RECAP: Twentynine Palms City Council, March 10, 2026
Council gets a raise while solar, Flock, and internal tensions simmer
The Desert Trumpet prefers to cover City meetings in person, because the tone of the room is not conveyed via live streaming or video on demand. And the tone at last night’s meeting careened between annoyance, frustration and anger with a few lighthearted moments provided by the return of Joel Klink to Council chambers — it was a complicated evening. All Council members were present in addition to City Manager Stone James, Community Development Director Keith Gardner and City Clerk Cindy Villescas.
The City’s agenda packet is here; our agenda preview of the meeting is here; video footage of the meeting is here.
Pastor Amy Miranda of First Assembly of God Church kicked off the meeting with an invocation largely devoid of the religious proselytizing that has caused controversy at Yucca Valley Town Council meetings.
…May everyone’s words be constructive and may their decisions reflect your love and compassion. We pray for everyone’s ability to listen to one another with open hearts and minds, celebrating differences and working together in harmony. Let every decision made here today be rooted in honesty and integrity, ensuring the welfare of every citizen of 29 Palms. Help each person to have courage to stand for what is right. May we all be instruments of your peace, fostering goodwill and positive change within our city and lead to actions that uplift and support all members. May all of us here strive for justice, equality and equity and a greater good for everyone, especially those who are vulnerable and most at need…
AWARDS, PRESENTATIONS, APPOINTMENTS AND PROCLAMATIONS
Proclamations were made for Irish-American Heritage Month and Women’s History Month. Mayor Daniel Mintz presented certificates to Heather Drake and Mary Kay Sherry, respectively.
A surprise presentation by Building Inspector and Plan Reviewer Cameron Hepperly, which was not on the agenda, followed. He reported that the City issued 38 new residential building permits in 2025 — representing 53 total new housing units when multi-family projects are counted — the highest number in recent years and a notable jump from just 13 in 2024. He also noted that the department processed over 1,000 permits total in 2025, and flagged ADUs and alternative housing options as by far the most common topic residents raise at the Planning counter:
I know one of the big, big questions that we receive a lot is whether or not we have stock plans that are approved that people can use for ADUs. Currently we don’t. But that is a big concern.
Hepperly reiterated the need for stock plans when Mayor Pro Tem Scott asked what was driving the housing boom. After crediting the city’s growing appeal as a destination, he zeroed in on a specific gap with regard to ADUs:
I think a big thing would be ADU plans…. And so anything we can do to provide easier, cheaper housing to the residents, I think that’s great.
Hepperly appeared to be unaware that City Manager Stone James and Community Development Director Gardner had announced an ADU stock plan program at the October 14, 2025, City Council meeting, and that as of January 2026, City staff and consultants were actively developing a set of pre-approved, architect-vetted plans. Whether the program has stalled or is still in progress was not addressed. State law already requires cities to make pre-approved ADU plans available.
COUNCIL COMMENTS AND REPORTS OF MEETINGS ATTENDED
This used to be the least eventful section of a Council meeting and consisted of lists of meetings and birthday wishes. However, since Councilmember April Ramirez joined the dais, Council Comments and Meetings Attended has been used to make unsupported accusations and undermine fellow Councilmembers.
At this meeting Ramirez said the following, intentionally leaving out Mayor Pro Tem Octavious Scott, the most frequent target of her attacks:
With March as Women’s History Month, I’d like to take a moment to recognize the incredible women that are leading our homes, our communities and our government. Your voice matters, your strength inspires and your future is brighter because of you. I would also like to extend a sincere thank you to City Manager, Dr. Stone James, Mayor Mintz, Councilmember Wright and Councilmember Bilderain for their guidance and for sharing their knowledge and experience. Your leadership has helped ensure that City Hall and the dais remain a place where women know that they are welcome, respected and encouraged to serve.
When his turn to speak came around, Scott clarified:
I also want to just say I appreciate all the women of our community too, as well, for Women’s History month. I did participate in a fundraiser by Women of Color Global at the Freedom Plaza, there was a “Night in Harlem” murder [mystery] history dinner. It was well attended.
Being the sole woman on Council only makes Ramirez’s behavior more problematic, presenting a poor model for those who may follow her — and it has persisted under two mayors. At the August 25 Council meeting, Ramirez went after Scott twice, once for an unsubstantiated Brown Act violation, and again because she believed he had a conflict of interest with the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition (CVHC). It didn’t appear that she’d spoken with the City Attorney prior to airing either allegation in public and both proved baseless.
Free speech on the dais is important, but who is served when the privilege of being a Councilmember is used as a cudgel during comments?
