a long term to see where are the points that we're going to have the the issues.

I like Paul's statement, because as I was walking around getting signatures, you got a response like, oh, I don't think the City was responsive enough or fast enough, but I do know that they coordinated with themselves and the water district and other places that had equipment to get it out there as fast as they could. But you can always make improvements, and I think that's a good idea, and I think we should, and like I said, relook at those plans.

On the City response, Krushat commented, “I agree with Paul. I'd give them a B.”

SHORT TERM VACATION RENTALS

Listener question: In September, New York began embracing a law where Airbnbs can't rent their homes for less than 30 days unless the host stays in the house with the guest. Can you see the City of Twentynine Palms adopting such an ordinance? Why or why not?

(Note: AirBnB is a company that lists short term rentals, which are usually referred by the acronym STRs. The New York law applies to all STRs, not just to rentals listed by AirBnB).

April Ramirez: Wow, that's a that's a good one. Well, at first, I always say, “never say, never.” I think it could happen. I don't know what the future holds, but I think it brings a very good point on something that I feel very passionately about, is that I feel like one of the reasons why there is lack of affordable housing is because we do have an influx of Airbnbs. And, on my street alone, there's three: Airbnb, neighbor, neighbor, my house, neighbor, Airbnb, Airbnb.

Sometimes those guests can be a little bit less mindful of the fact that it is a residential area. And so I really just feel that if we take it back to the basics and make an Airbnb what it should be, originally, that's why New York is going in that direction. It’s because an Airbnb was a place that you could come into, and people live in it, and they'd give you a bed and breakfast, and then you're on your merry way.

We're running into this issue where now we have a lot of people that own properties in our city and will even come to our City Council meetings and tell us how to run our city, and they don't even live here. So that's just my two two cents on that.

Jim Krushat: Okay, first, I would answer, we're not New York City. And the thing is when people were doing VHRs, or short term rentals, VHRs — a vacation home — and that's the term I use — that was a popular avenue for most people when they took vacations. And the one thing that the City did do, which I appreciated, is they hit the ground running and got a regulation in place in 2015 that was long before I got on the planning commission.

What we did get worried about, and it was brought up, is during Covid, we had this influx, and a lot of people were starting vacation home rentals. And it looked like the City was going to be overcome. But a lot of us sit there and said, hey, you know what? Market forces are going to let it balance out and and they did. We didn't get over flooded with VHRs. In fact, I checked on the number of licenses we had, and they settled on a 500 (cap) which we've never reached, and we were at 407 on Monday, and now we're at 403, because a lot of people are turning them in. So I don't think we're going to get rushed.

What I do know is that for VHRs, for this city, that a lot of derelict homes got remodeled and brought back into the market. That's especially where I live. And I live in rural living. An advantage to the City are TOT taxes that we get from the VHRs is now close to a million. So that's money into our coffer. And I think that a lot of things that people said would happen, didn't happen. We didn't get a lot of complaints about VHRs being noisy. We got complaints about regular homes and long term rentals having problems. There were some frivolous complaints.

And my personal belief is, if you have a property and what you're doing is not illegal, unsafe, unhealthy, or unethical I think you should be allowed to do it. And to answer a question, I know that's out there, yes, I had a VHR license, but I also turned it in because I'm remodeling the house and doing something else with it.

To a follow up question on how VHRs affect the City, Krushat replied, “I think it was more positives than negatives with the money that was brought into it. I don't think it detracted from the communities and neighborhoods that people were living in. Some people just don't like the VHRs next to them. Okay, I understand that that's a personal choice, but I think it's been far more positive than negative.”

Paul Razo: I don't see that happening. I think it would really hurt that market a lot. I think that the VHR situation was really a double edged sword. And you know, to Jim's point, when he said that we weren't getting many complaints, I believe he means official complaints, like calling. I've had nights disturbed by loud music. Has that been by short term rentals? Yes, but it's also been from homeowners and long term renters. It's just something that happens. It's part of living in the community.

We do also have to appreciate the fact that a lot of the time, these homes are the nicer homes on their block. They're adding to beautification of the neighborhood, whether you like it or not. I think the problem really lies in, how is the money that they're bringing in — which is plentiful — how can it be better allocated to help the City. And I think that's the big question.

To a follow up question on how VHRs affect the City, Razo said, “But right now, there are noise complaints on one side, on a community level and a city level. And you know, as part of the TBID budget, it goes a lot into party planning. You know, that's sort of what it's gone to so far. And those are really the only two brackets I think, that we need to recognize, making sure they don't take over our neighborhoods, but also making sure that the money brought in is going back to our people in one way or another.”

