The Twentynine Palms City Council took the first step last night in changing the way the city’s council members are elected. Managing editor Tami Roleff has more…
The City of Twentynine Palms received a letter last month in which an attorney threatened an expensive lawsuit against the city, claiming that despite the fact that 20 percent of its population is Hispanic, only one councilmember in 22 years has been Latino. Council members grumbled that that wasn’t true; Steven Bilderain, who was elected to the council in 2016—is Hispanic. During public comment, resident Carol Giannini said that switching to districts was a great idea.
“I’m absolutely all in favor of district-based election because for my experience, in the Hanson Tract when we had someone living in the Hanson Tract sitting on the city council, we got better attention and we got taken care of better out there.”
And then the council voted unanimously, with Macarthur Wright absent, to pay a demographer $18,500 to map the city’s residents, the first step in changing over to a district-based election system.
The city council also voted unanimously to authorize an agreement with an engineering firm for a feasibility study of a joint wastewater reclamation facility with the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center.
