RECAP: Twentynine Palms City Council, February 10, 2026
Council is told to "De-Flock" as surveillance camera safety concerns continue, local food banks see storage capacity increases with new fridges and freezers, 2026 election updates, and more.
Last Tuesday, the Twentynine Palms City Council held an hour-long meeting in which they approved grant funds and a purchasing contract to extend food storage capacity at local food banks, heard from citizens on Flock camera concerns, and recognized Black History Month. This was following a closed session with a topic of threats to public facilities, of which there were no closed session announcements to report.
Our agenda preview of the meeting is available here; video footage of the meeting is linked here.
AWARDS, PRESENTATIONS, APPOINTMENTS, AND PROCLAMATIONS
Proclamation Recognizing February 2026 as Black History Month
Melvin Brock of the Apostolic Lighthouse Assembly’s Hope Project in Twenytnine Palms accepted the proclamation recognizing February as Black History Month, which was read aloud by Mayor Daniel Mintz. Brock stated:
It is an honor to receive this Proclamation on behalf of all Black Americans who have served, especially here in the city of Twentynine Palms, and that it is just an honor for those who [are] representing us in our city council as well. So thank you very much.
City Clerk’s Department Update
Christina Benton, Deputy City Clerk, then provided an update on the City Clerk’s office, outlining its core responsibilities and sharing select statistics from 2025. Some of those responsibilities include: preparing City Council meeting agendas and packets, meeting minutes, updating and maintaining the City municipal code, and maintenance of city records. The City Clerk also administers elections with the goal of “ensuring transparent, compliant, and efficient legislative and administrative processes.”
The clerk’s office publishes all legally required City notices, ordinances, and resolutions, receives all subpoenas filed against the City, maintains the City website, prepares and processes City Council resolutions, as well as all public records requests and Freedom of Information Act submissions.
According to the presentation, in 2025, the Clerk’s office handled:
288 public records requests with an average completion time of 14.72 days per request
24 contracts and agreements
22 City Council resolutions
7 City ordinances
Benton concluded her presentation by reminding attendees that the November 2026 election is fast approaching, with three City Council seats up for election—Districts 3, 4, and 5 will be featured on the November 2026 ballot.
District 3 is currently served by Mayor Daniel Mintz, District 4 is served by Mayor Pro Tem Octavious Scott, and District 5 is served by McArthur Wright.
There is currently no term-limit policy in place for the City of Twentynine Palms with Daniel Mintz currently serving his fourth term, Wright serving his third term, and Scott serving his first term. No formal re-election seeking announcements have been made by any of the three serving council members.
Twentynine Palms previously had at-large council races where the top two candidates in an election race won. After a lawsuit threatened multiple San Bernardino County cities that hosted at-large elections, City Council districts were formed in accordance with the California Citizens Redistricting Commission and the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Benton said that historically, the candidate filing period at the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters (ROV) opens the second week of July through the second week of August. Those exact dates from the ROV are still pending.
CONSENT CALENDAR
Approved 5-0; consent calendar information is covered in our Agenda Preview.
COUNCIL COMMENTS AND REPORTS OF MEETINGS ATTENDED
Council members reported attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 29 Palms Community Food Pantry, which has now relocated to 73355 Sullivan Road. Councilmember April Ramirez reported attending a quarterly meeting for the Cal Cities Desert Mountain Region to discuss Senate Bill 131, which allocates funds to cities and counties from the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) grant program.
Mayor Pro Tem Octavious Scott attended a Black History Month event at the Glass Outhouse in Wonder Valley and also spoke with constituents on issues such as Flock cameras and homelessness. All council members thanked the City Clerk and Secretary for their hard work, which also includes maintaining the schedules for all five City Council members and the City Manager.
DISCUSSION AND POTENTIAL ACTION ITEMS
9. CalRecycle Local Assistance Grant Fund Expenditure and MOU for Food Recovery Organizations.
This item, presented by City Manager H. Stone James, involved approval of grant funds and a purchasing contract in compliance with a CalRecycle food waste and organic recycling program tied to Senate Bill 1383. After some heavy lobbying by City staff member Eli Marshall as well as John Davis of the Mojave Desert and Mountain Recycling Authority, who directly contacted the Director of CalRecycle regarding the City’s grant fund compliance, Local Assistance Grant funds were finally approved by CalRecycle at just under $75,000. Those funds will now be used to purchase refrigerators, freezers, and metal storage racks that are to be distributed among three food assistance programs in city limits. Those three organizations are:
The Hope Project at Sanctuary Church, which operates the nonprofit Community Learning Equipping Project (CLEP) nonprofit,
The 29 Palms Community Food Pantry, which operates out of First Assembly of God Church on Sullivan Road,
Reach Out Morongo Basin, which is based out of the Twentynine Palms Senior Center.
