After mulling her decision for the last several months, Palm Desert City Councilmember Gina Nestande says she plans to run again as a candidate in the newly formed District 3, which covers most of the city’s northern region.
Nestande, who was first elected in 2016, has not yet filed paperwork at city hall, but she told The Desert Sun she plans to soon after some community members encouraged her to run for another four-year term.
The November election will be Palm Desert’s first with five voting districts, after the council approved a final map in January, following several months of redistricting hearings and workshops. The city had long elected council members at large, but that changed following a 2019 voting rights lawsuit that argued the system diluted the voting power of Latino residents.
In the last two election cycles, the council deployed a unique two-district setup that included District 1 in the city’s central region, with 20% of the city’s voters, while District 2 included 80% of residents and had four council seats. After the recent redistricting process, District 1 remains intact, while the rest was divvied into four districts. (The council also agreed to get rid of ranked-choice voting as part of this year’s changes.)
The newly formed District 3 runs along Interstate 10 as its northern border, extending east to the Woodhaven Country Club. It also includes the Spanish Walk community, the Desert Willow Golf Resort and the areas surrounding the satellite campuses affiliated with California State University-San Bernardino and the University of California-Riverside.
Nestande’s campaign announcement comes a few months after her husband, Brian, a former Republican state lawmaker who represented the Coachella Valley from 2008 to 2014, was found dead at their home in March. An autopsy later determined his death was due to a fentanyl-related overdose.
Nestande said she thought about the decision “long and hard” following her husband’s death, after telling some people last year she wouldn’t seek another term. She ultimately decided to run due to “unfinished business” she wants to keep working on at city hall.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to walk away from the city council, and I love this community,” Nestande said. “I’ve been in this desert now almost 30 years, and it feels like home.”
Nestande also defended her work as a real estate broker in Florida, which included two sales last year, saying she’s committed to serving the Palm Desert community and her primary reason for spending time in Florida initially was that her daughter had moved there. While her Florida broker license remains active — and Nestande said she plans to renew it — her recent work has been with a national brokerage group, MHP Brokerage.
Along with Nestande, two other candidates — tech executive Stephen Nelson and attorney Anyse Smith — have already announced their plans to run for the District 3 seat. The official nomination period for candidates opens July 15 and closes Aug. 9.
More: Two newcomers enter race to represent fast-growing north Palm Desert on city council
Public safety, economic development among top priorities
Nestande said the top priority for her campaign is public safety, calling police and fire services “the foundation for a vibrant community.”
“We have gone through a phase a few years back about ‘defund the police,’ and I believe that that is behind us,” Nestande said. “Police and fire (service) is, I believe, important to all of our citizens.”
Nestande noted a large share of the city’s annual budget is devoted to fire and police services — to the tune of roughly $43 million in the current fiscal year. With the city’s costs projected to continue to rise over the next few years, the council is set to consider placing a sales tax hike on the November ballot during its June 13 meeting.
Nestande said she views raising the sales tax rate as a “last resort,” adding she wants assurances that it would be spent on police and fire services, including a new fire station in the works for the city’s north end. “I look forward to discussing it with my colleagues,” Nestande said of the possible ballot measure.
Her second priority, which she also linked to funding for public safety, is continuing the city’s economic development. Nestande pointed to the DSRT Surf resort, which recently broke ground at Desert Willow Golf Resort, as a project that can benefit both the city and the entire region.
She also mentioned the redevelopment of Palm Desert’s mall as a project she wants to move forward. A new owner bought the mall last year, with plans to potentially redevelop the space to include housing, green space or — as Nestande referenced — educational opportunities.
“I do serve on the (city’s) economic subcommittee, so I want to continue and have input,” Nestande said. “Maybe we do some type of housing. … Perhaps we partner with the iHub, and hopefully, tech companies that might want to relocate here, maybe they’ll relocate at the mall space.”
New amenities, dust control seen as key for District 3
The District 3 area is primed for considerable growth in the coming years, with more than 4,500 units either under construction or approved by the city north of Frank Sinatra Drive. District 3 includes just over two-thirds of these new developments in the works, according to city estimates.
Some of those projects feature affordable housing for low-income residents, and Nestande said she wants to ensure there’s green space and new commercial spaces to support the increase in residents, adding the city has done a “great job” in spreading its affordable housing across Palm Desert.
“Sometimes there’s a misconception, but (affordable housing) is really for our workforce, our police officers, our nurses, our teachers,” Nestande said. “Because housing costs, with the high interest rates, have gotten out of reach for a lot of people.”
Nestande said she wants to make sure the area doesn’t become a “heat island” with too much concrete and rock, and she believes a pair of new city parks — a roughly 27-acre community park tucked between Interstate 10 and Gerald Ford Drive, along with a regional park planned just off Frank Sinatra Drive and Portola Road — will help.
“I believe having these two parks will really help build a sense of community, and it’s where people can meet and, especially the children, some of them might not have a yard to play in, but they’ll have the park,” Nestande said.
While the area has Costco off Dinah Shore Drive, Nestande said she’s heard from residents who want a more standard grocery store in the area.
“For example, a Trader Joe’s would be nice,” she added, adding that entertainment venues, such as a bowling alley, could also make for good additions to the area.
Nestande hopes the influx of new residents will also help with efforts to expand the city’s California State University-San Bernardino satellite campus. With a long-term goal for the campus to become a standalone university, Nestande said expanding the number of degrees offered at the campus will be key to achieving that.
“We need to grow the population, and that’s where economic development ties in,” Nestande said. “The more jobs we have, the more people that move here, which means more opportunity for students to attend the campus.”
Another issue that’s drawn attention valley-wide — and that Nestande said residents of the north end have dealt with “for a long time” — is poor air quality caused by blowing sand and dust.
Nestande is a member of the Energy and Sustainability Committee with the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, whose executive director recently sent a letter to the South Coast Air Quality Management District underscoring the issue.
Nestande said she wants to continue working on the issue at the regional and local level, adding the city has deployed 4,000 tons of mulch in efforts to mitigate the sand and dust.
Nestande’s real estate work extends to Florida, nationwide
Nestande also defended her real estate work in Florida. As TV news station KESQ reported last year, Nestande has an active real estate broker license in Florida.
Nestande, a long-time residential real estate agent in the Coachella Valley, said she began to travel frequently to Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic after her daughter and son-in-law moved there. Nestande said that a year ago, she didn’t think she would seek another term on the council.
“We were still doing the Zoom meetings went when she moved there, so it was convenient for me to go back and forth and Zoom in (for council meetings),” Nestande said. “It didn’t work with my real estate business here. I kind of had to let that go.”
“I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll get my Florida license,’ because my daughter and (son-in-law’s) family was buying real estate, and so we have used my license to save on commission,” she added. “I thought I was just kind of laying the groundwork, because I thought that maybe I would move to Florida. I decided against it.”
Last summer, Nestande says she joined a new group, MHP Brokerage, that works on transactions nationwide. While her Florida realtor license expires at the end of September, Nestande said she is renewing it.
“It takes a lot of time, and you’ve got to pass, like, this 125-question, multiple choice test in order to get your broker license, and I don’t want to let it expire, because I’ve worked hard to get it,” Nestande said.
However, Nestande added: “I am committed to Palm Desert. Palm Desert is my home, and I appreciate this community so much. They give back even more to me than I’m giving back.”
Tom Coulter covers the cities of Palm Desert, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. Reach him at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Desert’s Gina Nestande to seek re-election to city council
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