RECAP: Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District, April 24, 2025
$121,876 granted for events and sponsorships that promote tourism
The Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) met on Thursday, April 24, for a relatively upbeat session touting improved social media results and press coverage for local hotels. $121,876 in grant and sponsorship funds were given to 15 events with good transparency for event decisions. The same cannot be said for money granted for sponsorships. The primary theme in public comment, however, was accountability for grantees. The agenda for the meeting can viewed on the City website.
Closed Session
The start of the meeting was slightly delayed as Board members returned from a closed session for the performance evaluation of TBID Marketing Director Breanne Dusastre. Chair Rakesh Mehta did not mention the closed session or report a vote if there was one. Per the Brown Act, there should have been some form of announcement, as is common in City Council.
Marketing Update
Marketing Director Breanne Dusastre kicked the presentation off with her usual cheeriness,
I'm going to take us through a couple highlights in terms of what we're up to and what we're here to celebrate. And [I] love to kick things off with taking a moment to celebrate business owners, all of the excitement that's happening in the City that is continuing to build this media attention. Just phenomenal to see Reset Hotel and Hotel Wren earn such great coverage including being listed in Condé Nast Traveler’s Most Exciting Hotel Openings Spring 2025, congratulations.
Dusastre also mentioned positive press for Liz Lapp’s Hi-Desert Times Magazines (in Palm Springs Life) and Richard Lee’s 29 Loaves (in the San Bernardino Sun).
One of the two billboards approved at the February 27, 2025 meeting, installed in the Silverlake / Echo Park area, is projected to receive 1.5 million impressions (per Lamar Advertising). The second billboard is expected to launch in early May on I-10 in the Banning / Beaumont region.
Visit 29 / TBID billboard installed in Los Angeles.
New part-time assistant Auregan Falp has impacted social media with improved post regularity and stats and the potential of reviving the TikTok channel. Industry events included a Visit California Outlook Forum and a “fam tour” (or familiarization tour) partnership with Discover Inland Empire for the luxury Asian market. Dusastre also spoke at length about state-level tourism planning and promotion referring to Visit California’s strategic regional tourism plan, which includes the desert region.
Public Comment
In general public comment, Hotelier Veno Nathraj continued his criticisms of Chair Rakesh Mehta, who’s been in place since the TBID was created 2017/2018.1
Susan Peplow also spoke, recognizing the social media improvements and reiterating the need for stakeholder engagement and the importance of the Visit29 website to reflect current lodging options, a concern expressed in prior meetings. First-time speaker, Reset Hotel co-founder Adam Wininger (with Board member Ben Uyeda), spoke to Twentynine Palms as attracting creators due to like-minded people and a free-thinking, free-spirited atmosphere, in addition to being more affordable than Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree.
So seeing a lot of people move here, hearing a lot of buzz around 29. I think the numbers show for itself. Think the amount of cool, creative, new businesses that want to come here, rather than other areas, speaks for itself. So great, great work everybody. Very, very impressed as someone who, you know, put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into a big project here, lot of money, a lot of time, lot of stress. Very happy to see how the City's approaching tourism.
Grant Applications Granted Awarded Funding
Per Marketing Director Dusastre, $98,000 of the original $160,000 budgeted for events grants was available to be distributed for this second round of funding covering projects scheduled for July 1 through December 31, 2025. 18 applications were reviewed by a committee consisting of Audrey Philpot, Karen Ickes, City of Twentynine Palms Event Coordinator Scott Clinkscales, TBID Chair Mehta, and TBID Vice Chair Ashton Ramsey.2 Grants receiving committee scores of 80 points and above were referred to the TBID Board for funding for a maximum of $20,000. Copies of all grants and commulative scoring are in the agenda packet.
In public comment Veno Nathraj expressed concerns about grant recipient accountability — to what degree are tourists coming for the events and booking rooms? Are event producers incorporating hotel and short-term rental content in their marketing — an issue raised in past meetings by stakeholders. Peplow also reiterated her suggestion of a dedicated event producer, who could ensure grantees stayed on their timelines and met marketing expectations.