City Manager James noted that the equipment would remain as property of the City but would allow these organizations to utilize it.
Directors of all three projects were present at the meeting and were called to the podium by Councilmember April Ramirez to speak on the grant funds and the work they do locally.
Robin Schlosser, Director of Reach Out Morongo Basin, said their program received over 9,000 pounds of surplus food from Morongo Basin Unified School District in 2025.
We also, in collaboration with the 29 Palms Community Food Pantry and Find Food Bank, do a monthly distribution of 300 boxes, which, along with produce and cheese, adds up to an average of about 14,000 pounds of food a month we’re distributing to needy seniors. So these refrigeration units, and these freezer units are going to be absolutely life saving for us to be able to store items. Previously, when we would get things, we would have to be scrambling trying to figure out what we got, to find a place to get it immediately—because we don’t have any way to store it.
Piggybacking off Schlosser’s comment was Lori Cosgriff, chief operator of the 29 Palms Community Food Bank:
The important part is what we have to say “no” to. The school district will call and they’ll say, “We have 3,000 pounds worth of frozen something,” and I only have 40 cubic feet of freezer space. And so we have to say, ‘Well, I can take 40 boxes. That’s it.” They are throwing a lot away that we could take in, or we put it on the counter and we give it away as fast as we can and it reaches its shelf life and we are disposing of it. So these refrigerators and freezers will definitely increase what we are able to say “yes” to from the organizations that we’re taking recovered food from. It will definitely directly benefit the people that we are serving.
Melvin Brock of the Hope Project said their particular program serves no fewer than 200 families locally every Tuesday, in collaboration with Find Food Bank and the USDA, with demand increasing every week. Refrigeration would be a great asset:
A lot of times we’re rushing to make sure that we get enough food for them. And also storage—our biggest thing is the storage compartments that we have. We hate to have the food and then not be able to give it away because it’s spoiled or anything like that. So we give [to] over 1,300, 1,400 families in a month, every Tuesday.”
With a motion to approve posed by Wright and a second by Ramirez, the item was approved 5-0.
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FUTURE COUNCIL INITIATED ITEMS
While there were no new future council initiated agenda items, Councilmember Ramirez requested that a previously listed future agenda item be removed regarding a potential City partnership with the Boys & Girls Club:
I just think with the community members that I have that are leading the path on this, that they’re just going to try to go a different route.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
Council heard public comments from Peter Lang, Suzanne Lyons, LeeAnn Clarke, Gretchen Grunt, Heather Huguenor, Alexandra Akins, Heather Brock, Joseph Candelaria, Elliott Balsley, and Pauline Pisano.
Much of the public comment portion consisted of residents opposed to a solar farm project by E-Group PS Solar slated for Harmony Acres. Attendees also spoke out against the Flock camera surveillance program, which is used by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department at various intersections after Council approved the program back in December 2024.
Peter Lang spoke against the proposed solar farm project, using language in the project’s drafted environmental impact report as justification to reject the industrial-scale development:
The draft EIR states the aesthetic impacts are significant and unavoidable, and there’s no mitigation measures that reduce them to less than significant, and that the facility would be highly visible from key viewpoints, and would permanently degrade the visual character of the area. That’s the DEIR language—that alone is a reason to say no. This is also a direct threat to tourism and to the brand of 29 Palms. We are not an industrial zone. We are a desert town and a gateway experience. What happens to the visitor experience and the identity we built when the view becomes an industrial power facility instead of open desert? Once that character is lost, it’s gone forever.
Suzanne Lyons also spoke in opposition to the project, highlighting the proposed community benefits package in which the solar developers are offering the City $100,000 annually, dubbing it a bad deal and below the norm for current standards of this scope and size:
The cash payment that they are offering is way below the norm. It’s way below, apparently, the current standards. So we were offered $100,000 a year. That’s roughly $2,000 per megawatt per year, but apparently host community benchmarks mostly fall in the range of $5,500 to $7,000 per megawatt per year. So that would have been $275,000 to $350,000 annually. So we see that what we’re being offered is definitely not a good deal.
