Some of Our 2024 Stories Worth Another Look; Homelessness in the U.S. Skyrockets–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Dec. 30, 2024

Indy Digest: Dec. 30, 2024

Welcome to the final Indy Digest of 2024 (barring anything monumental in the next 30 hours or so).

I think we can all agree that 2024 has been … a lot. And 2025 promises to be a lot more.

But before we move into the great unknown that is 2025, I’d like to look back at what the Independent has done in 2024. We’ve produced a lot of great coverage of the Coachella Valley, if I do say so myself, and some of it is worth revisiting.

Here are six pieces, presented in chronological order, that are worth a second look (or a first, if you’ve heretofore not looked at ’em). These are not necessarily our best pieces; instead, they’re stories that have an important lesson in them, or at least something that’s worth re-examination.

• “After the Wall of Mud: Tropical Storm Hilary Devastated Businesses in a Corner of Cathedral City—and Some of Them Are Just Now Reopening” (April 18): I never, ever thought we’d be publishing a piece about devastation caused locally by a tropical storm, but thanks to Hilary’s arrival in August 2023, here we are—and thanks to climate change, I fear we’ll be publishing similar pieces in the future. In “After the Wall of Mud,” Haleemon Anderson talked to Cathedral City business owners whose livelihoods were literally buried by a Hilary-caused mudflow. The piece illustrates a lot about the power of community—and the limitations of government, both local and national.

• “Justice Dismissed: After 5 1/2 Years of Continuances, Riverside County Dismissed an Indecent-Exposure Case Simply Because a Courtroom Was Unavailable for a Trial” (April 29): Palm Desert resident Amanda Sanders had the courage to come forward to report incidents in which a creepy neighbor of hers exposed himself to her back in 2018, when she was just 16. She filed a report; the county filed charges; and … nearly six years later, the county dropped those charges because time ran out. Kevin Fitzgerald’s story illustrates how messed up our county’s court system has been in recent years, thanks to the pandemic, employee shortages and a dose or two of good old-fashioned incompetence—and how victims of crime are being victimized as a result.

“From Three Bedrooms to Two: Palm Desert Opens a Can of Worms by Determining That Some Spaces Can No Longer Be Considered Bedrooms—and Could Be ‘Unsafe’” (July 20): Kevin’s story on a Palm Desert City Council decision to no longer consider “interior atriums”—rooms with no accessible window or door to the outside—to be bedrooms has widespread implications regarding the property values of many hundreds of Coachella Valley homes. It also serves as a cautionary tale for all would-be homebuyers to make sure they understand, as best they can, state and local laws, and how they can affect the legal status of a property.

• “The Mitch Gershenfeld Exit Interview: The Retiring McCallum Theatre Leader Talks About Nearly a Quarter Century of Memories, Changes and Acts Who Got Away” (July 22): After spending nearly a quarter-century booking shows and/or overseeing operations at the McCallum Theatre, Mitch Gershenfeld’s tenure at the beloved Palm Desert venue/organization came to an unceremonious end earlier this year. Bruce Fessier, the dean of Coachella Valley arts/entertainment journalists, sat down with Gershenfeld—and two of the most important figures in our modern local arts scene had a fascinating conversation.

• “Civic Solutions: Local Volunteers Are Spreading the Word About Voter Registration to People Formerly Incarcerated for Felonies” (Sept. 24): Melissa Daniels talks to some amazing locals who dedicate many hours of their time to help people register to vote—especially people who were formerly imprisoned on felony charges. These people served their time and are now eligible to vote, but many of them don’t know that. Not only did Melissa shine a light on truly good people who are working to better our democracy; she exposed failures in government systems set up to let these formerly incarcerated people know about their voting eligibility.

