January 27 Meeting with the City of Palm Springs

Generally speaking, the meeting went very well. There were definitely no surprises.

In attendance for the City: Mayor Moon; Councilman Chris Mills; the City Attorney and the Assistant City Manager.
In attendance for the PRC: Kurt and Ana; Pamela Steele

HISTORY – AKA What’s done is done

Councilman Mills reviewed the history of what happened with the former City Council and their negotiations with the school district. He also spoke to efforts made by a couple of developers to purchase the club and build around it (a perfect solution in our mind). Unfortunately, according to Mills, the developers ultimately decided their ideas wouldn’t pencil out. Clearly, at this point, this is water under the bridge.

The report from Robert Chattel has been delivered to the City but it needs more work. The City continues to work with Chattel for more information, clarification, etc.
We spent some time talking about a historic designation and what could happen to the club even if it were declared historic. Bottom line – the school district could still choose to demolish the club once our lease expires and before the close of escrow.
If the district didn’t demolish the club, the buyer would have to jump through a lot of hoops to get permission to do so themselves. Difficult but not impossible.

The City says they have no appropriate surplus property that would work for the club and secure its stability (so we aren’t doing this same dance in another X number of years). They also say they don’t have the funds to start from scratch and purchase property.
As we’ve known all along, putting the club at Ruth Hardy Park is what the City proposes. They believe it will create the least impact possible thus limiting negative public comment. It will never be sold and it reduces the amount of turf thereby saving on water.

The idea of locating the club at Ruth Hardy will be placed on the February 17 City Council The Council needs to vote on this and authorize moving forward. As building a new club would likely take a year, we are talking with the City about the possibility of a new lease that would allow the club to operate in its present location until the new one is ready. At the moment, this is an unknown and clearly would take time as there are new players involved.
The Historic Site Preservation Board discussion of the PRC is now going to be March 8.

Mayor Moon and Councilman Mills are committed to finding an acceptable solution for the PRC.
Mark your calendar now: 6 pm February 17 (City Council); 9 am March 8 (HSPB)