I remain positive regarding the future of our city and our efforts to strengthen our economy and attract employers who will provide quality jobs with a living wage.
Desert Hot Springs has been fortunate to have a robust tourist industry with established tourist-serving infrastructure. Our Cannabis industry in Desert Hot Springs employs more than 4,150 workers, and of that number, 1,512 are DHS residents. That’s 36.43% of all cannabis jobs! Our cannabis industry has done a very impressive job at hiring local residents, and more Cannabis businesses are coming to DHS along with new jobs. And most significantly, Amazon will be breaking ground on its new DHS warehouse in 2024, and it is expected that more than 1,400 jobs will be created. I am hopeful that most will go to Desert Hot Springs residents. This is a big deal!
I will work to make sure that the Cannabis industry, along with all other new businesses in Desert Hot Springs, including Amazon, always hire Desert Hot Springs residents first and provide a living wage that helps keep residents out of poverty. I will continue to work with our Economic Development Manager to identify and welcome new businesses. I will ask the city to hold more job fairs, and I will help facilitate skills training for residents who will then be better able to compete for new jobs in the new economy. It bothers me that we have so many vacant storefronts in DHS, even though there are many, many businesses that want to rent them. Using both positive and negative financial incentives, I will encourage landlords and building owners to rent their long-vacant storefronts in order to create jobs.