In response, Board Member Ben Uyeda, suggested that the terms of “accountability” need defining and suggested a system that would incentivize grantees:
…a way to kind of incentivize accountability is for events that meet a certain benchmark, they bring a certain number of people in or…we know what the score for their proposal is. If the score for the event should match the proposal they get fast tracked or prioritized for the following year. That I think is a great incentive for accountability for the promotion, because it reduces the amount of administration and work that they have to do to put together something. So they get sort of some sort of prioritized consideration to hit that. That reduces our babysitting burden on our side and rewards the best event with a smoother process the following year.
Uyeda went on to argue against forcing producers to go through more “hoops” for setting up events and for encouraging successful events to go bigger and happen more often.
Also speaking in public comment was Seth Zaharias, co-founder of Cliffhanger Guides, who talked about some of his event details and messaging:
Mixing a climbing competition with conservation is not something that anybody had ever done before, and the Park Service was exceptionally happy about our messaging as well. And I really think we we got a lot of good education across to urban youth that love to come out here and recreate, but they don't recreate responsibly in the National Park. I really feel like our messaging worked really well on that.
After public comment and some discussion, these projects received funding for a total of $95,996:
Cliffhanger Guides' 29 Palms Rock Rumble Royale (December 13–14, 2025) Score: 89.3/100 ($20,000)
Vacation Races' Joshua Tree Half Marathon (November 1, 2025) Score: 89.2/100 ($20,000)
Desert General's 29 Palms Book Festival (November 7–8, 2025) Score: 86/100 ($20,000)
Sarah Kotzman's AERIALNAUTS (August 1-2, 2025) Score: 85.1/100 ($19,996)
29 Palms Queer Film Festival (September 19–21, 2025) Score: 81.4/100 ($10,000)
Friends of Joshua Tree's Climb Smart (December 5–7, 2025) Score: 80.8/100 ($6,000)
Highway 62 Art Tours requested $15,000 in funding and received a score of 79.3, less than the 80 points needed to qualify, but as an on-going event and per Chair Mehta, “because of the magnitude of that event and our past relationship” he recommended giving them $3,000 from the sponsorship funding pool. No motion was made or vote taken to approve this apparently executive decision by Mehta.
Also we are unclear on why the Vacation Races' Joshua Tree Half Marathon qualifies for funding. The guidelines clearly state “All events must take place within the 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.” We reviewed the application and the marathon map, and at no point do runners pass through Twentynine Palms. Were applications reviewed by staff to ensure basic qualifications were met prior to being presented to the Committee? Shouldn’t this event have been moved to the sponsorship category as well?
Sponsorship Applications Granted Funding
For sponsorships, which have a maximum of $3,000 per event, $28,000 of the original $40,000 was available for the period July 1 - December 31, 2025. These applications go directly to the TBID Board and are not reviewed by a committee. But while the handling of the grant applications had a clear and transparent process, the decisions regarding sponsorship funding are a mystery.
14 applications were received and eight were funded. But how was that decision made? In introducing the item Dusastre telegraphed the discussion about to occur, “These are all up for review, discussion and consideration by your advisory board.” Yet no discussion of the merits of the applications took place. Instead Chair Mehta, simply stated, “So based on our review, the recommended sponsorships are as follows” and listed the funded applications.
Additionally, there was a question about an application from Women of Color Global 29, who sought support for a June 14 celebration of Juneteenth that should have been submitted in round one, covering January 1 to June 30. The application was accepted into the funding pool, despite it falling outside of the funding period. Is this another instance of applications failing to be reviewed for meeting basic qualifications? Then once accepted, it was eliminated from consideration without a vote of the Board to do so.
In public comment, Susan Peplow argued that “while we value our community spirit, the TBID’s primary mission is tourism development, so community events that do not drive overnight stays or out of area attendance should not be funded under the guise of tourism.” Also responding to the discussion in the previous item, she reiterated the need for benchmarks and setting grantees up for success with clear expectations.
