The City of Palm Springs is once again weighing a change that would reshape how City Hall presents itself to residents and the region: whether to continue rotating the mayor’s role among councilmembers or return to a system in which voters directly elect the mayor.
The conversation resurfaced at the February 11 City Council meetings when Councilmember Grace Garner asked city staff to prepare a detailed briefing on what it would take to make the switch.
Since 2019, when Palm Springs adopted district elections, each of the five councilmembers has served a one-year term as mayor on a rotating basis. Garner described the current system as one that gives each district a turn in the city’s most visible role and decentralizes authority. At the same time, she acknowledged that some residents find the arrangement confusing, while others simply prefer to choose their mayor at the ballot box.
Garner stressed that she was not pushing for an immediate decision. Instead, she called for a full review of legal requirements, logistics, staffing impacts, financial costs, and the scope of public engagement needed before any change. Any shift in structure would likely require legal analysis and could ultimately be put to a vote.
The issue has surfaced before. In November 2025, then-mayor Ron deHarte sought a council discussion on returning to a directly elected mayor, but he had limited support at the time. According to recent reporting, that dynamic has changed. Garner, deHarte and Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein have now expressed interest in examining the idea, setting the stage for a formal discussion as early as April.
DeHarte has argued that a one-year term limits a mayor’s effectiveness and weakens the city’s ability to build sustained influence. In an email to supporters, he said the short tenure “fundamentally constrains effective governance.” Supporters of a directly elected mayor often frame the issue in terms of continuity and clarity. A mayor chosen citywide for a multi-year term can provide a consistent public face for regional partnerships, tourism promotion and legislative advocacy.
City of Palm Springs Council Member Ron DeHarte
Others caution that in a council-manager system, the mayor’s formal powers do not automatically expand with direct election. The city manager remains the chief executive, and the mayor is still one vote on a five-member council unless the city makes broader structural changes. Some governance experts note that this can create a gap between voter expectations and legal reality.
Palm Springs’ history adds another layer. The city moved to district-based council elections in 2019 after facing the prospect of a costly lawsuit alleging a lack of Latino representation under the previous at-large system. At the time, although roughly a quarter of the city’s population was Latino, all five councilmembers were white. Since the transition to districts, three of the five seats have been won by Latino candidates.
That shift followed an extensive public process. Garner, who served on the 2018 California Voting Rights Act Working Group, recalled that the city held more than 30 community meetings in English and Spanish before drawing district lines. Under California law, hybrid systems that combine district seats with a citywide elected office can raise additional Voting Rights Act questions, a factor that staff will likely examine if the council moves forward.
So far, the framing of how the issue will be researched and considered includes a wide range of important issues noted above to be vetted internally by staff and presented to the city council, but no one on the council has yet called for a formal public process that would involve asking Palm Springs residents to weigh in. The regional context is mixed. Most Coachella Valley cities use a system similar to Palm Springs, with council-selected or rotating mayors. Desert Hot Springs, La Quinta, and Coachella elect their mayors directly.
For now, the council has not committed to a direction. What members have agreed on is the need for more information and a clear public process. As Garner put it, the goal is to understand the costs, ramifications and engagement required before deciding whether the city should change course.
The coming months will hopefully focus less on personalities and more on structure. At stake is not only who holds the title of mayor, but how Palm Springs balances district representation, citywide accountability and the legal landscape that has already reshaped its elections once in recent years.