• “Beyond the Moshing: Bronca Mixes English and Spanish to Deal With Topics of Oppression, Code-Switching and Culture Wars—and Puts on a Raucous Live Show” (Oct. 11): This is an alert to readers over 30: If you’re not taking at least a cursory look at Matt King’s music coverage, because you’re not interested in punk, rock and/or mosh pits … you really need to start taking at least that cursory look—because Matt is touching on a lot more than just music in some of his fantastic pieces. Take this story on local punk-rock band Bronca as an example. It explores how these young local musicians are using their art to deal with the world around them (and all of us), as they grapple with conflicted identities (like being Latinos who aren’t fluent in Spanish) and feelings of oppression in the current political climate—and you can learn why the band always has a United Farm Workers of America flag placed on an amp at their shows.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• I am sorry I have to keep linking to stories about Elon Musk, but this is important: One of the president-elect’s closest advisers, the richest man in the world and the man who controls SpaceX, is speaking out in a big way on behalf of far-right parties that are essentially neo-Nazis. This should be concerning to anyone, no matter their politics (with the exception of, well, neo-Nazis). The latest news comes via The Guardian (U.K.): “The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest. The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday before being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the U.S, politics news site Politico. Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD’s extremist bent, and the essay expands on his post on his social media platform, X, on which he last week claimed that ‘only the AfD can save Germany.’ Translated, Musk’s piece said: ‘The portrayal of the AfD as rightwing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!’ Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021. Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, used the U.S. tech mogul’s own platform to post on X that she had submitted her resignation.”

• Sort-of related is this headline from our partners at CalMatters: “Trump allies warn California leaders they could go to prison over sanctuary city laws.” The story says: “After San Diego County took steps earlier this month to strengthen safeguards for undocumented residents, an organization led by President-elect Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller sent a letter warning that elected leaders and employees of ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions could be ‘criminally liable’ if they impede federal immigration enforcement. In the Dec. 23 letter, America First Legal Foundation wrote: ‘We have identified San Diego County as a sanctuary jurisdiction that is violating federal law.’ The conservative legal nonprofit that day announced that it had identified 249 elected officials in sanctuary jurisdictions who it said could face ‘legal consequences’ over immigration policies. The California Attorney General’s office and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass were sent similar letters. The letter also suggests sanctuary city officials could be civilly liable under federal anti-racketeering laws. With Trump pledging to carry out the ‘largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history,’ San Diego’s board of supervisors enacted a policy on Dec. 12 prohibiting local law enforcement from communicating with immigration authorities about undocumented people in local jails without a judicial warrant.” This is not normal, folks.

• Homelessness us up in the U.S. … WAY up. The Associated Press reports: “The United States saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and a surge of migrants in several parts of the country, federal officials said Friday. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said federally required tallies taken across the country in January found that more than 770,000 people were counted as homeless—a number that misses some people and does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own. That increase comes on top of a 12% increase in 2023, which HUD blamed on soaring rents and the end of pandemic assistance. The 2023 increase also was driven by people experiencing homelessness for the first time. The numbers overall represent 23 of every 10,000 people in the U.S., with Black people being overrepresented among the homeless population.”

• Today’s recall news involves … eye drops! CBS News explains: “One lot of Systane brand eye drops were voluntarily recalled due to possible fungal contamination, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this week. The affected packages of Systane Lubricant Eye Drops Ultra PF Single Vials On-the-Go were recalled after a customer complaint of ‘foreign material observed inside a sealed single use vial,’ the FDA said. The material was determined to be fungal in nature. The eye drops recalled, used to treat symptoms of dry eye, were sold in 25-count on-the-go single vials with lot number 10101 and an expiration date of September 2025. Fungal contamination of an eye product is known to potentially cause eye infections.”

• Some health experts are expressing concern that the U.S. is not doing enough to prepare for the bird-flu threat. CNN reports: “The U.S. hasn’t learned lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic that it could use to mitigate the threat of pathogens like H5N1 bird flu that keep showing signs of their own pandemic potential, health experts told CNN Friday. ‘We kind of have our head in the sand about how widespread this is from the zoonotic standpoint, from the animal-to-human standpoint,’ Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under President Donald Trump, said on ‘CNN Newsroom’ with Pamela Brown. Birx called for much wider-spread testing of farm workers who make up the majority of identified cases in the U.S., noting the country is heading into an even higher-risk period as seasonal flu begins to circulate. That raises the possibility a person could get infected with both seasonal flu and H5N1 and the viruses could swap gene segments, Birx said, giving the bird flu virus more tools to better infect humans, a phenomenon known as reassortment. A spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pushed back on Friday, telling CNN in a statement that the ‘comments about avian flu (H5N1) testing are out of date, misleading and inaccurate.’”

• And finally … every year, Defector publishes a roundup of … well, items that were inserted into certain sensitive body parts, which then got stuck and/or led to a need to medical attention. The headline is “What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?” but it covers other nearby body parts, too. I recommend clicking the link for the complete list (compiled from a federal database of emergency-room visits, god bless public records), but here are just a few things that got stuck in certain places: 1) “Airpod.” 2) “Cooking spray.” 3) And the one made me audibly howl: “Bag of soil.” God bless America.

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