Twentynine Palms City Council bids farewell to City Manager Stone James as Flock concerns persist
There were plaques, handshakes, and statements of gratitude at last night’s Twentynine Palms City Council meeting as City Manager Stone James bid farewell to his position calling it, “a blessing” and “the most rewarding of my career.”
James resigned April 9 due to family considerations and will leave the position he took on in March 2024. James will explore a private sector opportunity in the Coachella Valley and Kevin Cole will step into the position next week.
Prior to the official meeting, 11 local non-profits gave their best three-minute pitch for a slice of the $75,000 the city is doling out to established community-supporting organizations. Presentations were given by the 29 Palms Artists’ Guild, 29 Palms Community Food Pantry/Outreach Ministries, Animal Action League, Armed Services YMCA 29 Palms, Basin Wide Foundation, First Assembly of God Church, Girls on the Run Inland Empire, Joshua Tree National Park Council for the Arts, Pals of Palms-N-Paws, Project Sheba, and Reach Out Morongo Basin. (Desert Media Foundation applied for funds but did not present.) Requests totaled nearly $200,000 and final funding allocations will be announced at a later date.
The official meeting kicked off with a pagan invocation by Stephanie Ballard before Mayor Daniel Mintz announced two agenda changes: the postponement of a request, made by the applicant, for a letter of support for the Re-Enlist to Life Veteran Campus and the removal of a Consent Calendar item, specifically a $9,000 payment to a consulting firm.
Yucca Valley Mayor Merl Abel came bearing gifts for the council to mark his own city’s 35th anniversary noting that Twentynine Palms paved the way just four years prior.
San Bernardino Assistant Fire Chief Bill Villarino (Division 4) provided an update on their efforts to expand staff at Station 44 and the Fire Explorer Program.
Regarding future council initiated items, Councilmember April Ramirez suggested a “study session or discussion regarding the concerns of our constituents of Flock” which was seconded by Councilmember Octavious Scott. Though the Flock contract was set to expire in December, it will be pushed into the second quarter of 2027, according to James, per the sheriff’s department.
As Public Comments opened, Mayor Mintz noted letters received from residents opposing the contract and the use of Flock cameras within the city.
On the topic, resident Diana Rozendaal offered an observation on a recent press release issued by the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s Department.
“When a public agency issues a statement, we should be able to trust that it’s informational and not persuasive. This one was not. It reads less like a public safety update and more like a product advertisement for Flock. The report editorializes calling Flock camera technology ‘critical’ and stating that it may have ‘inevitably saved the victim’s life.’ ‘May have inevitably’ is not the language of a factual police report, it is the language of marketing. But let’s be clear about what actually happened. The victim was attacked twice. The Flock system did nothing to prevent the first assault and it did nothing to prevent the second. By the time the technology played any role at all, the suspect had already struck this woman and fled. The only thing Flock helped with is suggesting that the suspect’s vehicle remained in the city. The deputies used their intelligence and their investigative experience to predict that the abuser would likely return to the house. Then they responded to the victim’s screams and forced entry. This action is what saved her life, not a license plate reader. To imply otherwise is not just misleading, it overstates the technologies value in a way that obscures what community safety actually requires – timely, well-trained human response. Our community has legitimate ongoing concerns about Flock system, concerns about warrantless mass surveillance, about where our data goes, how long it’s retained and who can access it. When the sheriff’s department uses a press release to frame those concerns as obstacles to public safety rather than engaging with them honestly, that’s a problem.”
As a final parting thought on public service, James quoted a 1910 speech from Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”