RECAP: Twentynine Palms Planning Commission, May 19, 2026
The City offers a framework for updating its 14-year-old General Plan. We take a closer look at how the Brown Act requires the City to handle written public comments.
The May 19 Planning Commission meeting clocked in at just over 26 minutes, setting in motion an initiative that will shape Twentynine Palms for decades to come: the first steps toward updating the City’s general plan. In attendance were Commissioners Alex Garcia, Vice Chair Jim Krushat, and Chair Max Walker, with Leslie Paahana arriving a few minutes after the meeting started. Commissioner Jessica Cure was not present.
Relevant links:
Meeting agenda packet
Video of the first four minutes of the meeting. The study session on the general plan was not livestreamed.
Public Comment: Is the City in Violation of the Brown Act?
No members of the public came forward during the opening public comment period.
Posters on social media have reported that they have sent letters and emails to the Planning Commission (and City Council) that have not been read aloud or acknowledged on the dias during the meeting nor have they been mentioned in meeting minutes.1
City Council and Planning Commission meeting minutes have recently become less detailed about public comment: current minutes (2025–2026) list speakers’ names but omit the substance of their remarks, and written letters—while sometimes listed by name—are neither summarized nor acknowledged during meetings.
This is a change from past practice: 2023 minutes show that letters were read aloud at meetings and both spoken and written comments were summarized in the minutes for City Council and Planning Commission alike.2
The Brown Act does not require that letters and emails be read aloud or noted, but they do need to be made available for public inspection “upon request and without delay.”
The City of Berkeley, for example, includes letters sent by the public in its agenda packets
.In Manhattan Beach, the City Clerk briefly announces at the meeting that written correspondence has been received on an item and sometimes lists the names of senders.
San Luis Obispo posts letters and emails about agenda items on its website. Richmond posts correspondence alongside meeting minutes: all written public comments received are published on the city's website for the record with the meeting minutes.
The lapse in Twentynine Palms appears to be that letters are not available for public inspection online, in the agenda packet, or in City offices. Now that Kevin Cole, the new City Manager, has taken office, those who wish for more transparency could bring this issue up in public comment at a future Planning Commission meeting or at the upcoming City Council meeting on May 26. It would be to the benefit of the City and the community to know more about the issues that affect everyone who lives in Twentynine Palms. It would also avoid a Brown Act violation.
The Consent Calendar, which consisted of approval of the May 5 meeting minutes, passed 4-0-1 (absence).
Study Session: Planning the General Plan
Community Development Director Keith Gardner described how the City’s General Plan, the master document that guides how land is used and developed in Twentynine Palms, was last fully overhauled in 2012. The state of California requires that each city have a general plan that includes these elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, safety, and environmental justice.
Twentynine Palms’ General Plan currently combines conservation and open space into one element and also includes a recreation element because of the importance of Joshua Tree National Park to the City’s economy.
Gardner proposed something new for the update: adding an arts element to the General Plan. He said he is already working with the City’s Public Arts Advisory Committee (PAAC) on the new element, which would identify good locations for permanent public art, temporary installations, and performing arts spaces around town.3
The City’s staff will conduct the work to lead to the new General Plan without hiring outside consultants. Gardner said the City will be doing as much work in-house as possible, which means the update will likely take longer than it would in a city that has budgeted to hire planning consultants. He told the Planning Commissioners:
We’re just making sure we’re going down the right pathway, make sure we’re all in agreement. This is where we want to go, and realistically, it’s going to be a while. There is going to be workshop after workshop, discussing different areas in detail, different policies in detail, and you’ll probably be sick of this topic, but this really needs to be updated, because it’s reaching [the end of] its useful life.
In the spirit of starting with the hard things first, Gardner said staff recommends tackling the Land Use element first, since almost everything else — traffic planning, population projections, where future homes and businesses go — depends on it. He laid out five goals for the update:
Land use designations should reflect real-world conditions as accurately as possible.
Proposed changes should reflect realistic long-term development.
Land use districts may be consolidated or simplified where it makes sense.
Environmental and historical factors must be considered.
Each existing Specific Plan will be reviewed for whether it is still relevant today.
Gardner walked the Commission through a study map of the southwestern part of the City from Shoshone Valley Road west to the City boundary, and south from Highway 62 to Joshua Tree National Park. The map was included for illustrative purposes only; no zoning changes are being proposed yet.
The map highlights parcels owned by flood control districts, utility companies, and the federal government that are currently zoned for residential development even though development on those properties is essentially impossible. “The reason why that's important,” Gardner said, “is that you have traffic counts and population projections, etc., based upon what the general plan has for its land use.”
Commissioner Garcia said the process seemed headed in the right direction and he was looking forward to seeing it unfold. Commissioner Paahana emphasized the importance of accurate data for traffic and housing numbers. Vice Chair Krushat asked Gardner to clarify how gray areas on the allowable land use chart should be read. He confirmed that if a use isn’t listed, it isn’t permitted. Krushat also raised a question about the difference between the terms “single family dwelling” and “single family residence” in the development code. Gardner said cleaning up that kind of language is exactly what this process is for.
Chair Walker compared the City’s approach to the way the Marine Corps recently updated its own base master plan and said it felt like the right direction. He asked Gardner to include a direct link to the General Plan in future staff reports, noting that the City’s website can be hard to navigate. (It’s here.)
In comment on the General Plan, Carlos Blandon suggested a roundabout to slow traffic on Lear Avenue.
City Development Director Update
Keith Gardner said that a smog check station proposed for the southeast corner of Adobe Road and Hwy 62 is moving through the administrative use permit process. (The Desert Trumpet took an in-depth look at this proposed business here.) Notices went out the same day, and unless someone objects, it is set to be approved by the end of the following week.
Gardner and the Commissioners discussed their summer schedule, but no firm plans were made for meeting cancellations. And with that, the meeting adjourned.
The minutes of recent City Council meetings do show the names of people who spoke live at public comment but not what they talked about. The minutes also list names of those who sent letters but do not include topics (here is an example from May 12, 2026). The letters were not acknowledged in the meeting.
Recent Planning Commission minutes (May 5, 2026, minutes here) list names of speakers and sometimes include a summary of their topics. They do not list the names of people who mailed in comments, and these comments were not mentioned in meetings.
A look at Planning Commission and City Council minutes from 2023 show that letters were read aloud and speaker names and a summary of comments were included in meeting minutes. Here is an example from a City Council meeting on October 16, 2023, which includes a summary of public comments (including one from April Ramirez saying she is not running for City Council).
Here is an example of Planning Commission minutes from November 7, 2023, which includes summarized comments.
Several other cities in the state include the arts in their general plan. The most notable one is San Francisco, which recognizes that the arts are a major economic force. Other cities include Riverside, Ventura, and Laguna Beach.
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A General Plan Advisory Committee, comprised of local citizens with knowledge of the many relevant issues, will increase public participation and interest .