A Tour of the Under-Construction Palm Springs Library; Despite Internet Theories, That Mitch McConnell Pic Seems Real–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 16, 2026

Indy Digest: July 16, 2026

When I walked into the Palm Springs Public Library construction site earlier this week, I was struck by how large the building—or, I should say, what’s left of the building—truly is.

It was 10 months ago that Swinerton Builders began a $45 million renovation of the 51-year-old library, although the word “renovation” really doesn’t do the construction project justice.

“We’re essentially building a new library inside an old building,” said Jeannie Kays, the city’s director of library services.

Kays and Julie Warren, the library and public services manager, were kind enough to give me a tour of the construction goings-on at the 34,000-square-foot building, designed by William F. Cody. Joining us was Jeffrey Norman, a member of the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation board and a co-chair of the library’s capital campaign.

(Because it’s a very small valley, some disclosures: I serve with Julie Warren on the LGBTQ+ History and Archives of the Desert’s board of directors. Jeffrey Norman is one of my best friends, and I am on the Library Foundation’s Campaign Honorary Committee.)

Virtually everything that was part of the former library—other than load-bearing posts and walls—is gone. The plumbing, the electricity and the layout will all be brand-new. I noticed only two things remaining from the library’s previous iteration, other than the outside walls: the koi pond near the building’s center, and stacks of wood and other architecturally significant materials that were carefully removed, to be put back when the time comes.

The deconstruction phase is now over, and the construction company is just starting to build some of the new walls. This led Warren, who’s worked for the library for two decades, to express excitement.

“I see progress that has been 20 years in the making,” Warren said. “I can envision all the things that are going to be there and the way the building is going to better serve our community … It’s one thing to see it on paper, but when you see the framing up … that’s really exciting. I can really see it coming to life.”

In her 20 years with library, Warren has seen various expansion/renovation/new building plans come and go. In fact, Warren said she didn’t completely believe the current renovation would come to be until she and her fellow staffers started packing for the move to the library’s temporary location, at 4721 E Palm Canyon Drive, Suite A, in the Rimrock Shopping Center.

“My first week on the job, I attended a City Council meeting where they were presenting a model of a library addition,” Warren said. “… Through the years, I just saw it sadly deteriorating from the inside out. We would have so many plumbing issues, and they would find pipes disintegrating. We were trying to always figure out how to (find enough electric outlets) to get technology working.”

While some of those previous proposals were for a brand-new building, Warren said she’s thrilled the city decided to “rearrange spaces” in the existing footprint.

“I’m really excited about where we are now,” Warren said. “I’m a huge mid-century modern fan, and a huge William Cody fan, so to be able to stay at the library that he envisioned, with so many of the elements that were incorporated from his design being restored, including the original entrance and everything—it makes me really, really happy and excited.”

The library “transformation” was designed, both Keys and Warren said, after a lot of public input. The new library will have a larger community room, added outdoor courtyards, state-of-the-art areas for children and teens (including a teen workshop with tools like 3-D printers) and much more. (To take a virtual tour, visit nextchapter.pslibraryfoundation.org/tour.) Yes, the koi pond will return, too.

The other building on the library campus—the 4,000-square-foot J.C. Frey Building, which was built in 1965—is also being renovated. It will become the new Friends of the Palm Springs Library Building, named so to thank the nonprofit organization for their generous longtime and continued support of the library. It will be a space for the Friends, as well as the new, larger home of the library’s archives.

I asked Warren what she’s most excited about regarding the new library.

“The number one thing I always got asked about was: Are there any private study rooms or private meeting rooms that the public can use?” Warren said. “We will have four of those, and they will be free for the public to utilize. …The second thing I’m most excited about is the community room. It is doubling in size, and it’s moving to the front of the building. It has an adjacent patio that can overflow for events. It’s going to have state-of-the-art technology. We’re going to be able to do so many different types of events.”

As Warren mentioned, the library’s long-closed south entrance is being restored; with that will come more parking, and a new entrance from Sunrise Way is being built. As a result, starting on July 20, Sunrise Way will be reduced to a single lane between Baristo Road and Camino Parocela, with intermittent lane closures through Nov. 13.

Kays said she’s optimistic the main library will be open again by the end of 2027, hopefully sooner.

“There’s a good year of work in here, to put all this back together,” she said.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the library space at Rimrock. Kays and Warren told me the Palm Springs library used to have four different locations around the city, but due to funding crunches, that was pruned down to two—the main library, and the Welwood Murray Memorial Library downtown.

“If money were no object, of course, I’d like to have a north branch, a south branch, a bookmobile—you know, all the things, because you can’t help your community enough. … I absolutely would love to keep that (Rimrock) branch open,” Kays said. “… I think it’s a great resource. I know so many people come into that Rimrock library and they say how much they love it.”

That decision, of course, will come down to funding.

Meanwhile, the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation’s capital campaign has raised nearly $2.3 million of a desired $7 million. While the state of California (a $6.5 million grant) and city of Palm Springs ($8.7 million from Measure J, $30 million from bonds) provided the budget for the building’s construction, the money from the capital campaign will go toward things not covered by the city and the state—like the tools in that teens’ workshop, for example. Some of it will also go toward an endowment that will allow the library to pay for future needs.

