Grace Garner narrowly wins reelection to Palm Springs City Council
It's official: Grace Garner has secured a narrow victory in District 1 and will remain on the Palm Springs City Council, according to the Riverside County Registrar of Voter's certified vote count on Thursday.
Garner won by 64 votes in the final count, a 2.2% margin of victory. Her opponent, Scott Nevins, confirmed in a statement that he called Garner to congratulate her on the win Thursday.
Garner's victory looked far from assured when the first results were released on election night. Then, Nevins held about a 150-vote lead over Garner, although only about half of the votes had been counted.
However, Garner took the lead by about 50 votes on Nov. 16. When reached by The Desert Sun Friday morning, Garner said she was "really excited" about the final results.
"We had put in the work to win this campaign, but with mail-in ballots the process just takes significantly longer than we're used to," she said, noting that when she was first elected in 2019 there weren't as many people mailing in ballots as there are now.
Garner to be city's first Latina mayor
Garner is in line to be the next councilperson to rotate into the mayor position for a yearlong term starting next month.
Garner said she is excited to be mayor and is a fan of the city's rotating mayoral system, which was implemented in 2019, because it ensures every district has an opportunity to be in the limelight and every councilmember a chance to raise up different issues.
Garner said she is particularly excited to be taking over as mayor months after the council was able to allocate an unusually high amount of funding toward housing, parks, community centers and other resources and amenities in its annual budgeting process. That was possible because higher-than-expected tax revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic left the city flush with cash.
"These are just allocations of funding," she said. "The next step is actually spending the money, right, the next step is actually spending the money and so I'm just thrilled to be able to lead the city in this process of deciding how we are going to take actionable steps to make our community better and actually put our residents first."
Garner said she was thankful not only to District 1 but the entire city.
"I think there was broad support across Palm Springs for my campaign and I am honored to serve the city that I grew up in and really looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the next four years," she said.
Nevins criticizes influence of independent PAC that supported Garner
Nevins also issued a statement thanking his supporters on Thursday and announcing that he had called Garner to congratulate her.
"I can't state enough how incredibly proud I am of what we have achieved – this kind of razor-thin vote margin against an incumbent is almost unfathomable," the statement read.
However, Nevins also bemoaned the impact of what he called "special interests," which he said came in the form of an independent expenditure committee that was created to support Garner in the final days of the campaign.
"In an unprecedented move for a Palm Springs city council race, an Independent Expenditure committee was established in support of Grace Garner, designed to evade the $4,900 individual contribution limit on local elections and allow one man to contribute $49,000," Nevins said in the statement.
Nevins noted the committee had reported $69,000 in donations, which he said "were used to flood the airwaves and mailboxes with attack ads, one of which went so low as to criticize my face and smile."
Campaign finance documents filed with the city show that on Oct. 14, paperwork was filed registering a primarily formed committee called "Palm Springs Forward For Garner 2022." A primarily formed committee is a committee that is formed to support or oppose a single candidate and that spends money on efforts to do so. They cannot be directly controlled by, or otherwise coordinated with, the candidate and their campaign and are not subject to the same contribution limits as campaigns are.
Such committees, which are more commonly known as Super PACs, have become a fact of life since the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums supporting or opposing candidates, UCLA Law Professor and campaign finance expert Richard Hasen told The Desert Sun on Friday.
"The courts have held that individuals can contribute whatever they want to committees, so long as those committees don’t coordinate with candidates," he said. "I sympathize with the idea that super PACS make contribution limits to candidates much less meaningful. But this is the world we are living in now."
The treasurer of the committee was listed as Cary Davidson while the assistant treasurer was listed as Michael Farr. Both Davidson and Farr are listed as residing in Los Angeles. Aftab Dada is listed as the principal officer of the committee. Dada is the general manager of the Hilton Palm Springs hotel and the chairman of PS Resorts.
On Oct. 14, a document was filed with the city stating that CBA Consulting, Inc. had contributed $49,000 to the committee. However, a subsequent filing appeared indicated that contribution had come from Harold Matzner. Matzner is a Palm Springs philanthropist who owns Spencer's restaurant. A second contribution of $20,000 was received from Fred Noble on Nov. 3. Noble is the CEO of Wintec Energy. A filing made on Oct. 26 showed the committee had spent about $3,300 on mailers through Oct. 22. However, the committee does not have to submit another form detailing its spending after Oct. 22 until the end of the year. Nevins said the committees named had been displayed on at least four mailers sent out in the final days before election day, as well as digital ads.
Garner responds
When asked about Nevins' statement Friday, Garner said she and her campaign had no role in the formation of that committee or its subsequent actions and noted it would be illegal if they had.
"They're independent expenditures, people are allowed to create a political action committee and spend money however they want to...," she said. "So, anything that this independent committee did, they did on their own, that's why it's an independent committee and my campaign had had no part in that."
When asked if she'd had any role in starting the committee, Garner again said no and that the focus of her campaign had been on District 1, Palm Springs and engaging residents at every level. She noted that her campaign had worked to engage with the whole community and not just those who were most likely to vote and had reached both people who have never voted in their lives and those who vote in every election.
"There's always going to be misinformation and disinformation in campaigns, unfortunately, but my campaign has always been focused on telling the truth, engaging with everyone and doing the work that we need to do," she said.
In his statement, Nevins called the spending of the committee a violation of the city's norms.
"Politics is politics and I have a tough skin, but we can’t lose track of how norm-busting it is for one person, no matter how philanthropic they may be, to spend $49,000 on a local election in which fewer than 3000 people voted," he said. "It is even less normal for such a large amount to be spent in order to win by 64 votes."
Garner, meanwhile, said the way Nevins was trying to tie the committee to her was misleading and that she will be trying to address his claims soon in a more comprehensive explanation.
"I think there is a lot of confusion about what all of this means and I don't want to give an off-the-cuff response because there is so much more detail to provide to the community," she said.
Garner will be sworn in as mayor on Dec. 15. That is also when Palm Springs' two new city councilmembers, District 2's Jeffrey Bernstein and District 3's Ron deHarte, will be sworn in.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Grace Garner narrowly wins reelection to Palm Springs City Council