SEWER
Gary Daigneault: Do you think the city of 29 palms needs a sewer system? If, no, why not? If, yes, how would you like to see it accomplished?

Jim Krushat: Here's what I do know – I know that if we have a sewer system that would be a catalyst to further development. The septic system that we have can only take us so far. A lot of developers don't come to the area because they have to build the package plant which handles the wastewater and sewage of their development. And it kind of restricts them from doing that.

However, if you bring in a sewer system, that's not cheap, and what we just ran into when we did get some funding for the sewer system from both state and federal monies. It was, originally 150 million1, and then it was brought down to 50 million. Now, with 50 million, you can't put a sewage system in, and I agree with the City Council's decision to put the money back, because you either built a sewage treatment plant or you built the piping. You either had a place where the sewage couldn't go to and it just wasn't a complete system.

If you ever did get a sewage system in the city, it's not going to be cheap. It's going to be expensive. And I think that takes some long term planning to that end. I think what the city did with teaming with the USGS and doing a really a big survey of our geohydrological and geochemical area on the plant, and that's going to take a couple of years to find out where are we at. Are we close to a nitrate pollution problem with our water table, or not?

Once we have that information, then we can do the planning and say, okay, if we bring a sewer system in, how are we going to do it? Where are we going to get the funding, and how do we do it so it's not so onerous to our citizens. I would sit there and say, with my background that I've had, I bet I could be on the council and help with that planning.

Paul Razo: Yes, we do, and it needs to be accomplished soon, because it's not getting any cheaper. The fact of the matter is, we're seeing more people coming to 29 Palms. We're seeing more development happening. And septic tanks just aren't sustainable long term, and they compose an inconvenience. My mother can tell you horror stories about my grandparent’s septic tank overflowing on my first birthday, how it ruined…

Daigneault interjects, “Happy Birthday!” (laughter)

Paul Razo: But no, I think we really need to focus on infrastructure, and we need to do it sooner rather than later.

April Ramirez: I was probably one of the more vocal people during the conversations that were going on at City Council, so I still stand by by everything that I said last year. We do need it. We do need a sewer system, but not only because the city needs it to run, but because there are state and federal mandates are going through that we're not going to have an option. Having a sewer system is going to be something that we have to do in the very near future, a couple years down the line.

But, I said I was never against it. I wanted to make sure that we're doing everything correctly. So when it comes to planning, picking a location, to make sure that… I was in favor of the USGS studies. I got up and I spoke, and I said, as someone with a background in public health, you have to make sure that this isn't going to have a long term effect on your community, because then it's kind of like, are you biting your nose to spite your face or, save one for the other, which was more important? So proper planning, proper studying, listening to the experts.

At one of the meetings, I believe there was a medical doctor who got up and said, Hey, you guys can't do this because x, y and z, and then we just kind of jumped over it and kept going. And I think that it's important to make sure that we have industry leading experts, and not just people that want to vote one way or another. So I would like to make sure that it is done efficiently and with proper planning from experts.

CANDIDATE PRIORITIES
Gary Daigneault: Besides law enforcement, what do you think are the top three priorities for the City of 29 Palms?

Jim Krushat: I think one of the things is continuing development of our infrastructure, and I think we need to address, and I'm going to call it making housing attainable – the affordable housing issue. I think bringing all developers that can bring in the types of multi family housing so that people have a place to rent. When you actually look at what does it take? What is affordable housing? And you look at the percentage of income, usually 30% so you're looking at affordable housing as being something around the 700 to 800 range, and we don't have anything in that range. So I think working on that issue.

And then, of course, I think we need to take care of – we've got a homeless issue, but it's not a big issue, but we have people out there that have mental health issues, and I think we need to address those. And I'm working on a committee that's putting together, ”What are the resources out there?”

April Ramirez: One of them is also infrastructure, especially in our district, you know, the whole city, but you know our district needs to make sure that we don't get hit that hard again.

The second part of it would be homelessness. And I think that the average person doesn't realize that homelessness – the homeless population that we have also affects our tourism, which affects the money that goes into our general fund. And so I actually recently identified a resource, and I brought it to the city, and I started that conversation for them to talk about what it is. And this nonprofit has contracts with San Bernardino probation court, APS, drug and alcohol court, County of San Bernardino behavioral health. And then they also have a contract with the state, and they help rehabilitate this population that's struggling because rehabilitation is more than just, “Here's a sleeping bag, here's some water. Have a nice day” a lot of the times. People don't even realize that there's behavioral health issues, there's addiction. You can find addiction in the DSM now, it's an actual diagnosis.

