Summary: Embattled Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa’s State Of the City address last Wednesday represented another effort put lipstick on a pig and spin the sad decline of the city during the nine winters we have been burdened with DeRosa as mayor. Her litany of marginal achievements reads like the prognosis reports of a terminal patient. She has managed single-handedly to sidetrack Cathedral City’s proposed annexation of Thousand Palms, while here in Cathedral City proper, our own desolate downtown has become a municipal embarrassment. DeRosa’s failure and incompetence have gone on long enough. It’s time to replace her with somebody who can get the job done.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Embattled and ineffective Cathedral city Mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa put on her hubcap earrings and tried to put lipstick on a pig last Wednesday with her most recent “State of the City” address.
Hope was a prominent thread in her remarks. “Hopefully revenues will be coming in,” DeRosa is reported to have said, apparently in much the same tone as one who whistles past the graveyard. DeRosa is also reported to have claimed that “there are glimmers of hope all over the city.” Unfortunately for DeRosa, hope doesn’t pay the rent, and hope doesn’t excuse her lamentably poor performance in elective office.
Additionally, DeRosa touted a number of low-end businesses in progress in the city, as if these low-revenue-generating enterprises represented the city’s fiscal salvation. Like a woman grasping at any straw available, DeRosa then declared, contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, that “Cathedral City is ahead of the curve and ready for business.”
Ready for what?
DeRosa’s litany of marginal achievements reads like prognosis notes for a terminal patient. This is DeRosa’s eighth state of the city message, and in each one, despite her upbeat spin (oh hell, let’s tell the truth, shame the devil, and describe her remarks as the lies they are) each such message has, in effect, been a chronicling of municipal decline on her watch.
We shouldn’t be surprised that, during the nine winters of DeRosa’s maladministration of the city, Cathedral City has steadily lost ground compared to other Coachella Valley cities. DeRosa’s history of being able to “queer every deal” conceivable is well-known throughout the Valley, as is her unfortunate tendency to drive potential suitors away by antagonizing just about every imaginable prospective business partner that has ever come to the city.
We are hemorrhaging businesses; just as bad, we are hemorrhaging city staff who are critical service providers for constituents and businesses alike. Yet, DeRosa continues to fiddle while Cathedral City burns. If, three years ago, I could in good conscience support the proposed annexation of Thousand Palms, I can no longer do so; in the long run, it may be better if Thousand Palms remains unincorporated county territory, or incorporates as an independent city. I am not alone in this gathering momentum against annexation, even though I believe that, over time, bringing Cathedral City and Thousand Palms together could create potential synergies for growth.
How has what once looked like a good deal for both Cathedral City and Thousand Palms come to look like an incipient disaster?
I’m not certain how to fix the problem, but I do know where to fix the blame, and it must be fixed squarely on Kathleen Joan DeRosa.
After all, how can Cathedral City hope to get its act together to annex Thousand Palms if it cannot, after nearly 15 years, get its act together to develop its desolate downtown?
To drive through Cathedral City’s downtown is to feel deep embarrassment. On a recent windy afternoon I drove through downtown and watched as the dust devils danced across vacant lots that many of us had once believed would be the heart and core of a vibrant community. All I could see in the dancing dust devils were the remains of hopes and dreams shattered on the rock of the incumbent mayor’s absolute failure to do the job the voters continually elect her to do.
Let us hope (there’s that word again!) that an awakened population, aware of the dismal performance of this mayor, turns her out in next year’s election.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives in practices in Cathedral City, and who deplores the decline of his city during the nine winters of the incumbent mayor. The views set forth herein are his own, and are not intended as legal advice.