Adam Wininger suggested a collaborative meeting with grantees to review expectations but also stressed understanding the difference between a marketing focused event that “could reach millions of eyeballs” such as AERIALNAUTS and events that are “more foot traffic generated” like the 29 Palms Book Festival where “you're going to get a lot of people spending money at ancillary businesses.”
Seth Zaharias expressed dissatisfaction with the poor returns on their after-event data collection and suggested TBID support for data collection during events. Responding to Zaharias, Board member Uyeda suggested setting a “credible” sample size based on a percentage of attendance but characterized the idea of collecting data during an event as “I'm having a good time here. You know, thanks, but no thanks.” Chair Mehta pointed out that attendees are more likely to fill out surveys if the’ve had a bad experience and positive experiences are more difficult to account for.
Audrey Philpot suggested that data collection could happen via a registration system like Eventbrite and wondered if a coding system for events would make it easier to link attendees to revenues.
Funded for a total of $25,880 were:
Beamed up at Beer Co Art Installation, August 10, 2025 ($3,000)
Area 29 Galactic Gathering, August 16, 2025 ($3,000)
Hi-Orbit Games Hi-Score Contest, August 16-17, 2025 ($2,880)
Area 29: Galactic Gathering screenings and/or panels, August 16-18, 2025 ($3,000)
HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours, October 4-19, 2025, ($3,000)
Joshua Tree Music Festival, October 9-12, 2025 ($3,000)
Night Sky Festival, Joshua Tree Residential Education Experience (JTREE), October 24-25, 2025 ($3,000)
Joshua Tree National Park Art Expo, November 1-2, 2025 ($2,000)
No Sound, Very Very, One event per month, October - December, 2025, ($3,000)
In Conclusion
Consideration of the final discussion item, Joshua Tree Gateway Communities Alliance (JTGCA) Passport Partner Program, was brief as Eric Menendez, who heads up the initiative, was absent. Board members had questions regarding a contract and, yes, accountability. There was no motion to move this item forward.
City Manager Stone James reviewed the City’s on-going strategic planning process. He also suggested that Planning could assist with stakeholder outreach by distributing information about TBID during the permitting process.
And in the final action of the day, on a unanimous vote, preparing RFPs for an event coordinator and social media assistance were added to the currently empty future agenda items list.
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In the City of Twentynine Palms, it is customary for leadership positions to rotate as happens on City Council, the Planning Commission and the Public Arts Advisory Committee.
When this committee was initially conceived and constituted, community members held three seats, a majority. It is highly unusual for Board / Commission members and City employees to sit on grant review committees for government funding. This effectively yields Board members two votes on the grants, one on the committee and a second vote when they review the recommended grants for final funding. However, the TBID process is more transparent than the City Council Events Grant process in which a subcommittee consisting of two Councilmembers decides which applications are reviewed by the full Council and lacks any scoring system.
I’m writing to highlight the high cost of getting an AirBnb license. It’s about $800. Full disclosure: I had a fire at my house and it took so long to get the repairs done I lost my permit. I live here but might want to AirBnB for the summer months. It’s clearly not worth $800 and the ridiculous hassle the city puts us through (the dumb good neighbor class that mostly scares you by reciting huge fines for operating without a license) to do that.
I’ve felt for some time that 29 Palms over-regulates AirBnbs because frankly they don’t have any ideas about actual economic development other than tourism. But what this does is create hotel-like AirBnBs rather than supporting folks who just want to keep their house payments up.
And the money goes to billboards in Silverlake? Fuck that. All this tourism stuff is just tacky, as far as I’m concerned, and apart from the book festival, I don’t think it does anything much for the quality of life here. How about a real community center like a YMCA? More affordable housing? Better schools!
In any case, I won’t be supporting the city’s heavy hand and, of course, the AirBnb co-founder is busily sucking up to Trump, so I suppose this is the last nail in the coffin of the old couch surfing vibe of AirBnb. So it goes. We come to the desert to get away from the worst of America and find ourselves staring it in the face. If I rent I’ll rent long-term, thank you very much.
No ill feeling toward the city staff who are very nice.
But hey: If you can’t allocate funds to improve the quality of life for residents, then -
Keep 29 skanky! Better than tacky, at any rate.