Nestande’s main impact has been harming business and public health. She was the only Coachella Valley Mayor to discourage health precautions like masks, and promoted hoaxes and misinformation to a community thirsty for credible information.
Tourists and locals avoided Palm Desert for cities that were safe.
Palm Desert ran a $17 million deficit and gutted police by millions because Nestande created an unsafe business environment. Other cities with safe environments increased funding for law enforcement and ran huge budget surpluses.
On Apr 20, 2020, Nestande famously told the the public to ignore medical and business experts: Governor Newsom, It’s Time For Us To Get Back To Work. This op-ed is not her writing style, but her less polished comments on KESQ say the same thing. She promoted a hoax, virologists were already estimating that COVID was 80X more deadly than the flu, and that without precautions, we would lose 2 million Americans.
Professional organizations condemned this misinformation promoted by Nestande and others: “The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions […]”
The City of Palm Desert made a rare formal statement that Mayor Nestande did not represent the official position of the city. Here, Nestande explains why she dismisses competent experts.
