ON THE AGENDA: Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), August 14, 2025
Grant changes, social media contractors and a draft of the 2025-2026 marketing plan and budget to be discussed in an off-calendar meeting
Desert Trumpet doesn’t often publish agenda previews for TBID1 meetings, but this off-calendar session includes a dinger that our readers may want to be aware of: a revision of the TBID Sponsorship & Event Grants that removes the requirement that events take place in Twentynine Palms or its sphere of influence and opens the grants to programming occurring anywhere in the Morongo Basin.
The TBID will meet on Thursday, August 14 at 3:30 pm in Council Chambers at City Hall, 6136 Adobe Rd., Twentynine Palms. The TBID usually meets at 3:30 pm on the third Thursday of (roughly) every other month but has lately been off-calendar with the last meeting taking place on Wednesday, June 18 at 3 pm. Our recap of that meeting is here and the agenda for the August 14 meeting is here.
This will be the first meeting since a City Council subcommittee consisting of Mayor Steven Bilderain and Councilmember April Ramirez was formed and tasked with helping to “lead and support the City's Tourism Business Improvement District Board and Staff.”
Public Comment
You can comment on agenda items and issues important to you at every TBID meeting. Comments on agenda items take place during discussion of that item, while comments on non-agenda items take place at the beginning of the meeting. The Brown Act prevents TBID members from commenting on non-agenda items. To comment, just pick up a form at the entry desk, fill it out, and hand it to TBID Director Breanne Dusastre, who usually sits just in front of the dais on the left.
3 - Recommendation for Contractor Selection – Social Media Content Creation Services
Fifteen different contractors applied for a position that was summarized in the request for proposals as providing “visual content development services to support Visit 29 Palms’ tourism marketing strategy, with a focus on improving visual storytelling, showcasing sponsored events, and highlighting the destination’s character and experiences.”
The TBID Marketing subcommittee, consisting of Vice Chair Ashton Ramsey and Board member Ben Uyeda, combed through 250 pages of application materials and recommended San Diego resident Camrie Rounds (@camrietravels) as their first choice. Should Rounds not accept, Paul Martinez (@paulthemde) of Joshua Tree followed by Colorado Studio, run by current TBID contractor Auregan Falip, will be offered the position should the TBID Board concur with Ramsey and Uyeda’s recommendation.
4 - Updates to Visit 29 Palms TBID Sponsorship & Event Grant Program Guidelines
The TBID Sponsorship & Event Grant Program was established after the TBID was directed by City Council to spend $200,000 of its reserves to fund events promoting tourism. A formal grant process was designed from scratch, the first in the City. It consisted of an application, a review committee and application evaluation criteria.2 That process has remained in place without major revisions since the first round of grants in February 2024. This update is the first change in the guidelines since the grants were introduced.
Attached to the staff report are the current guidelines and a proposed revision. Unfortunately, the changes are hard to find, as the revision is not redlined as is common when alterations to City rules or code are proposed. Per the staff report the changes are:
expanding the event location definition to include Desert Heights, Indian Cove Campground & Amphitheater, the northern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park, and Wonder Valley—or, if held in another Morongo Basin community, requiring a proven track record of attracting significant visitor attendance to Twentynine Palms3
introducing a new scoring rubric for sponsorships and updating the grant rubric
defining a 45-day window for the Events Subcommittee to approve certain event changes
clarifying the Amendments & Exceptions policy.
We will focus on what is sure to be the most controversial of these changes — opening the grants up to applications for events taking place outside of Twentynine Palms or its sphere of influence (the sponsorships have always been open to events occurring elsewhere). The revision was likely prompted by the TBID violating its own guidelines in April 2025, granting $20,000 to Vacation Races' Joshua Tree Half Marathon, which takes place in Joshua Tree. At the time the location criteria read “Twentynine Palms sphere of influence, which includes the City of Twentynine Palms, Desert Heights, Indian Cove Campground and Amphitheater, the JTNP northern boundary, and Wonder Valley.”
A review of documents acquired via a public information request reveals that Marketing Director Dusastre did not tag the project as being located in Joshua Tree and the review committee either failed to recognize that the application did not meet the location guidelines, choose to ignore them or misunderstood the phrase “sphere of influence.” The committee consisted of Chair Rakesh Mehta, Vice Chair Ramsey, City Event Coordinator Scott Clinkscales, and residents Karen Ickes and Audrey Philpot. Only Philpot pointed out, “Wish this was held in 29 Palms—got to get ther (sic)staff out here to scout the area and find a suitable staging area” while proceeding to score the grant with 90 out of 100 points.
It’s unclear who authored the proposed changes, but it appears that Instead of ensuring that the guidelines are better understood, they’ve been updated to accommodate projects like the Vacation Races' Joshua Tree Half Marathon with the caveat that they have a “a proven track record of attracting significant visitor attendance to Twentynine Palms or demonstrate clear potential to generate a measurable tourism impact on the city.” The guidelines do not describe how this might be established.
In addition to opening the grants up to a larger region, the budget for the October 1, 2025 to September 20, 2026 fiscal year slashes funding by $50,000, from $200,000 to $150,000.
As far as we know, the TBID Sponsorship and Event Grant Program is unique in the Morongo Basin. In the last round, 17 applications were received that met the location guidelines, and one application was in Joshua Tree. Opening applications up to locations throughout the Morongo Basin will increase those numbers. Does the TBID have the infrastructure to process a larger number of applications? With reduced funding available and no cap on out-of-town locations, what effect might this change have on events taking place in Twentynine Palms and its sphere of influence?
5 - Visit 29 Palms TBID Proposed Tourism Marketing Plan & Budget Fiscal Year 2025-26
The presentation of the draft budget and marketing plan is the first step in the annual TBID reauthorization process and isn’t final until accepted by City Council in September. We did a detailed breakdown of the marketing plan for fiscal year 2024-2025, and will analyze the current plan after it is presented by Dusastre but before it goes to City Council.
We are also going to hold off on an in-depth review of the proposed budget as some figures appear to be misstated or absent, including missing reserve balances, reserve drawdowns misstated as revenue, a lack of actuals for 2023-2024 and confusing TOT actuals for 2024-2025.
All of this is what draft budgets are for, so we assume corrections are forthcoming. Maybe the new Council subcommittee can lend a hand?
Leave 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.
Feel free to share this article!
Help us reach our 2025 goal of $10,000 in subscriptions! Upgrade to a paid subscription for just $5 per month or $50 per year.
Would you care to donate more than $100? Our Paypal account is up and running!
The TBID, also referred to as Visit 29 Palms, is the only Tourism Business Improvement District in the Morongo Basin. TBIDs are funded with a 1.5% tax on accommodations that is paid by the guests. It is tasked with promoting tourism in Twentynine Palms, and specifically with encouraging visitor stays in local hotels, motels, STRs and RV Parks.
Disclosure — I suggested the grant process and was a member of the subcommittee that designed it.
The guidelines as proposed actually read “All events must take place within the City of Twentynine Palms or its immediate sphere of influence — including Desert Heights, Indian Cove Campground and Amphitheater, the northern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park, and Wonder Valley — or, if held in another Morongo Basin community, either have a proven track record of attracting significant visitor attendance to Twentynine Palms or demonstrate clear potential to generate a measurable tourism impact on the city.”