“The Friends (of the Palm Springs Library) have always been incredibly generous and bought the library things when they needed them,” Norman said. “But you know, this is a new space. There’s all this new technology. They may not even know (all of what they need) until they get in the new space.”

The library’s Board of Trustees matched the first $1 million in capital-campaign donations, leading to the first $2 million raised. As for the $4.7 million that still needs to be raised?

“We’re still having meetings with the known philanthropists, and we are hoping to inspire their generosity,” Norman said. “Then we’re going to be doing a more public campaign, which will announce at some point … because, you know, this is everybody’s library. Whether they, can put in $10, $100 or $1,000, a lot of people would love to play a role in that.”

For more information, visit nextchapter.pslibraryfoundation.org.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Palm Springs’ popular police chief has announced he’s retiring in September. Per Chief Andy Mills’ Facebook page: “After 48 years of policing, 13 as chief of police, it’s time to hang up my leather gear. I notified the city manager and council that I will retire Sept. 5. Palm Springs is the crown jewel of an amazing career. I cannot adequately express what an honor it has been to lead the men and women of policing and serve this amazing community. Cathy has been my partner through each struggle, crisis and victory. She retires too. The department is ready to move forward with the mission. They are committed to supporting and serving a wonderful community that cares about people, supports one another and wants great public safety. The team is 100% ready. We will move near my mom in the Sacramento area to support her.”

• Now, we’ll feature stories regarding our federal government that will make you shake your head and ask: WTF?! First up: RFK Jr. really wants to get rid of the polio vaccine? Sigh. CNN says: “Under the pushback from health department officials at the FDA and elsewhere, along with White House aides, Kennedy agreed to only reduce the childhood schedule, according to three people familiar with the discussions. He and his advisers targeted a slimmer program in line with the length of the schedule in Denmark, which only has 6 million residents, provides universal health care and immunizes its children against far fewer diseases than most developed countries. Medical experts broadly said that schedule does not translate to a country like the United States, with more than 300 million residents and large gaps in access to medical care and health insurance. Still, the health secretary kept changing his mind on what to remove. Kennedy and his advisers debated eliminating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot in the fall, according to the three people. He did not move forward because of possible political blowback, with a measles outbreak raging in South Carolina at the time, they said. Some of his other suggestions – including removing the polio vaccine from the schedule—were discarded after pushback from White House officials, the three people said. HHS spokeswoman Spencer said that removing MMR and polio shots ‘had never been considered.’”

• Next: The secretary of defense, who wants to be called the secretary of war, plans to test the testosterone levels of military members. The Associated Press says: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that he is rolling out a new screening program for ‘testosterone deficiency’ among troops, calling it necessary to allow them to operate at their ‘absolute best.’ The screenings will be conducted annually as part of service members’ required medical screenings for those 30 and older, he said. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be tested. In a video on social media, Hegseth said receiving testosterone replacement therapy would be voluntary. In the video, Hegseth simply refers to troops, though it appears he is talking about only testing men in uniform for hormone irregularities.”

• The White House grift machine extends to … the teleprompter operator? Possibly. ABC News says: “President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has been operating Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president’s speeches to win more than $100,000, the sources said. According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its ‘Mentions’ market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.”

• And now, here’s an explosive diarrhea update, compliments of The Washington Post (gift link): “Investigators have identified shredded iceberg lettuce supplied to Taco Bell restaurants by Taylor Farms as a potential source of contamination in the outbreak of a parasitic illness that has sickened thousands in the United States, according to two individuals familiar with the investigation. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the ongoing investigation. This summer’s outbreak of cyclosporiasis has been largely concentrated in southeastern Michigan, where more than 4,300 cases have been reported and at least 100 people have been hospitalized as of Thursday.”

• And finally … y’know the Mitch McConnell pic that all sorts of people on social media SWEAR is fake? Well, the Post (and other media sources) have done deep dives into those theories, and talked to experts … and the pic, despite all those claims, seems to be real. Again, here’s a gift link: “On Monday night, The Post reviewed a copy of the original photo—provided by McConnell’s office at The Post’s request—and found that its metadata appears to show it was taken Sunday. Hany Farid, a digital forensics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, examined the photo and said there is no evidence that the image is fake or AI generated. He said that neither McConnell’s nor (Elaine) Chao’s face looks suspicious, according to an analytical model he used to examine the image. He said that the picture’s lighting is plausible and consistent, and that what is visible of the newspaper in McConnell’s hand is consistent with that day’s Post Sports section. Farid noted that some AI-altered versions of the photo that have been circulating on social media show floating text and hallucinated text on the newspaper, but that the photo McConnell’s office sent did not have high enough resolution to show legible text. But the picture’s apparent legitimacy has not deterred more theories online. One viral post, with more than 4 million views, claimed without evidence that Sunday’s photo of McConnell is nearly identical to a photo of him from 2023. The Post could not find any such picture.”

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