The LGBTQ community celebrated when Palm Springs, California filled its city council with openly LGBTQ members last year, but that celebration is pretty much over.
The council — made up of three gay men, one bisexual woman, and one transgender woman — represents a city that's majority gay and lesbian. But its white faces don't reflect the fact that the city is also 25 percent Latino, leading to a series of "internal and external" challenges that threaten the council's future, The Washington Post reports.
Palm Springs' city council "has had a gay and lesbian majority for a decade, but very few women have served in recent years," the Post writes. The city is often characterized as a retirement community, prompting "the question of age diversity" on the council, the Post continues. Yet the biggest problem has stemmed from an all-white council representing a city with an 80-percent Latino student body in its public schools. After last year's election, a Latino civil rights group threatened a lawsuit over Palm Springs' at-large voting system, saying it "dilutes the ability of Latinos to elect candidates of their choice."
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The council stymied the lawsuit by voting last year to hold council elections by district instead of of city-wide. It'll also hold elections by those newly defined districts later this year. Two members, including Mayor Robert Moon, opposed the move, seeing as they live in the same district, along with a third councilmember. Only one of them — Geoff Kors, who voted for the districts — has said so far he'll run again. And in the newly-created District 1, Palm Springs native Grace Garner, who is a straight Latina woman, is likely to join the force. Read more at The Washington Post.