LeeAnn Clarke announced that in addition to food every Tuesday, the Hope Project also distributes free baby diapers and wipes every fourth Tuesday of the month from 5 to 6 pm. Mayor Mintz will be the keynote speaker at the Mayors Prayer Breakfast, Tuesday at 7 to 8:30 am at First Assembly of God Church in the Youth Activity Center on Sullivan Road.
Clarke announced that an emergency preparedness meeting will take place at 8 am March 19 via zoom, open to any participants, and to contact City Manager H. Stone James for details.
Gretchen Grunt spoke in opposition to the proposed solar farm:
29 Palms is extremely windy and mass grading on the scale disclosed in the DEIR—a volume of 50,000 dump trucks— this will create unacceptable long-term dust and health risks for nearby residents and community spaces we cherish and want to remain intact and beautiful.
Speaking against the Flock camera program were Grunt, Huguenor, Akins, and Brock. Grunt concluded her comment:
We’re living in a time where government trust has really diminished and the Flock cameras have proven themselves in many cities to not stick by their contract.
Heather Huguenor, who relayed her meeting notes after attending the previous Council meeting on January 27, said surveillance tech puts individuals in perpetual risk of infringement during fascist expansion. Huguenor also relayed concerns with the pledge of allegiance and opening meetings with prayer:
What did separation of church and state ever really mean anyway? It’s just another hypocrisy where words and actions have never aligned in this country, much like spending all of our money on death and surveillance technology while calling ourselves the freest people in the world.
Alexandra Akins cited concerns with the City Manager’s response to the Flock camera program:
From the notes provided from last week’s agenda, it sounds like there’s been a rather quick decision regarding our concerns, one that appears to have taken place without further investigation, stating that because [of] one court ruling in Virginia, the issue is settled. He also appears to not only be confident of the constitutionality of the surveillance dragnet here in 29 Palms, but goes on to say that there’s no security concern regarding immigration or other agencies being able to access this device as well. These are bold claims, considering that this device has not only many privacy related concerns and potential for rights violations, but increasingly bold when it’s considered that areas with Flock ALPRs have seen no consistent reduction in crime when long-term studies with large sample sizes are considered…
Akins bolstered her statement with a report on recent litigation, noting suspensions of the Flock program in California cities such as Mountain View and Santa Cruz:
Furthermore, there’s over a dozen cities here in California who are ending their contracts with Flock over concerns of out of state and federal agencies already having accessed their surveillance devices, a concern that we are told does not exist. In Mountain View, the city has turned off their cameras after discovering that out of state and federal agencies accessed surveillance systems without their knowledge or consent.
Heather Brock questioned why Flock cameras are not used to enforce and investigate erratic drivers during weekend protests on the corner of Adobe and Highway 62:
If we have these expensive Flock cameras right there on the corner of 62 and Adobe, why is there no one doing anything about the erratic driving every Saturday afternoon between 2 and 4 when we are peacefully protesting? There are people out there driving like maniacs about to cause problems just to intimidate us. Where’s the use of the Flock cameras to go after these individuals who are causing public safety problems when we’re just trying to voice our opinions and practice our constitutional rights?
Joseph Candelaria, Elliott Balsley, and Pauline Pisano also spoke in opposition to the Flock surveillance program. Pisano called upon the City to “De-Flock.”
Balsley read off a statement issued by Mountain View Police Chief Michael Canfield, adding that Flock’s recent terms of service update in December now paves way for the private tech company to sell and broker data and footage to third-party entities, such as insurance companies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or even healthcare providers, outside of law enforcement contracts.
Trust has to be earned. What has Flock done to earn your trust? From my view, they’ve already broken it several times.
CITY MANAGER UPDATE
City Manager James announced that the Split Rock Avenue Bridge Project will now commence after a 17-year approval process, with a road closure South of Bagley and north of Buena Vista between February 11 into December. James also announced upcoming construction upgrades at Luckie Park for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, which are being paid for with Community Development Block Grant funds.
The next Council meeting will take place February 27 at 6 pm.
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