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That strength allows them to enjoy the benefits of mainstream power and prominence while leaving them free to cherish the city’s playful and at times uninhibited social scene. Gay men and lesbians, by some estimates, account for nearly half of the 47,000 residents. The incident crystallized the complexities of Palm Spring’s aging and established gay community. I think this town is scared to do anything against gay people,” Wolff said. “I think this has all been blown way out of proportion. After Dominguez took the job three years ago, his policies and tactics delivered a significant drop in crime - a success crippled by “one stupid mistake,” she said. Wolff, a member of the city’s police advisory board, said the chief was a progressive-minded, well-respected Riverside police veteran. She called the episode a distasteful flexing of gay political muscle led by a few noisy activists. Longtime Palm Springs resident Joan Wolff, however, is having none of it. We all know it’s there, but when it comes out it’s still really painful,” Foat said. “We have to come to grips with the reality that there’s hidden racism and hidden homophobia. “What you heard a lot was what’s the good of having a majority of gays on the council if they don’t stick up for the community?”Ĭouncilwoman Ginny Foat, a feminist activist and former head of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, acknowledged that the “city made a lot of mistakes.” She said the council did not want to respond until an internal inquiry by the city manager was made public after Christmas. “The whole council, the whole political leadership, will suffer for this,” said Hank Plante, a former San Francisco television news anchor and political reporter who retired to Palm Springs with his partner a year ago. But animosity, as chilly as the snow-dusted San Jacinto Mountains rising over this desert town, lingers against the mayor and members of the gay-majority council who had steadfastly defended Dominquez or held their tongues. News of the chief’s departure had brought calm to Palm Spring’s gay community by week’s end. It grew venomous in December when Police Chief David Dominguez, who had disciplined the officer, acknowledged that he too had made an “inappropriate comment” - also caught on tape. The controversy reached a boil last June with the revelation that an officer involved in the sting was taped uttering a gay slur.
“Gays move to Palm Springs to get away from that.”
“The sting was an egregious case of entrapment, a technique that has been used by law enforcement against gay people for decades,” said Robert Stone, co-founder of the Warm Sands neighborhood association and one of the most vocal critics of undercover operation. This is Palm Springs, “the gayest city in America,” a gay tourist destination governed by an openly gay mayor and home to the sexually charged White Party, a dance and music festival that attracts tens of thousands of gay men every year. The June 2009 gay sex sting netted 19 public indecent exposure arrests, and disbelief and outrage have festered in this desert haven ever since. Shirtless and squeezed into tight jeans, a hunky undercover Palm Springs police officer hovered in a shadowy parking lot and lured men cruising the Warm Sands neighborhood.