There are so many billboards on each side of the 10 Freeway through the Coachella Valley that they stack against each other like a deck of cards. They come at you so fast that you start thinking about this weekend’s headliners coachella festival is a lawyer Jacob Imrani,
Even in this cluttered landscape, two billboards featuring Desert Community College District Board Trustee Bee Gonzalez stand out.
They’re at opposite ends of the canyon — one near the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, the other just east of the Indian Canyon Drive exit in Palm Springs — and they feature the same photo of the spiky-haired, bespectacled trustee.
“B. Gonzalez. Shame on you for voting against COD (College of the Desert) students!” Billboards ringing on orange background. Below is the name of the group that funds them, Promises Made Promises Broken.
The millions of concertgoers likely won’t think twice about the billboards. But they tell the story of a political controversy that has engulfed the Coachella Valley.
Supporters say a long-planned College of the Desert campus in downtown Palm Springs, expected to open this year, will bring prestige and new programs like hospitality, engineering and film to an area that needs it. Opponents like Gonzalez say the estimated $400 million cost is excessive and that the money should be spread to disadvantaged areas of the Coachella Valley.
When Gonzalez defeated the two-term incumbent in the 2020 election, she joined two other trustees in trying to limit the scope of the Palm Springs project, if not eliminate it entirely.
Attacks soon followed: an unsuccessful effort in 2021 for a motion of no confidence against Gonzalez and his trustee allies. In the 2022 election, former college president and Gonzalez critic Joel Kinnamon joined the board and brought the majority to his side. A threatened withdrawal that was never accomplished. Whispers that Gonzalez is a puppet Latino politicians based in the eastern part of the Coachella Valley Who are increasingly in conflict over resources with people from wealthy, white Western communities.
And, of course, there are billboards, which have moved up and down by 10 since the beginning of 2023. They’ve become such a part of life in the area that Gonzalez recently told me he has a habit of staring at strangers before asking. if he is He Woman.
“I have to laugh,” the 55-year-old man said as we enjoyed a bowl of pea soup at an eatery in Desert Hot Springs, “because what else can I do?”
The controversy has increased so much that City of Palm Springs sues College of the Desert in 2022 For failing to turn over documents related to land use decisions, in alleged violation of the California Public Records Act. kinnamon There was a physical altercation in January Each accused the other of starting the fight, along with Joe Duffle, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1167, a Gonzalez ally.
Kinnamon did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Meanwhile, promises were made and broken – as documented by the local newspaper, the Desert Sun. described as “worrying” Because of his refusal to disclose his members or donors — he has paired his anti-Gonzalez billboards with mailers and video ads as the group seeks to defeat him at the ballot box in November.
Promises made and promises broken “If you know an election is coming, the best thing to do is to make a negative assumption in advance,” said spokesman Bruce Hoban. “This ‘no, no, no, no, no’ thing at every trustee meeting is nerve-wracking. It’s just relentless.”
Gonzalez is laugh-out-loud funny as well as warm and self-effacing. He said of the long campaign against him: “I think (opponents) are scratching their heads and thinking, ‘Okay, we’re attacking him. We’re embarrassing him, and he’s not Will stop. But I really think these people have no idea about the investment I’ve made in my community over the years.”
Born and raised in Indio, Gonzalez is an alumnus of the College of the Desert and has served as an administrator for the Coachella Valley Unified School District for nearly 30 years. A longtime community activist, she ran for the Community College District board in 2020 after hearing complaints from alumni about substandard facilities and a lack of classes and majors.
“You and I know,” Gonzalez said, “that if you want to change something, you have to stay inside. And there’s no other way.”
When she took office, the mother of two watched the staff report on the long-proposed new campus project. It was originally planned for North Palm Springs, but Kinnamon announced in 2014 that the district wanted to take over a long-abandoned mall downtown and build there. Two years later, voters passed a $577 million bond to help finance that project and other improvements to existing facilities.
Gonzalez said she’s not opposed to a new campus in principle, but it doesn’t make sense to put it in Palm Springs because there’s already a smaller facility there, and far more students go to cities like Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs. live in, which she represents.
“And so for me, I was like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going on here?’ And suddenly, there was outrage throughout the West Valley, and all these strikes started – and I mean, they went off all in, Every time I vote no on a contract or ask too many questions – boom! Billboard No. 1. Boom! Billboard No. 2.”
She laughed. “By now I think, I must have at least 20.”
Hoban, the spokesperson for Promises Made Promises Broken, said he “knew nothing about desert colleges, nothing about community colleges” before attending the breakfast meeting in 2021 and hearing Gonzalez criticize the Palm Springs project. knew it”. The proposed Cathedral City complex is about to be cancelled.
“All the plans that were promised for 17 years were being drastically modified or canceled and we said, ‘Wait a second. Why isn’t anything being built in West Valley?
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Promises Made Promises Broken is not required to disclose its members or how it spends its money. Paperwork filed with the California Secretary of State lists its executives as Palm Springs restaurateur John Shay, jeweler Theresa Applegate and Los Angeles-based attorney and Claremont McKenna College trustee Carrie Davidson.
An email sent to him requesting an interview was returned by Hoban, who co-chaired the campaign to defeat A 2018 measure that sought to ban short-term rentals in Palm Springs of single-family homes, Asked who else was involved in breaking promises, Hoban said, “It’s made up of people who have always been involved in political issues and causes, so we know our way around.”
He did not disclose how much the group spends on billboards, although he claimed the monthly rate for a billboard in the Coachella Valley was $500 to $4,000. Whatever the amount, he said his group is “100% completely” satisfied with its investment.
“People look at them, and people will talk to us, and say, ‘I didn’t realize there was this problem with Bea Gonzalez,'” Hoban said.
Gonzalez admitted that she was angry when the billboards first went up, but she has made peace with them.
“I’m getting it because I’m doing my due diligence — I ask these questions because I want that clarity,” she said. “And when the attacks started, it made me even more curious.”
He pulled out a letter from a manila folder that he had sent to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office asked to investigate College of the Desert’s use of bond money over the past 20 years.
“How can I vote yes, if the yes vote will only be because of intimidation? I can’t do that,” Gonzalez said.
A spokesperson for Bonta’s office said he was “unable to comment on, or even confirm or deny, a potential or ongoing investigation.”
We finished our breakfast, then headed to 10 to see his billboard near Indian Canyon Drive. We parked on the freeway divider and admired it from a distance as traffic moved quickly just a few feet away. I told him I vaguely remember seeing that orange thing hanging down there last summer.
Gonzalez waved at the billboard, as if to say hello. Then, she started crying bitterly.
“Well, at least they used a nice photo of me!”