CONSENT CALENDAR
The Consent Calendar consisted of the warrant register, meeting minutes and a reminder on septic maintenance. All were passed without discussion.
DISCUSSION AND POTENTIAL ACTION ITEMS: Councilmember pay discussion highlights a generational split
City Manager Stone James framed the salary discussion with a presentation on state guidelines and a regional comparison showing Twentynine Palms Councilmembers earning $465 a month against a regional average of $975. He walked through three mechanisms the state allows for increasing council pay:
a time-based formula (which would yield $1,008)
a population-based cap (which yields $950 for cities under 35,000 residents, and was staff’s recommendation)
and Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment (which he and the city attorney felt was impractical given how long the salary had gone unchanged).
He also noted that any increase approved that night would not take effect until December 2026 after the election.
James put the Council’s time commitment in perspective:
Your time up here during these meetings is actually the smallest amount of time that you spend as a Council. Really the big time commitment that the Council has is during your weekends, during the evenings, maybe taking phone calls during the day. It’s not two or three hours twice a month. It’s substantially more, especially if there’s committees, if there’s different causes that you’re working for.
Public comment was also in favor of the increase with a letter from George Mulopulos being read into the record and Scott Curry and ex Mayor and Councilmember Joel Klink speaking in person. Klink, who had suggested the increase in October 2024, opened with humor:
I don't think you guys need to raise it at all, just kidding…
When I did this in 2024... that was like 24 years of $465 a month for the Council Members. Looking now with the way things are going, the cost of gas — you guys do a lot of traveling, just in the area right here, and you don't get paid for that... The gas is now going to be expensive, and I think the City of Twentynine Palms residents would say $950 is a good amount, so I hope that's what you guys come up with.
The Council discussion that followed public comment revealed a telling generational and experiential divide. Councilmembers Bilderain, Wright, and Mintz — all multi-term Council veterans — framed the question almost entirely in terms of their own discomfort. Bilderain said he felt bad "trying to get a pay raise when we're trying to raise taxes at the same time." Wright said he'd been "wrestling with this," noting that like Bilderain, he didn't know council members got paid when he first ran, and wasn't in it for the money. Mintz was brief: "I'm going to tell you now I won't vote for 950. I don't do this, obviously, for the money either."
What none of the three addressed was the harder question: who can afford to serve on a city council paying $465 a month? Only the two younger first-term members addressed that issue. Mayor Pro Tem Scott noted that $465 was "just a little low" and that staff members receive cost-of-living raises — why shouldn't Council?
Councilmember Ramirez, who made the first motion, was the most direct, thanking Klink for raising the issue:
I'm a firm believer that leaders eat last, and that's the best way to lead. And so I just want to take the time to thank Mayor Pro Tem Klink for even bringing this up as he was exiting, because it shows a lot about his leadership style.
She then calculated her motion based on real household costs:
I'm going to make a motion to increase the salaries to $825... It goes back to some amount that I did in my head based off of gas expenses, mileage, sometimes for me childcare — my husband's in the military, he's not always here. Something to make it balance out a little bit.
City Manager James backed her up, noting that adjusted for CPI, $465 in 2002 is worth $832 to $850 today — meaning Councilmembers have effectively taken a pay cut every year for 24 years. Yet Mintz was unmoved. "That's too high for me."
But Ramirez’s motion for $825 failed 3-2, with only Ramirez and Scott voting yes.
Wright then moved $700, which passed 4-1, with Mintz the lone no vote. Both Wright and Mintz, it’s worth noting, ran unopposed in 2022 and are up for reelection in 2026.
The generational split is reflective of larger issues in Twentynine Palms, which has traditionally relied on a volunteer economy. Younger, more recent transplants to the community believe that most labor should be compensated. This shift is illustrated in the evolution of how artists are treated by the Public Arts Advisory Committee (PAAC), which in the past failed to pay artists for service to the City. Beginning in 2023, Committee members accepted the common refrain “artwork is real work” and insisted that artists be compensated. However, it should be noted that PAAC members themselves still serve without stipends.
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CITY MANAGERS REPORT
Highlights from Stone James’ report:
A five person Public Works crew laid 700 tons of asphalt over the past two days — on top of 350 tons the prior week — as part of a paving push that typically “puts down” 5,000 to 6,000 tons per season.
The next community cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, April 4, 7 a.m. to noon at Luckie Park Activity Center (ELPAC), with Burrtec accepting mattresses, yard waste, trash, e-waste, appliances, scrap metal and shredding — no tires, oil or paint.
