It's a Matter of When to Speak Your Mind

The President of the United States of America came to Palm Springs to spend President’s Day weekend. His arrival/visit/departure requires some access to roads in the Valley to be limited, and therein lies the issue.

Believe it or not, local residents “wish the President had picked a better weekend” to visit the Valley. There is a lot going on this weekend, including the Tour de Palm Springs, the Indio Date Festival, the Dr. George car show and auction, Modernism week, a golf tournament, the Cathedral City Hot Balloon Festival – and on and on and on. Some residents (you know, the ones they find to put on the local news) think that there was already enough increased traffic to have reason to turn down the President’s trip to the area.

Really?

What would we do without the tourist dollars? Basically, from June through August the shops struggle to stay open as our fair weather friends fly back to their homes in milder climes. Year-round residents have learned how to stay cooler when it’s in the triple digits, but not so much our visitors who come from the northern and eastern regions of the continent. We have a bureau of tourism that works long and hard to entice visitors to the area, but they get a free publicity worldwide when it’s the President arriving to enjoy both our climates and our golf courses.

Publicity like that is literally priceless, so the nay-sayers should zip their lips and share their opinions after Air Force One leaves the local airport.