GeneralPlanUpdateDog&PonyShow

Welcome All to An Uncensored Political Blog for Desert Hot Springs We ask the Important questions others are too Afraid to ask! www.FriendsOfDesertHotSprings.Com
05/13/05 Gabriel King's reply to Bills report of the general public's dissatisfaction with consultants work to update our GENERAL PLAN Dear Bill Effenger How can you expect anything but disappointment? The Council and their puppet planning commission and staff do what they want, right or wrong without honest direction from their citizens. In my opinion the "General Plan Update" is pretty much just a dog and pony show for the citizen to watch in order to legitimize what the council and city manager do in private through there new commissions. How can I say this? And what bases do I have? The fact that anyone who has expertise in the planning field has been barred from participation. They got rid of the last of those who knew what we were doing when they fired the last planning commission just prior to the General Plan Update. Again, no reason was given to the citizens for the council's abrupt termination. Those of us who know what's going on (in planning terms) also know when we are getting the snow job from our leaders. The handling of the "General Plan Update" has been disingenuous from the very start. Heck, the last time I heard the "General Plan" planner speak, the city council had to tell him what city he was in. Their slide presentation with the large vistas of green grass (after picture) and the like was incredibly un appropriate to the desert and showed the consultants to be idiots pretending to be experts. The street scenes were a joke and their explanation was insulting to those who have knowledge in this field. Those of us including developers, desert planners and the like can spot these phonies a mile away. I refuse to be a part of the legitimization of this farce. Others of knowledge have also refused. If you have not noticed, most, if not all of our most incredibly talented resident citizens with planning background have stayed home during this phony exercise. This boils down to a DHS Leadership problem once again. Maybe next time our leaders will provide us a consultant who not only knows the name of our town but has a clue and background in our unique desert environment. So far I am not impressed. Gabriel King 03/03/05 Dog & Pony Show Update For those who want to circumvent the dog and pony show, but have something worth while to contribute, here is the contact information for our General Plan Consultant. FriendsOfDesertHotSprings web site is the only place anyone can find this information obtained after a few weeks effort through the freedom of information act. Note: Last time consultant spoke, he did not even know the name of our city. So you may need to remind him that we are the city directly north of Palm Springs. Dr. Freilich can be reached at: Paul Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLC 515 South Flower Street, Twenty-fifth Floor Los Angeles, CA 90071-2228 213/683-6000 elisapaster@paulhastings.com 02/22/05 GENERAL PLAN UPDATE DOG & PONY SHOW CONTINUES... 02/24/05 We stumbled upon this Riverside County Site regarding General Plan Design Guidelines. There is some good ideas in this PDF file worth a look. Here is the address. http://www.rcip.org/documents/general_plan/gen_plan_2-4-03/appj.pdf Click here for the PDF link 02/22/05 City refuses to give us the GP consultants contact information. Click here for Freedom of Information violation run around. Click here for Brown Act violation run around.
02/15/05 AB194 specifically does not allow for agency to be exempt from prosecution even if it commences actions to remedy Brown Act Violations Click here to read text of bill
02/09/05 GENERAL PLAN UPDATE DOG & PONY SHOW and BROWN ACT VIOLATIONS CONTINUE to this day... We attended the general plan advisory committee meeting. There was nearly an overflow crowd, but after about 1/2 hour passed more than 3/4s of the citizens had left, somewhat disillusioned with the poor manner the meeting was conducted. The meeting lasted about 3 hours. Hank Hohenstein and John Soulliere essentially dominated the 3 hour meeting, with Hank giving an extended class in planning (assuming that the public knows nothing about even the basic planning issues). We feel that Hank and John's behavior were somewhat dismissive of the public's comments, creating an environment ill-condusive to the free-flow of information and the exchange of ideas. Hank boldly dominated all discussion to the point of much frustration for most everyone there. The entire discussion was pretty much focused on a new city slogan only. "DHS, the Healthy City" stuff, etc. No discussion related to actual General Plan updates was ever allowed to be discussed. The primary purpose of the GPAC's existence and these meetings is to serve as "visioning" sessions to draw the best from the public's participation. This meeting seemed to missed the target. The planning commission chairman, Al Schmidt allowed a public comment period at the end of this meeting. Al Schmidt only called specific individuals to talk like past Council Member Conies Bickford and selectively refused to allow other public CITIZENS to talk at all during the public comment period (including Gabriel King). When we questioned John Soullier about Al excluding citizens from the public comment period, he stated that it was Al's commission and he had the right to run it as he sees fit.