Our Top Five Stories of 2024, Updated! Part One
Updates on stories #5 - endangered tortoises and #4 - mixing church and state, as we count down to our #1 story of the year
Thanks to our dedicated readers, Desert Trumpet stories received more than 171,000 views in 2024—that’s more than twice the number in 2023! Below is part one of our three-part recap of articles that garnered more than 1,000 views each over the course of the last year. Coverage of controversial developments and their potential effect on the desert ecosystem and Twentynine Palms’ mixing of church and state were popular among our readers, while election and storm coverage led the list.
The coverage is grouped by topic with updates added on stories with new information.
Part Two was published on Monday, December 30.
Part Three was published on Tuesday, December 31.
#5 Our Disappearing Tortoises
These endangered desert icons continue to receive little attention at City Council or Planning Commission despite resident concerns. As was pointed out by Morongo Basin Conservation Association (MBCA) Board member Pat Flanagan at the December 17 Planning Commission meeting regarding acreage acquired by
the Reset Hotel:
This landscape is habitat for the California Desert Tortoise, listed as endangered by the California Department of Fish and Game Commission in April 2024. Extra care must be taken to comply with the listing and to honor the City’s General Plan Guiding Principle #2 to encourage high quality development compatible with the Joshua Tree National Park, and #4 to preserve the desert environment and its natural and cultural resources for future generations.
Flanagan’s letter added that “Above-ground utility poles will attract ravens to the Reset Hotel location, which could be detrimental to the local tortoise population.”
Yet Planning Commissioner Leslie Paahana was dismissive of requested protections on that project commenting, inaccurately, “Those [poles] were already there the whole time. Ravens or not, were always there.”
On the Ofland project, residents pointed out the presence of tortoises and have since started to gather photographic documentation. Luke Searcy, Ofland Director of Acquisitions, said a biological study was done and found no evidence of these species, but another study is required prior to any construction.
Residents are also gathering photo documentation of tortoises on the 29 Palms Solar Project property. As reported in our Development Recap, in a casual conversation, City Manager Stone James noted that there were “only” six or seven tortoises on the development site. We have requested drafts of the biological report, rumored to verify the presence of tortoises and burrowing owls, but have not yet received them.
Read more of our wildlife coverage
#4 Mixing Religion and City Business
The embedding of Christian beliefs in Twentynine Palms City Council meetings and favoring of conservative churches associated with the Ministerial Association, an organization of Christian churches led by Association President and City Council member McArthur Wright, continued in 2024. Invocations drawn from Association member churches and celebrating Christ and Christianity opened Council sessions, and Ministerial Association churches received free and discounted use of City facilities. Christian services were held in Luckie Park, at Freedom Plaza and behind the Community Services Building in Luckie Park as a part of Pioneer Days. Additionally, the City Council granted a substantial discount to Association member the Sanctuary Church for use of the Twentynine Palms Community Center for their 20th anniversary celebration.
The separation of church and state became a top story in 2023, after the use of the City seal and branding in promoting a Mayor’s Prayer breakfast appeared in City social media accounts. This illegal use of government resources prompted a cease and desist letter to the City from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The final Council meeting of 2023 ended with a prayer read from the dais.
Near the end of 2024, the Community Learning & Equipping Project Inc. (CLEP), the Sanctuary Church’s nonprofit arm, was chosen as the City’s partner in submitting an EPA Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change grant application for what was originally proposed by Women of Color 29 Global as a Climate Emergency Resiliency Center. The selection of CLEP took place without a request for proposals from other nonprofits and outside of the public eye. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) naming CLEP was slipped into the November 12 Consent Calendar just days prior to the November 21 grant deadline.
In defending the selection, City Manager Stone James misrepresented CLEP as “not a religiously affiliated 501c3,” despite CLEP’s three-person Board being affiliated with the Sanctuary Church and the staff report describing CLEP as “the non-profit branch of the Sanctuary Church.” Additionally, James said the grant deadline had been moved forward, which was also untrue. The City Council voted 5-0 to sign the MOU with CLEP.
The misrepresentations made by the City Manager to Council are repeated in the federal grant application, which was obtained Friday via a public information request. While we’ve not reviewed the grant in its entirety, we have read the project and budget narratives in which CLEP is represented as currently providing “education, counseling and food distribution services to the community” and as “the secular arm of the Faith in the Word Christian Church.” This is not the relationship that was stated in the staff report for the MOU. Also the grant narrative points to “a community engagement meeting on May 28, 2024” to gather feedback. This appears to refer to a City Council meeting that had a discussion and potential action item listed as “Consideration of Partnership with Women of Color Global (WOCG) in Connection with Proposed Grant Application.” There was no study session on the EPA Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant listed for that meeting.
The grant claims “The City is already partnering with the local community college, Copper Mountain College (CMC), and the Morongo Unified School District (MUSD)” and that “CMC and MUSD has [sic] committed to expanding educational offerings upon the completion of the Resilience Center.” Regarding CLEP, the narrative says that “CLEP will be responsible for conducting the community surveys and outreach as well as providing services and classes within the Resilience Center.” Yet Desert Trumpet has not found online evidence that CLEP has experience in community surveys and although they do regular food giveaways, their counseling services are described as “biblically based, Christ-centered,” and the classes are Bible Study programs.
We are unclear about the relationship between CLEP and the Faith in the Word Christian Church as all CLEP Board members are associated with the Sanctuary Church, CLEP is on the Sanctuary Church website, and the Bread of Life Christian University (BOLCUTS) Bible Study Program on the CLEP website is also on the Sanctuary Church website. We have not located a website for the Twentynine Palms branch of the Faith in the Word Christian Church. The nonprofit contact listed on the grant application is Terrance Sandifer, director of the Hope Center, a different organization from CLEP, which claims to be “a nonprofit organization recognized by the state of California.” We are still working to verify the Hope Center’s nonprofit status as we’ve not found an organization by that name operating in Twentynine Palms in the usual state and federal registry searches.
Read more of our church & state coverage
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