Continuing to Contribute: After Two Terms on the Palm Desert City Council, Kathleen Kelly Looks Back and Ponders Her 2024 Election Defeat

Kathleen Kelly served for eight years on the Palm Desert City Council—two of them as mayor during the somewhat calamitous years of 2021 and 2023. In November 2024, some political observers were surprised when she lost her re-election bid to a relative political newcomer, Joe Pradetto. 

On Dec. 12, the council bade her farewell, often tearfully and in heartfelt fashion.

“Kathleen has been such an asset to our community, and not only to the city, but to the region and to Southern California,” said newly appointed Mayor Jan Harnik. “She worked during COVID to protect our health and our safety in this community. … I thank you for making this a better community than I walked into in 1977. You’ve done a lot.”

Kelly was raised in Palm Springs. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Yale University and her law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, before settling in Northern California, where she taught for 17 years at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law and served as academic dean. She also worked as an arbitrator.

In 1978, Kelly became a part-time resident of Palm Desert, and in 1999, she purchased her full-time residence in the city, where she lives today with her mother, Mary Helen. Her father, Dick Kelly, served on the Palm Desert City Council from 1982 until his death in 2010.

During an interview with the Independent, Kelly said it was a “great privilege” to serve as Palm Desert’s mayor. 

“I get choked up thinking about it,” she said. “In addition to growing up here, of course, I had a very close view of city government and regional government for the 27 years that my father was on the council, and I have great reverence for some superb traditions which have helped the city excel. And so, playing my part to honor and implement those traditions, in this time, was a great privilege.”

Over the years, Kelly has contributed her time and, in some cases, her financial support to local service organizations. As a member of the Palm Desert Rotary Club, the Historical Society of Palm Desert and the Palm Desert Area Chamber of Commerce, Kelly worked to improve the business environment in the city. She served as president of the Joslyn Center board, and has made meeting the needs of senior citizens in the Coachella Valley a permanent focus of her service work. As an ordained Episcopal minister, Kelly served two years as the interim leader of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, her personal place of worship. In 2012, when the Shadow Mountain Golf Club in south Palm Desert was threatened with closure, Kelly helped lead a group of some 200 neighbors in a multi-year effort to preserve it.

Her first foray into direct city service came with her appointment to the Palm Desert Planning Commission, prior to her successful run for City Council in 2016. What was her most exciting and positive experience during her eight years on the council?

“It was quite unexpected that I ended up serving as mayor in 2023,” Kelly said. “Sabby Jonathan was to become mayor, but he opted not to run for re-election, and the next two people in line declined, so it came back to me pretty quickly. That turned out to be the year in which we celebrated the city’s 50th anniversary—and, of course, dealt with Tropical Storm Hilary. It was a great opportunity to feature for the public some of those traditions … which were responsible for Palm Desert weathering that storm comparatively well. We’d had storms in the late ’70s that literally created mudslides up to the rafters in parts of south Palm Desert, and that spurred the city to make excellent use of redevelopment funds to spend $60 million on flood infrastructure over time. So, the 50th anniversary really gave an opportunity to put the spotlight on that tradition of investing today for the expected needs of tomorrow.”

She pointed to Measure G, the recently passed sales-tax hike in Palm Desert. 

“We don’t have the tool of redevelopment (funds) anymore, which gave cities the ability to shift some property tax from the state to infrastructure investments locally,” she said. “So, to provide the infrastructure we need as the north part of the city is built out, such as fire stations, parks, etc., a new source of revenue to accomplish (those goals) was essential.”

What was the most upsetting and frustrating experience she had on the City Council?

“Frankly, this re-election campaign was marked by partisan appeals and negative attacks to a degree that the city has never seen,” Kelly said. “Quite apart from the fact that (the election) didn’t result in my desired outcome, even if I had prevailed, that would make me sad, because I don’t think that tenor of public discourse is in the best interests of the community.”

Kelly faced two opponents in her unsuccessful re-election bid. While City Council positions are supposed to be non-partisan, she said she believes partisan politics became a major consideration for Palm Desert’s District 2 voters.

“Given the current national political climate, people seemed far more inclined to be driven by party affiliation than has been true in past local elections,” Kelly said. “So if you look at the party affiliations of the three candidates in District 2 (last year), it’s not too hard to figure out what happened. The field consisted of two registered Democrats and one registered Republican (Pradetto). My two opponents really stressed party affiliation. I made what may prove to be a last-ditch effort to focus away from that, because I am proud of having kept national politics out of city service. I believe city service is a place where everyone can work together for a common cause. … But the current environment proved to be such that party affiliation was a highly determinative factor, and with two Democrats running against one Republican, there was a predictable outcome.”

During Kelly’s council service, the most divisive local governmental issue involved the move, forced by a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit settlement, from at-large City Council representation to district-based seats. At first, the city created one large district with four representatives, and a smaller district with one representative; eventually, the city started the process of moving to five districts, each with one representative. Kelly was an outspoken opponent of the move to five districts. 

“I would point out two things: The first is that despite being an opponent, I was the person who suggested placing the issue on the ballot, so that the voters could express their preference,” Kelly said. “Secondly … the deliberations following that advisory vote happened (during) my second term as mayor. Even though the outcome was not my preferred outcome, I’m proud of the open and fair process that I facilitated, which ultimately produced a unanimous council vote in a circumstance which had been quite divisive. In all of those discussions, my theme was that there are pluses and minuses to both systems. I was frustrated that most advocates were really viewing districts as a panacea, and I wasn’t successful in shedding light on some of the potential detriments.”

She pointed to a current District 3 situation as an example of a detriment.

“The most controversial development proposal happening right now in the city is in a neighborhood between Shepherd Lane and Marriott Shadow Ridge,” she said. “The elected councilmember from that district (Gina Nestande) has had to recuse herself, because she lives too close to the boundaries of the development. One of the things I tried to help people understand during these deliberations is when you impose districts in a city of our size, there’s a reasonably high probability that’s going to happen, because the districts are comparatively small. So, those folks end up in a circumstance where the one councilmember who needs their vote to get elected is not participating in the issue they care most about. That doesn’t strike me as a good thing.”

What does the future hold for Kathleen Kelly?

“I’ll have no difficulty continuing to contribute to my community in the same ways I’ve been doing for years: through my Rotary Club; through St. Margaret’s, my church; (and through) the Palm Desert Area Chamber of Commerce, which is a great way to support our local businesses. And then we’ll just see how things unfold, and where my skills can be put to good use.”