Cathedral City has faced some tough times in recent years.
Developers have broken promises. Redevelopment in the downtown area, along Highway 111, has seen ups and downs.
These are just a couple of the issues Cathedral City’s City Council is dealing with as the November election approaches. Mayor Stan Henry is running unopposed for his seat, while two City Council slots are up for grabs. Incumbents Gregory Pettis and John Aguilar are both running for re-election, and are being opposed by Sergio Espericueta, a member of the city’s Planning Commission.
The Independent recently reached out to all four candidates. Espericueta (right), however, did not respond to a request for an interview.
“We have a couple of challenges, one of which is to maintain our balanced budgets,” Mayor Henry told the Independent. “We’re doing a very good job. We actually have two-thirds of our budget in reserves, which is one of the goals the current council wanted to have. The other issue is development in our downtown and northern area, and we’re currently working on both of those things. We’re in the process of working on development agreements with developers to work on our downtown area. We have a developer that’s building a hotel and retail north of Interstate 10, at Bob Hope Drive and Varner Road, so both of those are good things that will help with our ability to keep the budgets in a balanced position.”
Henry cited economic development as a challenge the city faces.
“We definitely need to do more, and that’s one of the reasons we need to make it a high priority, and I’ve made it a high priority,” Henry said. “We’ve hired an economic director to make sure that we get the right type of development in Cathedral City. We don’t want a developer to come in, make all kinds of promises, land-bank it and not do anything. We’ve had that in the past. We’re making sure in our development agreements that we know it’s going to take time to do the development, but we want to see time frames and milestones … or we get the land back, or keep possession of the land.”
Henry said he believes the downtown area is on its way toward success.
“I think the downtown area needs some multi-housing,” he said. “It’s going to be a great area for entertainment and restaurants. Are we going to get big boxes there? No, we’re not. But we’ll get great assets for our downtown area and make it very vibrant.”
Henry said his biggest accomplishment during his four years on the City Council—two of those as mayor—has been making sure the city has balanced budgets.
“We almost depleted all of our reserves, and after talking to our finance director, there were projections that we’d be in the red,” he said. “We’ve turned that around and balanced our budgets. We’ve added staffing appropriately where we’ve needed to. Plus, we’ve had developers looking at us now who never have in the past.”
Gregory Pettis (right)—one of the valley’s longest-serving public officials—has been serving on Cathedral City’s City Council since 1994.
“I think our downtown area continues to be a challenge, coming out of the relinquishment of a development agency and trying to find ways to partner with developers to make it financially viable for them,” Pettis said. “We’re beginning to see things coming together.”
He said the city is seeing an improvement in the number of vacant storefronts.
“We have very little vacancy in the city,” he said. “We have a couple of large big boxes that are vacant … but our smaller centers are still full, and it’s becoming harder and harder to find (space), so we’re actually going to have to start to build some more smaller commercial centers. It’s the larger centers we’re having some issues with. It’s educating (large retailers) about the city, and that they don’t have to be in Palm Desert or Palm Springs.”
Pettis feels his greatest accomplishments during 22 years on the City Council have been bringing in new businesses, and annexing new land into the city.
“I can point to Big League Dreams and bringing them in,” he said, listing some accomplishments. “The annexation of (areas) north of I-10, and now we’re getting ready to annex Thousand Palms, which will take us all the way to Washington Street north of I-10, which will open us up for numerous development opportunities for the city. The building of the two movie theaters at the civic center. Those are all great things that have happened for our city.”
Pettis said that while Cathedral City enjoys low crime rates, there’s more work to be done.
“We continue to see the lowest crime rate in the Coachella Valley,” he said. “It’s a good thing, but … we need to continue to do better, and we need to work hard on prevention so that our young people have opportunities and don’t slip into something their older brothers and sisters fell into. … We’re fully staffed in our police department, but we want to add some additional officers and increase the amount and quality of their training. We’re also going with body cameras to increase accountability.”
John Aguilar (right) is running for his first full term; he was appointed to the City Council two years ago when Stan Henry became mayor. He expressed more serious concerns about Cathedral City’s economic challenges, and mentioned mistakes made by previous councils.
“There was a blend of factors that have created vacant land that has gone undeveloped, and I think prior administrations didn’t take advantage of development offers to the city; I think they decided to wait for something better,” Aguilar said. “I think that’s a missed opportunity. I also think the recession hit when redevelopment began, and caused it to dissolve. That was a huge hit. But I think the city is recovering, and we have some good proposals that we can’t talk about until the development deals have been vetted.
“We’re seeing reinvestment. The (Coachella Valley Repertory) folks have purchased the old Cinemark facility, which is going to be great and bring live theater downtown. We’ve had a new investor come into the Mary Pickford Theatre, which is great, because that brings people downtown.”
Aguilar said one of his top priorities is to increase diversity.
“One of the reasons I wanted to become more actively involved is because I believe in transparency in local government, and want to increase diversity within the ranks of the city and also within the commissions in the city. Historically, there’s been a lack of representation, especially from the Latino community, on the council and its commissions. I think strengthening our life-safety divisions in police and fire has been a vital factor. We’ve hired a new fire and police chief, and they’re both fantastic.”
Aguilar added that the city has taken proper steps to keep the crime rate down.
“Our crime rate compared to other communities in the Coachella Valley—it’s quite low,” he said. “It still requires that we be very vigilant in monitoring crimes, especially crimes against persons. We promote community-watch organizations; we’ve hired a homeless liaison to try to make sure the homeless problem is handled compassionately, and our local businesses and communities won’t be harmed in the process. I think we’ve done a good job.”