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The Palm Desert Parks and Recreation Committee voted 6-1 Tuesday to recommend that the city council reverse a proposed ordinance that would cut the panel’s meetings from once a month to once every two months — a change members say was made without their input and would undermine their ability to advise on parks projects.
Staff from the City Clerk’s office told the committee that the ordinance passed its first reading April 23 by a 4-1 council vote and is scheduled for a second reading May 14. If adopted, it would take effect 30 days later.
Under the proposal, meetings would transition to a bimonthly schedule beginning in August, falling on the first Tuesday of August, October and December at 8:30 a.m.
The ordinance also would remove the formal requirement for committee members to conduct park inspections and submit written reports to staff, and would narrow the committee’s stated role to focus on parks and recreation policies, long-range planning and major initiatives rather than day-to-day administrative operations.
Staff said the changes are part of a broader effort to realign city ordinances and ensure committees are assigned work that fits within the time they are allotted. The bimonthly schedule would give staff more time to prepare thorough reports and that the council had described the two-month interval as a “floor, not a ceiling” — meaning the committee could still call additional meetings if urgent matters arose.
Committee members rejected that framing. One member who made the motion to maintain the current monthly schedule said the ability to hold a special meeting does not substitute for regularly scheduled ones.
“To tell us that the floor is every other month and we can call a special meeting if we need it doesn’t help us,” the member said. “What helps us is be able to meet more often and get more done.”
Several members said the deeper concern was that the council had not consulted the committee before introducing the ordinance. They cited two specific examples: a planned park that was reduced from 40 acres to 28 acres without committee input, and the hiring of a consulting firm over the committee’s recommendation.
“We’ve been doing this as public service, just like you are,” one member said. “You’re asking us to do a crummy job.”
Mayor Evan Trubee, who attended the meeting as a representative of the council, defended the change as reasonable given the pace of parks work. “I think every two months will work just fine,” he said, adding that he was comfortable with what staff had recommended.
One committee member said that if the panel is limited to meeting every two months, it may not be worth having at all. “I really don’t think we need to have a committee,” the member said.
The 6-1 vote was a formal recommendation to the city council. Because the second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for May 14 — just days after the committee meeting — the committee’s minutes would not be included in the council’s packet in time. Committee members were encouraged to attend the council meeting or submit comments by email.