Month: August 2026

UPDATE 8/20 10:48 A.M.: The Palm Springs City Council voted 3-1 at a special meeting Thursday to move forward with the Nov. 3 general municipal election for the District 2 seat, rejecting a proposal to appoint Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein and cancel the election.

Mayor Naomi Soto cast the lone dissenting vote. Bernstein, who was the only candidate officially nominated for the seat when the nomination period ended Aug. 7, abstained from the vote.

Under the council’s decision, the District 2 election will proceed as scheduled. The write-in nomination period for the seat will run from Sept. 7 through Oct. 20.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) — The future of Palm Springs’ District 2 City Council seat will be decided Thursday, as the City Council considers whether to appoint the district’s sole candidate, Jeffrey Bernstein, or allow voters to decide the race in November.

Bernstein is the only candidate who qualified for the seat. Under California Elections Code Section 10229, the council must choose one of three options when there are not enough candidates for a contested race: appoint the person who was nominated, appoint another eligible elector if no one was nominated, or hold the election.

If the council appoints Bernstein, the November general election for District 2 would be canceled. Bernstein would receive a certification stating there are no more candidates than available offices and would officially begin the new four-year term after the Nov. 3 election.

But if the council allows the election to continue, write-in candidates could enter the race during the Sept. 7 through Oct. 20 period.

That could open the door for Palm Springs resident Tad Iwan, who says he wants to challenge Bernstein.

Iwan did not qualify during the regular nomination period. He says gathering the required signatures was difficult, particularly because he is not an incumbent.

“It looks like no one is even trying to run against him however I did but I could not get the names because of the intense heat,” he said. “Not being an incumbent with all of the connections and networking that goes on in the four years you’re in office, I had to rely on going from door to door to get those signatures.”

The decision has Iwan concerned about whether District 2 voters will have a choice.

“I am concerned about the meeting tomorrow because the meeting will basically put this decision in the hands of city council and I don’t really think it’s appropriate,” said Iwan.

The county says holding the election would cost an estimated $22,000. But Iwan says that price shouldn’t override a voter’s right to have a choice.

“I know there’s some concern about the budget but you know what’s the cost of a fair election,” he said.

The issue is not new for Palm Springs. According to a city staff report, the council faced a similar situation in 2020 involving the District 5 seat.

Thursday’s special meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at Palm Springs City Hall, 3200 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way.

Stay with News Channel 3 for more.

LOS ANGELES (KESQ) – A retrial for the man accused of setting a blaze that grew into the deadly Palisades Fire, the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history, was moved today from October to the beginning of November.

Earlier this year, a federal court jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquitting Jonathan Rinderknecht on three arson-related charges stemming from the 2025 firestorm, which prosecutors say began on New Year’s Day as the Lachman Fire, then smoldered for a week before Santa Ana winds re-ignited it into the Palisades Fire. In light of the deadlock, a judge declared a mistrial, but prosecutors vowed to retry the case.

The Palisades Fire killed 12 people, burned 23,448 acres, cost billions in damage and insurance claims, and ruined much of the exclusive Pacific Palisades community, destroying about 6,800 structures.

Rinderknecht was originally charged with three federal arson counts: destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and timber set afire. However, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment last week with only two charges — destruction of property by means of fire and arson affecting property used in interstate commerce.

In the new indictment, the first charge refers only to Rinderknecht’s alleged setting of the Lachman Fire, rather than the Lachman and Palisades fires.

In court Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles, the now-bearded Rinderknecht — dressed in beige jail clothing and shackled at the waist — pleaded not guilty to the revised charges and his new trial date was continued from Oct. 19 to Nov. 2.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Rinderknecht remains in federal custody pending retrial because three separate federal judges found that he is a danger to the community. The findings were based on evidence showing, among other things, that he hid a firearm in a child’s teddy bear and threatened to burn his sister’s house down in Florida.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli insisted after the mistrial was declared in June that prosecutors would eventually win a conviction.

“The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades Fire,” Essayli wrote on X. “We fully intend to retry this case before a new jury and obtain guilty verdicts on all charged counts.”

Defense attorney Steven Haney told reporters outside court, however, that his client is innocent, and a retrial won’t give prosecutors a better result. He said prosecutors “failed miserably” in their efforts to prove their case.

“If they want to re-try it again, we can re-try it again,” Haney said. “If Bill Essayli wants to cheerlead from the sidelines, maybe he should come in and try the case himself next time.”

He said a retrial would likely end up with Rinderknecht being acquitted.

“Ten-to-two is an overwhelming message from the jury that the government failed and did not have enough evidence to prove their case,” Haney said.

During the 10-day trial, the jury heard evidence that the deadly Palisades Fire was a “holdover” fire — a continuation of the Lachman Fire that began early in the morning on New Year’s Day 2025. Although firefighters quickly suppressed the Lachman Fire — named for a street near the Skull Rock Trailhead — the fire continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of dense vegetation.

On Jan. 7, 2025, heavy winds caused the underground fire to resurface and spread above ground in what became known as the Palisades Fire, which caused widespread damage in Pacific Palisades and Malibu.

Prosecutors used witness statements, video surveillance, cell phone data and analysis of fire dynamics and patterns at the scene to try to show Rinderknecht intentionally set the Lachman Fire and then lied about it to investigators. The evidence was largely circumstantial.

Haney argued that no hard evidence tied his client to arson, and the Lachman and Palisades fires were two separate events. The first fire was likely caused by errant New Year’s Eve fireworks, he told jurors, and the second blaze could’ve been arson.

According to Haney, Rinderknecht was on the trail near the Hidden Buddha clearing where the Lachman Fire was thought to have started, but the part-time Uber driver did nothing more than call 911 to report it.

Haney insisted the Lachman Fire “could’ve started before Jonathan even arrived (on the scene). Nobody knows for sure when it started. Everyone is guessing. A man’s on trial and nobody knows when the fire started.”

Prosecutors told jurors Rinderknecht, driven by anger, loneliness and a thirst for revenge against the wealthy, used a grill lighter to ignite hilltop vegetation around midnight on Dec. 31, 2024, at a remote, deserted area adjacent to the Pacific Palisades’ Summit neighborhood. That fire ultimately exploded into the deadly conflagration that wiped out much of the upscale community six days later.