Tag Archives: Steve Pougnet

Coachella Valley

Desert Sun Newspaper Endorses Steven Pougnet for Mayor of Palm Springs

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October 7, 2007 – Palm Springs, CA

The Desert Sun in its editoral page today endorsed Steven Pougnet for Mayor of Palm Springs.

“Steven Pougnet captured Palm Springs’ attention in 2003 when he was elected to City Council and through hard work and strategic thinking, he has held it ever since.

Four years later, he is mayor pro tem and wants to be mayor in an election bid characterized as one in which one man stands out from the rest. That man is Steve Pougnet.“

Steve Pougnet was endorsed by the three Palm Springs Democratic Clubs including the Desert Stonewall Democrats, the Democrats of the Desert, and the Palm Springs Democrats.

If Steve is elected, he would be the second consecutive openly-gay Mayor of Palm Springs and the first who is Caucasian.  With respect to full disclosure, BlueBeaumontBoyz is a member of Desert Stonewall Democrats, the GLBT Democratic Club or the Coachella Valley, and actively support Steve’s election campaign for Mayor of Palm Springs.

For your information, the race for Mayor of Palm Springs is a non-partisan race.  However, since Palm Springs is now a pre-dominantly Democratic city (refer to my earlier posts re voter registration in Palm Springs), and has the support of all three Democratic Clubs in Palm Springs, has been highly successful in raising campaign funds, and has great name recognition, Steve is generally perceived to be a heavy favorite in the Mayor’s race this year.

More below the flip…

The Desert Sun continued its endorsement by saying:

“Pougnet is known valleywide and trailing him is a string of impressive accomplishments and community involvement.  He has increased money for tourism.  His work to bring two opposing sides together on development in the Chino Cone shows his ability as a consensus builder.  He has demonstrated a balanced approach to development and a willingness to admit mistakes.

“Pougnet is working to revitalize downtown, including the Fashion Plaza, in which a pre-application for development has finally been submitted. He supports an east-west corridor tied to the museum and the convention center.

“He developed design guidelines for pedestrian-friendly mixed use development, which is the basis of the general downtown plan; and he was instrumental in the approval of 1 Palm Canyon, a mixed use project at the corner of Ramon and Palm Canyon Drive, among other developments.

“Pougnet cited his work in the passage of the Chino Cone ordinance as one of his greatest accomplishments on the council, is the clear front-runner.

“In addition to working toward downtown revitalization, Pougnet worked on the blighted building ordinance that doles out fines, saying some property owners need a nudge. He also favors a business retention program, but has not been able to get support for the idea from the current city council.

“He’s on the Resource Conservation Commission, which focuses on how the city can cut down on waste and save on energy and water.  Pougnet also held a symposium with the Office on Aging to stay on top of issues concerning seniors.

“But we agree with him that his work on the very divisive Chino Cone is the issue that defines his best work thus far.  He’s the co-chairman of the Citizens Task Force for Mountain and Foothill Preservation and Planning, which required forging a compromise between developers and preservationists.  The result is the Chino Cone Ordinance.  Pougnet reached out and built bridges to help the city hammer the best possible compromise for development of the Chino Cone.”

The editorial continued, “The lack of several strong, experienced competitors, or even another clearly prominent challenger, indicates voters tend to be comfortable with the leadership Pougnet has demonstrated on the council.

“We believe his best is yet to come, and we urge Palm Springs voters to elect Pougnet mayor and allow him to continue to revitalize Palm Springs and protect its quality of life.

“Pougnet’s challenges as mayor will be to continue to resolve downtown development issues and be innovative in planning for future development citywide.

“The Fashion Plaza will likely be one of the greatest issues facing the next mayor because it’s tied to so much of the city’s planned future growth.  Palm Springs needs a mayor who has the type of experience Pougnet has in working with developer John Wessman.  If development stalls, Pougnet also will need to be able to recognize when it’s time to consider other options.  He has said he is willing set a deadline and is not afraid to mention eminent domain, though we are not sure that makes sense.

