The Desert Hot Springs City Council voted unanimously to forgo democracy and instead have the four members of the council decide who will represent the city for the next two years on Tuesday night.
The Desert Sun reports the council voted 4-0 to fill the seat of outgoing Councilwoman Anayeli Zavala’s term with an appointment rather than a special election. It seems pretty safe to assume this is how it all went down:
Zavala recently announced she is resigning in order to attend law school out of town. She abstained from the vote on who will fill her seat and will serve until July 2nd. The council will appoint her successor soon after.
And, while the city will save anywhere from $12,000 to $22,000 (they paid more than that to Desert X) by not having a special election, if we learned anything from Cathedral City this year, leaving these types of decisions in the hands of very few rather than all of the people can turn into a total clusterfuck.
So good luck with it, DHS.