And then my third priority would be to keep our kids safe, and I intend on doing that. I'm doing a lot of research, and I have really good connections with the leadership teams and our surrounding cities on on what works for us. And looking into different projects that that we could implement either near or around schools – it's no surprise with even within my house, within a two mile radius, there is 28 registered sex offenders. Of those 28, 21 of them have convictions against children or minors. And I know that our Sheriff's Department does what they can, but there's only so many of them, so we have to come up with different ways to keep our kids safe. Because not only are there 20 registered sex offenders within a two mile radius of my home, there's also a high school, an elementary school and a park. So safety is one of the other things.

Paul Razo: I think development in every area, whether that means infrastructure, whether it means storefront facade improvements, whether it means even just resource centers for the youth or for our unhoused. I think the second one would be really diving into those resources. I don't think that we're putting information in the hands of people that need it. And even if we have those programs in place, the biggest part is getting it to people. I mean, you could talk to anybody – it's not enough to have a product. You need some marketing. You need to let people know about it.

The third one would be pivoting our focus on tourism away from how do we draw people here and turning it to how do we make this a nice place to visit. I think, unfortunately, the money just isn't being spent in a way that's conducive right now, and I think that we should be spending it better.

Gary Daigneault: What specific infrastructure does the City of Twentynine Palms need to have in place?

Paul Razo: We need a sewer system. We need a sense of place making for the city. We need a design…

Daigneault interjects, “Place making?”

Paul Razo: Yeah. So downtown, we need some way-finding. We need it so that you know where you are. We need to be pushing our history and what we offer as a community. We need a sense of design as a city. If we could put some facade improvement incentives in place that are based off of certain color palettes –– certain signage design – so that as a city, we look like we're all on the same level playing field and we're a nice place to visit.

April Ramirez: We need flood control. We need a sewage system. We need a domestic violence shelter, and we need a homeless shelter before we can do anything else. We have to have our basics taken care of.

Jim Krushat: Well, of course, long term, I would look at a sewage system. I think that that's going to have to go into our planning, I would also look into – we've talked about the fact that tourism is very popular in 29 Palms. In fact, that's one of our main tenets of what we bring people out for. I'd like to see some venues for both music and artworks that helps draw people out here and enjoy the desert.

And then I'd like to follow up on a thing talking about, you know, attaining housing and getting into housing, and this has to do with infrastructure, because I worked on the planning commission, and the planning commission did something really well. We were looking at our ordinances, and we had an ordinance that in single family housing, you had to build a garage. And we asked, “Somebody wants to put a roof over their family’s head, why are you making them do a garage if they're okay with with a carport?” And so we had that requirement removed in the city. City Council passed it. And what you've done when we do something like that, is you've lowered the cost of building a house by about $50,000 to $60,000 depending on the cost per square foot you want to use. And I think it's those kind of things that we can do. Look at, “Where can we make housing attainable?” And I think that's part of our infrastructure.

In the final question, Daigneault asked each candidate for their “why should we vote for you for District 2” pitch:

April Ramirez: My slogan is, “A change you can see in real time.” So I have learned that the one thing that is the most value to me is time. It's the one resource that it doesn't matter how much money you make, you're never going to get any minute back. So if you want things done, I believe in metrics, I believe in measurable outcomes, and I believe in timelines. And I believe that that's the only true way to attain a goal, because we can all sit here and talk a good talk and say, “Well, I've been doing this for 100 years, or I plan to do this in the next two years…” but it's a matter of who has a pragmatic approach and how are we going to get there.

Jim Krushat: I think what you'll get is somebody who has a really a good understanding of this community, and I think you have somebody who has the knowledge, education and background to really deal with the problems. I agree, the problems take planning and I think I can bring that, and I'm going to be here for the long run. I have a lot of experience already, and you definitely want somebody who can hit the ground running, and that's why I think you should vote for me.

Paul Razo: Well, I believe in putting 29 first. I believe in ample research. I believe in open discussion and collaboration. I believe in concise decisions. I believe in the potential of this town and our ability to get us where we need to go. I think that so many things are possible right now. We have such a great momentum, and it's not a matter of keeping the momentum –I think it's out of our control now. It's just a matter of keeping our hands on the wheel and making sure it doesn't go off the tracks. And making sure that we keep our values that we hold high on that same pedestal. That's why you should vote for Paul Razo.

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