“No doubt he has the experience and leadership to face those challenges and more.  Bottom line: He would make a great mayor.

Coachella Valley

Palm Springs Village Fest – October 4, 2007

October 5, 2007 – Palm Springs Village Fest Voter Registration and Candidate Information Tabling.  The air was crisp and those scandalous Repugnant women from last week were noticably absent from Palm Canyon last night.  The mood was much more festive and jovial.  We are the Democratic Party spelled PARTY on Thursday nights from 6:00 p.m. to whenever!

The Democratic clubs were well represented with Desert Stonewall Democrats staffing one table thanks to George Zander, DSD President, and Bob.  The Democrats of the Desert staffed another thanks to Eleanor who was as usual radiant and focused.   In addition, representatives of the Palm Springs Democrats held strong.  We even had a visit from Chuck McDaniel, co-chair of the new Desert Hot Springs Democratic Club, member of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee, and activist with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.  Does Mr. IBEW have any spare time?


Richard Oberhaus, Campaign Manager for the Right Honorable Greg Pettis, Candidate for the 80th Assembly District, reigned over the festivities as he is wont to do.  Hopefully, we will see visits from Greg, Steve Pougnet, Rick Hutcheson, John Williams, and Bob Mahlowitz again shortly.

More below the flip…

Besides McDaniel from the IBEW, we had the pleasure of talking to unionist from the Sheetmetal Workers Union and others as well.  McDaniel and Tracy Turner, Vets for Peace activist, reported that they were there for the Moveon.org demonstration up the street from our esteemed location in front of Kopy Cats. at Arenas and Palm Canyon Drive.

We also had representation at the tables from the Sen. John Edwards campaign, the consensus leader in most Iowa polls (represented by yours truly), the boys from the fab Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign, the amazing Ed Jones and Charlotte Murphy, M.D., representing the also fab Sen. Barack Obama campaign, and Bob from Re-elect Al Gore people (petitions to circulate shortly for inclusion of Al Gore on the 2008 California Democratic Primary ballot).  I had several opportunities to recruit interested parties to table for the Dennis Kucinich campaign, and we will see if these supporters will pick up the gauntlet.

We observed lots of interest in the various campaigns’ buttons, fliers and bumper stickers!  The Hillary Clinton advocates were active in handing out Hillary balloons to the rug rats and street urchins!  We registered 8 voters, including two who just had to switch parties from the Dark Side.

We had our weekly unofficial Drinking Liberally party (UODL)at Bongo Johnny’s (thanks to the generous two-for-one drink tickets from the equally generous Chris and Marco).  Kudos to bartender Douglas for the wondrous libations!  Joining yours truly were Z and Bob S. from the Desert Stonewall Democratic Club and from the Democrats of the Desert amongst other memberships, Tracy from the Vets for Peace, etc., Bob from Re-Elect Al Gore, Richard from the Greg Pettis for 80th Assembly District Campaign, Charlotte from the Obama Campaign and her friend, Pablo, and myself, we hardly had enough two-for-one adult beverage drink tickets to see us through the evening at the now-open-until 2:00 a.m. BJ’s.

The UODLers then staggered over to Hunter’s Video Bar to entertain and to be entertained by registered voters from all corners of the planet.

Coachella Valley

Law Enforcement Unites Behind Pougnet for Palm Springs Mayor

This is an email forward that I just received from the Steve Pougnet for Mayor Campaign.  (Full disclosure, the Desert Stonewall Democrats, of which I am a member, has endorsed Pougnet for Mayor of Palm Springs.

Palm Springs — In a united show of support, the City’s police and fire organizations have overwhelmingly voted to endorse Steve Pougnet for Mayor.

