Hey, remember that time that Palm Springs City Hall was raided and then they filed all of those bribery charges against the former mayor and two developers, including John Wessman? Of course you do. It was kind of a big deal and, really, a huge stain on the city. Well, guess who doesn’t seem to remember? The Palm Springs City Council.
Wednesday night, the council voted to allow Grit Development – which is really Wessman Development, just with a different, dare I say grittier name – two more years to figure out how to build a Virgin Hotel downtown, even though it sure sounds like that’s not going to happen, even if the council gave them 20 years to do it.
Michael Braun, the president of Wessman…oops, meant to say Grit…Development, who took over the company after all those charges were filed against his father-in-law, John Wessman, was at the meeting to plead his case for an extensions to build the property and that’s when Roberts had something to say.
“We want to support him. This is a guy who has proven to us that he is good for Palm Springs. His developments are high quality. And we have no reason at this time to not support him,” said councilmember J.R. Roberts (via KESQ).
Yup. No reason at all not to support a company who prosecutors say bribed its way to building a hotel downtown and then allegedly didn’t pay workers a prevailing wage to build it – but, hey, it’s not like those are real issues for the city, like trying to bring scooters to downtown.
