Palm Springs Mayor outlines city plans

Public Record, The, Jan 26, 1996 by Hercules, Neil

PALM SPRINGS--Describing this city as "A new global front in the 21st Century," newly elected Mayor Will Kleindienst told members of the Palm Springs Board of Realtors, meeting at the Jewish Temple on Wednesday, January 17, that the city will bolster this image by doing the following:

(1) Seek to develop an International Port of Entry at the Palm Springs Regional Airport.

(2) Have a prominent actor (name not revealed) establish his permanent museum here. (Was he thinking of Bob Hope?)

(3) Seek to have Counsel Generals establish offices in Palm Springs for the purpose of making investments. Among the countries he mentioned as interested are Morocco, Switzerland, Nepal and Singapore.

To increase jobs and provide the city with a strong economic base, the mayor said he is trying to induce UC-Riverside to open up a satellite Research & Development campus here, with the emphasis on fiber optics.

The new mayor said it is important for students at the Palm Springs High School to start studying fiber optics now; to be prepared for entry into the 21st century.

With the city and valley in the midst of helping host a bevy of golf tournaments, including the Bob Hope and the Dinah Shore, there is another in the offing--to be dubbed the "Mickey Rooney Golf Tournament."

On the subject of sports, the mayor is of the opinion that the city should continue to help support the Palm Springs Suns professional baseball team (the team last year spent $400,000 on improvements to the ball park).

To continue putting Palm Springs name before the world, Kleindienst said the city should continue to hold the International Film Festival which is generating newspaper and magazine stories everywhere.

"We have the name recognition; we must capitalize on it on an international basis," the mayor said.

"We have an international pool of investors--ready to invest," he added "One of them is not from Germany," Kleindienst explained. He said too many problems with flood control responsibility in the wash, led the potential German developer-investor to back away from the classic project, planned on Gene Autry Trail.

The mayor defended the Planning and Permits Department for insisting on quality in signage, building and landscaping construction which has been established by other city councils and planning commissions through the years.

He said he would continue to study ways to improve even more on the permitting process, but he indicated that the city would not open the floodgates to a hodge-podge of signs and unsightly construction and painting.

In a final word, the mayor told the Realtors that they should "speak positively about Palm Springs, and act as ambassadors, putting the emphasis on positive things about the city, not negative ones."