The Split Rock bridge road closure remains in effect and is expected to reopen by the end of December 2026.
Mayor Pro Tem Scott asked James for an update on a community informational session about the Flock cameras. James said he would reach out to the Sheriff’s department.
FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS
Mayor Pro Tem Scott requested a discussion item on guidelines for use of City Hall meeting rooms by elected and appointed officials for official city business.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Lori Cosgriff of the 29 Palms Community Food Pantry came to thank the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for donating 31,079 pounds of non-perishable food — the largest single distribution the pantry has coordinated in its four years partnering with the church. The donation, part of a nationwide effort tied to America’s 250th anniversary, was shared with 33 groups across the Morongo Basin, from Morongo Valley to the Marine Corps Base. Cosgriff reserved special recognition for Susie Dick, who she said had kept the pressure on church leaders after being told no as late as February 13 — and received a yes two days later.
47 million Americans are facing hunger every day. I give sincere thanks to all 33 of the agencies in our basin who received food from this distribution. I thank them for the work that they do to alleviate hunger in our communities.
Also speaking was Scott Curry, who reported that Flying Doctors held a two-day clinic at Yucca Valley High School offering 122 dental patients, 57 vision, 36 hearing, 43 haircuts, 32 massage therapy sessions, 56 EKGs and 12 vaccinations, with roughly 110 of the 150 volunteers being students from Twentynine Palms and Yucca Valley. Looking ahead, he asked the council for $25,000 to purchase five traveling dental chairs, noting that Flying Doctors currently rents them and that some physicians couldn't fly in that weekend due to high winds.
What was new this meeting were speakers connecting their opposition to Flock cameras to the broader national political moment in direct terms. Booker Harrap made the most detailed case, opening with a methodical recitation of ICE enforcement patterns — rescinded protections for sensitive locations, warrantless entries into homes, a 2,450% surge in detainees with no criminal convictions, at least 170 U.S. citizens detained — before connecting that record directly to the risks of a city-maintained license plate database:
Do we honestly feel secure with this data, considering the facts just stated? I’ll remind you that the Supreme Court held in Carpenter v. United States that long-term location tracking is a search requiring a warrant. Flock does exactly that — passively, continually tracking every person who drives these streets every day.
Others also used stark terms: Heather Drake and Heather H. each applied the word “fascist” to the current federal government — believed to be a first at a Twentynine Palms City Council meeting. Drake called out the contradiction of elected officials who "claim to care about the troops" while remaining silent as service members were sent, in her words, as "pawns and disposable cannon fodder" into what she described as an illegal war with Iran that Congress never approved. Both Drake and “H” framed the Flock camera contract as part of a broader pattern connecting surveillance technology, billionaire tech executives, and the concentration of federal power.
Planning Commissioner Alex Garcia introduced himself as a concerned citizen before speaking on Flock cameras and the solar project — at which point Councilmember Wright interrupted, “Yeah, I’m not sure if you can speak.”
Appointed officials have limits on giving public comment on items that may come before their body. As City Attorney Patrick Muñoz made clear at a May 19, 2025 closed session — when Planning Commissioner Jim Krushat attempted general public comment regarding campground zoning: “You’re on the Planning Commission,” Muñoz told Krushat that day. “You don’t get that benefit of being able to switch hats.”
With the solar project scheduled for a Council hearing on March 23, Garcia’s comment on that item was out of bounds regardless of how he introduced himself. Garcia noted the project was already “out of our hands,” having been referred to Council by the Planning Commission, but Wright was unequivocal: “You’re still on the Planning Commission.” Garcia apologized and confined his remaining remarks to Flock, adding to the list of opponents to the cameras.
Opposition speakers continued to make their case, focusing on health risks from mass grading, threats to desert tortoise habitat, E-Group's lack of a completed project anywhere in the United States1, and the validity of the company's AB 205 threat given the project's 38 megawatt AC capacity.
Elliot Balsley, the final speaker, delivered what may have been the evening's most consequential public comment, reading a letter from Eric Knight at the California Energy Commission confirming that the 50 megawatt threshold in AB 205 refers to AC capacity — meaning E-Group's 38 megawatt AC project does not qualify for the state override the developer has been threatening. The Desert Trumpet, which had received the letter prior to the meeting, reported it as breaking news on March 11.
The meeting was adjourned to Monday, March 23 — moved from the regular Tuesday date — when the E-Group solar project is scheduled for a hearing.
This article was written with AI assistance.
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Correction made 3/14, E Group has completed two projects, one in Romania and one in Ukraine.