Palm Springs City Council addresses Queer Works report
Garrett Hottle
UPDATE: The Palm Springs City Council voted 4 to 1 in its meeting on Wednesday to approve the city’s response to a Civil Grand Jury report that found the city failed to properly safeguard taxpayer dollars in its handling of non-profit grants tied to Queer Works.
Mayor Ron deHarte voted “no,” saying he felt the response could have expressed the city’s commitment to accountability more strongly.
Mayor deHarte commented, “I feel we could have maintained that sense of responsibility to the community and the response we gave to the community a little stronger in our response here, in the response to these questions.”
Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein said, “Mistakes were made and it really is unfortunate but how we have dealt with it, how the City Manager and staff dealt with the response, I think shows that we are committed to never letting this, or preventing this from happening.”
Councilmembers also discussed the city’s disagreement with the Grand Jury finding that not enough “oversight resulted in a loss of over 700 thousand dollars.”
The city stated it was “unable to reconcile a specific amount of loss.”
Several public speakers took issue with that defense, one saying, “The city is unable to reconcile a specific amount of loss, as if that makes it OK. Translation, we lost track of 700 thousand dollars, but since we can’t count it, it doesn’t count. With respect, that is absurd.”
In its response, the city says it’s moving forward with most of the Grand Jury’s ten recommendations – but rejected a recommendation for a forensic audit of all city departments.
Editors Note: Wed. Sep. 10 This article has been updated with corrected information regarding DAP Health. None of the Universal Basic Income funds flowed to DAP Health. All funds went directly to Queer Works.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (KESQ) The Palm Springs City Council will address a civil grand jury report Wednesday evening that found the city failed to properly safeguard taxpayer dollars in its handling of nonprofit grants tied to Queer Works.
The report follows the indictment of Queer Works founder Jacob Rostovsky, who faces 53 felony counts of fraud, grand theft, and misappropriation of public funds. Prosecutors allege he defrauded taxpayers at the city, county, and state level out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The grand jury’s findings concluded Palm Springs had “no comprehensive guidelines” for processing or monitoring large grants, allowing more than $700,000 in city funds to flow to Queer.
Jurors cited a lack of progress reports, lump-sum disbursements, and no fraud-prevention training for staff.
Community leaders say the damage has been devastating. Thomi Clinton, CEO of the Transgender Health and Wellness Center in Palm Springs, told News Channel 3 the scandal left the very people the program was meant to help – in crisis.
“It was the transgender community that was severely exploited,” Clinton said. They’re the individuals in need the most and they just want to live and survive and be productive members of society. But society is pretty much against them.”
Clinton said some members of the community are now homeless and turning to survival sex work
“They lost their hom, they are facing homelessness,” she explained. “They’re having to do sex work to pay for hotels right now. Some of them are victims of sexual assault and domestic violence,” Clinton said.
In a statement obtained by News Channel 3 Monday, Palm Springs Mayor Ron De Harte said the city has enacted reforms to ensure accountability and prevent a repeat of the Queer Works scandal. City officials said they will formally approve their response to the grand jury report at Wednesday’s meeting.
The city’s statement reads in full:Mayor deHarte. Here is a statement from him below:
“The City of Palm Springs fully supports the Riverside County District Attorney’s investigation and indictment of Mr. Jacob Rostovsky for allegedly defrauding the taxpayers of our city, our county and state out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The 53-felony count indictment includes fraud, grand theft, and misappropriation of public funds. While the City recognizes that all criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven otherwise, we are deeply concerned by these charges, particularly the charged misuse of taxpayer dollars, and continue to cooperate fully with the investigation to ensure accountability.
While the indictment includes allegations involving various government entities, including Riverside County and the State of California, we recognize that six of the felony counts explicitly refer to the City of Palm Springs’ Universal Basic Income Pilot Program. The City is committed to ensuring full accountability for public funds and has already taken significant steps to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
The Grand Jury’s report underscores the very shortcomings our team identified and has already fixed. While different figures have been cited regarding the Queer Works matter, what matters is that the City identified weaknesses in its oversight and has since enacted sweeping reforms to ensure taxpayer dollars are never at risk again.
Let me be clear: taxpayers deserve rigorous safeguards—and they now have them. Since 2024, we have overhauled our policies to protect public dollars and ensure measurable performance. We have eliminated lump-sum disbursements for grants above $75,000; require detailed progress reports and invoice documentation before any payment; mandate annual independent audits for larger awards; tightened front-end vetting of all applicants; assigned dedicated staff oversight to each grant; and instituted formal fraud-prevention and financial-controls training for staff. These reforms are in effect today and working.”
The City Council is expected to vote on its formal response Wednesday evening. Stay News Channel Three for further developments in this story.