Desert Magazine: Let's start with your background and how you came to La Quinta.
Mayor Linda Evans: I am a native of California, born in Norwalk, grew up near Cerritos and Knott's Berry Farm. I'm in the middle of three girls. Very much grew up poor. My dad was a blue-collar worker. We're a conservative family. My mom and dad taught me that you help those that are in need. I remember watching Jerry Lewis' telethon and saving my allowance to mail in $5. That was a huge thing for me to be able to do. It is about giving back and serving. Paid for my own college.
Desert: Where was that?
Evans: I've got a bachelor's at Cal State, Fullerton. I have a Master's in Health Administration and a Master's of Science and Gerontology. I started in healthcare back in 1988, working for an HMO in Orange County, and then moved into the hospital administration side in '95. I’ve been working for Tenet Healthcare (for) 28 years. They said, "We need some help in the desert. We want you to work at JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio.” I came to La Quinta in 2003. That's where you get involved in community. You join disease boards: Heart Association, Cancer Society, Diabetes. I worked my way through the Chamber of Commerce executive committee and was Chair for a couple of years. After I rotated off my Chair board position, there was an opportunity on city council.
Desert: Was there a moment when you made a conscious decision? "Oh, I think I like politics.”
Evans: I always say I'm not a politician. I'm a servant to my community. I'm still a full-time healthcare administration. It was a midterm. Tom Kirk was on city council back in 2009, and got the CEO job (at Coachella Valley Association of Governments). So he had to exit. There was only about 18 months left of his term. The city's process was, you apply, there's an interview process in a public meeting, and they literally just vote right there in a city council meeting, whether they want you or not. So there are 14 of us that applied and I was appointed that evening in June of ’09.
Desert: What did you like about it?
Evans: It was a new industry for me. The process of getting a development through application, planning, commission, and council. The process of what it takes for government funding. The tax revenues that come into the city and what's allocated for what piece. The grant money that you can apply for. Police. Fire. Just, all of the infrastructure and nuances besides just making sure that people...feel safe in a community. What I realized was, local government is the best way to serve your community. You don't vote based on party. You are serving 41,000 residents in La Quinta, and you are making decisions on the greater good. You are seeing and hearing from the people here in the park, up in the trails, at Costco whether they like this (or) don't like this. I love that interaction, engagement by the community.
Desert: But when you’re appointment was up, you had to run for real.
Evans: So then in 2010, I had to run for my first four-year term. I did a lot of door-to-door. You walk to win, is what they say. You have to connect with these gated communities because you just can't get in there and meet people. We have 42 of them here. Somebody you know, that lives there, they have to host. ou have to be invited in. So that was a challenge. But fun. I won that campaign. About two years into my four-year council term, I'll be honest, I started introducing myself as a future mayor of La Quinta.
Desert: I like your chutzpah.
Evans: I just felt like we were ready to go to the next level. There needed to be a little bit more energy. How do we play a bigger role? How do we attract the millennials? How do we make it a more exciting resort destination? We needed to find things that attract all ages instead of just the "retirement community." 20% of our population is 18 and below. 20% is 65 and up. The rest are young (to middle age). I don't think people realize that about La Quinta. When you look at the education level of our population, we're very much in the same education bracket as Silicon Valley.
Desert: Did becoming mayor initially meet your expectations?
Evans: I think that the positive reinforcement by the response of residents reaffirmed that they're behind me. We're quite a stable city…conservative yet open-minded, fiscally responsible. And we're well-funded. When people see that the city's run well, they're happy living here, the roads are in good shape, the parks are usable, I think that's the testament to say you're on the right track.
Desert: In your five terms, what would you say are among your proudest accomplishments?
Evans: I think one of the biggest things that we did post-recession is do a transformation. We did a transformation of the way we ran our city government. This was around 2011. We had to reduce expenses because we didn't have the influx of redevelopment money coming in. We had to figure out how to start running this like a business, not like government. We embarked upon providing education and training for the staff. We brought in developers, we brought in community members and looked at how do we tweak the way we're doing things. We started investing in technology so that you don't have to always come down to City Hall and a stand at a counter to get paperwork signed. We changed the culture of our internal working process and then relayed that to the external community (and it) resonated quite strongly. I always say we don't think outside the box. We don't have a box.
Desert: LaQuinta is known for the arts celebration. I know it's had some kind of changes in the last couple years.
Evans: LaQuinta Arts Foundation had been doing the arts festival for some 30 years and made a decision before COVID that they didn't feel they wanted to do art events anymore. Our artist community said, we can't not have an art celebration. We pulled an ad hoc group together. We pooled lots of folks together and decided to put an RFP out to find a new promoter that would be willing to put on that spectacular event. The city, through a selection process and a public meeting chose Scope Events to launch the first art celebration. It has been a very successful art event from a sales standpoint, from an artist satisfaction standpoint, from a community response standpoint. We've continued with that and now we're doing them twice a year, November and March.
Desert: It is a great community, but there must be some challenges.
Evans: A lot of the challenges (are) keeping things local and making decisions on a local level. The state makes mandates that are often unfunded. (For instance), there have been attempts to pass laws to help telecom services. They can put can things anywhere on poles anywhere in your city. Little mini microwaves for extra connection, extra service reception, et cetera, without going through a local process of making them aesthetically pleasing, making them distance from homes, businesses, et cetera. That's one minor example of why we have quality standards and building standards for a reason. We embrace those technologies coming to our city, but not without saying where they should go or how they should be implemented or what they look like.
Desert: Let's talk about affordable housing.
Evans: We have the largest number of affordable housing units in any other city [inaudible] Coachella Valley. We have about 1,350 affordable housing units. We pride ourselves on making them look just like any other community development. We did a project on Washington Street. The city acquired them and annexed them from Bermuda Dunes before I was on council '08. It was 72 seniors and adults with disabilities and the (apartments) were pretty dilapidated. It took a number of years through the dissolution process that the state allowed some of the housing money to come back to cities. We were able to then finally rehabilitate the 72, and then we had acquired the land just adjacent to it so we were also able to add 68 more. We are vigilant in LaQuinta to try to find ways to make that happen, whether it's for veterans or multifamily or seniors, because we believe that everybody should be able to live in this community. We provide wonderful parks, hiking trails, fitness centers that are affordable. We have things for all people, not just golf and tennis and country clubs.
Desert: What about the future?
Evans: We are in the assessment phase right now of looking at expanding the city of LaQuinta. There's something called a sphere of influence that every city has. And it's almost an imaginary boundary that if you want to get bigger, LAFCo, the Land Area Formation Commission of Riverside County, designates what that might look like. And ours is to the east of LaQuinta. And it gets into some of those unincorporated areas of Riverside County right now on the way to the Thermal area. It's a bold step and not without a lot of input. We're doing our first study session next month. We hired a consultant to start working on the financial analysis of what it would cost. Our thought was we're looking at two phases. We're looking at our designated and allowable, going through the whole process, sphere of influence, and then potentially proposing to entertain going all the way to Highway 86, which would definitely include the airport and the Thermal Club. They have voiced to us they'd love to have a 92253 zip code. A LaQuinta zip code increases the value of homes, of properties.
