Media meets with Perez at his office

The Crier attended an “inaugural media meet and greet” with Supervisor
V. Manuel Perez and his staff at their new offices in LaQuinta. The
event was a small one; in addition to the Crier, media was represented
by reporters from two other outlets, one from the Desert Sun and two
from El Informador del Valle. El Informador is a free Spanish language
paper with wide circulation in the Coachella Valley. A media consultant,
Tizoc De Aztlan, also joined.

At least two of the public employees present had journalism backgrounds:
Eliana Lopez, presently with the District Attorney’s Office, did a stint
with Telemundo, and Olga Rojas, who is part of Perez’s team, worked with
La Prensa, the Press Enterprise’s Spanish-language paper. The supervisor
himself was once a paper boy for one of the papers since absorbed by the
Desert Sun, and handed the route over to his younger brother sometime
before entering the political arena.

The meeting also was billed as a preview of the first “State of the
Fourth District” event the office will hold Monday, March 18, at Fantasy
Springs Resort. The 4th District stretches from the mountain communities
in the west to the Colorado River and Blythe in the east, and includes
the Coachella Valley. 

Perez took the opportunity to spotlight his ambitions for the district.
He began by noting research that places Riverside County 38th out of 58
in the Public Health Alliance of Southern California’s “Healthy Places
Index.” “Place matters” according to Perez, and the county lags in
education, wages and other factors that lead to less favorable health
outcomes for residents. The supervisor noted that affordable housing,
homelessness and behavioral health are now being spoken of and addressed
together, and are best thought of as interrelated. 

Perez also said he sees parks and green spaces as an important component
of healthy communities, and gave brief updates on park projects in
Thermal, Bermuda Dunes, Thousand Palms and the Lake Cahuilla Veterans
Regional Park. These projects include repairs and new infrastructure,
amenities like playgrounds, sports fields, water attractions and
“kioskos.” These last are covered but open elevated platforms, serving
as bandstands or public event venues, and are a centerpiece of
communities of all sizes throughout Latin America. The Thermal project
will break ground soon, Perez said, and is budgeted at $10 million, and
has been awaited by residents “for generations.”

Perez spoke of the 4th District as “long neglected” by policy makers
focused on the west end of the county, with many unincorporated
communities experiencing poverty and lacking things like sidewalks,
lighting, and adequate water and sewer pipes. He promised to outline, at
next week’s presentation, efforts to bring federal and state money to
remedy these deficiencies, and also highlight the East Valley’s role in
the county’s $8 billion tourism industry. 

Another economic issue on Perez’s mind is the mining of lithium, an
important element in the production of batteries for electric vehicles,
much of which now comes from China. Later this week he will be meeting
with members of the California State Organization of Counties and will
tour an area adjoining the Salton Sea known as “Lithium Valley.”
Although a proposed mine is outside Riverside County, issues like dust
and groundwater contamination do not respect county lines. 

Perez also spent time putting questions to the press, asking those who
attended to provide “state of the media” reports. Members of the press,
and many of its readers, consider it an essential but threatened element
of democracy, and the plight of newspapers in the current
social-media-driven information ecosystem is often commented on.

Talk around the table included strikes and layoffs at papers large and
small, and briefs on the sizes of staffs at local papers. The
belt-tightening is not limited to print media; television outlets also
are working with smaller crews. According to Lopez, KESQ used to have
different crews for each newscast, but now uses one for all. With print
costs rising, newspapers find themselves searching further afield for
printers: the Desert Sun, we learned, is now printed in Arizona, as well
as the Town Crier.