“One of Steve’s top priorities as Mayor will be fighting and reducing crime in our eighborhoods. As a member of the City Council he has been a stalwart supporter of law enforcement. The officers of the Palm Springs Police Department strongly endorse Steve Pougnet for Mayor,” said Troy Castillo, President of the Palm Springs Police Officers’ Association.

“Steve Pougnet is a visionary leader who has shown great courage to make the tough decisions and to tell the people the truth. The Palm Springs Fire Safety Unit Local 3601 is proud to endorse Steve for Mayor,” said Jason Loya, President of Palm Springs Fire Safety Unit
Local 3601.

“To be a truly great city, Palm Springs must keep its neighborhoods, streets and schools safe. The people of Palm Springs deserve a Mayor
who will fight to see that our police and fire departments have the resources to do the job,” said Pougnet.

Coachella Valley

Blue Coachella Valley: Fast Becoming the Reality

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Please be gentle as this is my first post on Calitics.com.

Beth Caskie, a member of the Democrats of the Desert and a diarist on Calitics.com, with the assistance of George Zander, President of the Desert Stonewall Democrats organized a fascinating meeting re blogging in the Coachella Valley.  Well-attended, this meeting raised awareness of the importance of blogging in turning the Coachella Valley blue.

Recent history shows that the Coachella Valley is already well on the way to becoming Blue Coachella Valley.  Zander noted that the Coachella Valley is already blue on both ends with five cities giving John Kerry their majority vote in 2004 (Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, and Cathedral City in the West Valley and Indio and Coachella in the East).

Greg Pettis reports that in 1995, Ron Oden was elected to the Palm Springs City Council as its sole Democrat.  Simultaneously, Pettis was voted to the Cathedral City City Council as its lone Democrat.  In 2003, Oden became the first African-American and first openly-gay mayor of Palm Springs.  Simultaneously, Ginny Foat and Steve Pougnet each won City Council seats as Democrats, giving the Palm Springs City Council three Democrats on the five member council!!!  Likewise, in 2004, Cathedral City elected a majority of Democrats including Pettis and Paul Marchand to its City Council.

In 2005, Foat was by far the biggest vote getter in the Palm Springs council race for a complete term and John Williams just barely lost to the Republican incumbent after a last-minute yellow journalistic assault by the local so-called newspaper (aka the Desert Scum).

For your information, in 2007, Pougnet is running to succeed Oden as mayor of Palm Springs when Oden elected to not run for re-election.  Pougnet is highly favored to become the second consecutive openly gay Democrat mayor in Palm Springs.

In addition, Rick Hutcheson, Planning Commission member, has received the endorsement of all three Palm Springs Democratic clubs including Democrats of the Desert, Desert Stonewall Democrats, and Palm Springs Democrats.  In turn, Williams has received endorsements from Desert Stonewall Democrats and Palm Springs Democrats.  On the downside, rather than endorse Williams, the Democrats of the Desert endorsed Bob Mahlowitz.  According to some this action resulted in the recent decision of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee to withhold formal endorsements for any Democrats in the Palm Springs City Council race.  However, with 40% of the Palm Springs electorate identified as members of the GLBT community, with the increasing Latino voter registration, and with Democrats far outdistancing Republicans in voter registrations in the past few years, Palm Springs is poised to have four Democrats on City Council!

Cathedral City with its two Democratic City Councilmen, Pettis and Marchand, means that Cat City will shortly follow Palm Springs into the Blue Coachella Valley.  Also, prior to his unexpected death, Gary Bosworth was the biggest vote-getter in the Desert Hot Springs city council race in 2005.  Desert Hot Springs Democrats hope to regain this seat during the current election cycle.  Residents of both Indio and Coachella in ‘Down Valley’ regularly elect progressive Democrats for mayor and city council.

So, the idea of a Blue Coachella Valley is no longer a fanciful dream, but should with the ongoing presence of strong local Democratic clubs and demonstrated Democratic unity become reality!

Thanks to soyinkafan for helping me to learn how to incorporate hypertext links into my text.  You obviously have great kharma!