Indio votes for city council, clerk and treasurer this fall: Here are the candidates

Two Indio City Council seats are up for election this fall, but only one is contested by multiple candidates.The District 5 race has Indio Police Department staffer Ben Guitron seeking to unseat longtime Councilmember Lupe Ramos Amith.

In District 1, another longtime incumbent, Glenn Miller, is running unopposed.

But the city council races aren't the only ones residents will find on their ballot this fall.

Megan Scarborough-Eckel, currently a clerk for the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, is running against longtime City Clerk Cynthia Hernandez. Meanwhile, current Assistant City Manager and Finance Director Rob Rockwell is seeking to be elected to the treasurer role he was appointed to last year.

Here is a closer look at the races.

Indio City Council District 5

Ramos Amith, who has served on the council since 2004, has said she is seeking a final term that would allow her to see to completion many of the projects and initiatives she has been part of over her many years on the council. But getting that chance will require her to first get more votes than Ben Guitron, who is retiring soon from a decades-long career with the police department that has seen him serve as its spokesperson, among other roles.

Ramos Amith said her goals for another term include seeing through the completion of the final projects in the city’s 2000 master plan, making progress on efforts to build new interchanges for all the city’s Interstate 10 access points (only one at Jefferson has been completed so far) and bringing a mixed-use development to the city’s largely vacant mall.

Guitron, meanwhile, said his goals include fostering an economy that benefits everyone, expanding resources aimed at improving safety and quality of life in the city, and ensuring that the city grows in a way that is “smart” and “sustainable.” Guitron has also touted his involvement in many local organizations over the years and says he will be focused on building strong relationships both within and beyond the city.

A third candidate, Christian Rodriguez Ceja, has suspended his campaign because of what he called "a concerted effort to escalate campaign costs this year."

"In an unprecedented move, one candidate raised over $70,000 in the second quarter alone," he wrote in a statement. "This substantial financial disparity has made it exceedingly challenging for grassroots campaigns like ours to remain competitive."

Campaign filings on the city website suggest he was referring to Guitron, who reported roughly $71,000 in campaign contributions. During the same period, Ramos Amith reported contributions totaling about $22,650 while Rodriguez Ceja reported just over $3,000 in contributions.

Rodriguez Ceja said he will continue to advocate and work to ensure residents voices are taken into account in decision making.

Indio City Council District 1

Glenn Miller, who is running unopposed, has served on the city council since 2008. He told The Desert Sun in May that he wants to ensure the many new city facilities currently under construction, including the new city hall and library, get completed.

He said he also wants to continue making progress on what he says are the two biggest issues facing the city: homelessness and a lack of power infrastructure needed to accommodate the city’s needs and future growth. Miller is a veteran of local Republican politics and currently serves as the Coachella Valley representative for Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert’s office.

Indio City Clerk

Indio's elected city clerk has shifted into a "high-level oversight" role following the city council's passage of an ordinance in June assigning the day-to-day work of a clerk to city staff.

Under the ordinance, the technical work of managing elections, handling records and other responsibilities are to be handled by hired city staff overseen by the city manager, typically the city's director of clerk services, Sabdi Sanchez.

The elected city clerk, meanwhile, provides high-level review of those functions, including "ensuring that policies and procedures are properly implemented and ensuring the city is operating in a manner that is transparent and accountable." The ordinance states that the intention of this approach is to "ensure the city benefits from both expert administration and accountable governance."

Cynthia Hernandez, an Indio native, has served as the elected city clerk since 2004 and is seeking reelection. However, she is being challenged for the role by another Indio native, Megan Scarborough-Eckel.

Hernandez said she is proud to have about 30 years of experience working as either a deputy or elected city clerk in multiple Coachella Valley cities and that Indio has accomplished many things during her tenure that make the city what it is today, including the construction of new housing developments and roads. The city website states that Hernandez is a Certified Municipal Clerk and a member of the International Institute of Municipal Clerks.

Scarborough-Eckel said her qualifications include serving as the clerk for the mosquito and vector district, earning a political science degree from UCLA and currently being in her second term on the city’s community services commission, which makes recommendations to the city council relating to community services and programs.She said her grandparents and father were both public servants and she wants to be a positive addition to the city’s group of elected officials. She said she is biracial but did not always see herself in her city growing up and now wants to be an example for people in Indio with a similar background.

Indio Treasurer

As with the city clerk role, the June ordinance passed by the council also made the elected treasurer role responsible for providing oversight of the day-to-day handling of the city's accounting and finance systems and records. That day-to-day work is to be done by city staff, particularly the city manager and finance director.

However, the sole candidate for the role, Rob Rockwell, is the city's current finance director and assistant city manager. He has served as Indio’s treasurer since 2023, when he was appointed to fill the rest of the term of the prior treasurer, Bavina Ramirez. The June ordinance does not say anything about whether a city staff member can serve in the position.

Rockwell was hired as Indio's finance director in 2010 and spent 12 years before that working in various finance-related roles for Riverside County.

Paul Albani-Burgio covers growth, development and business in the Coachella Valley. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Indio election 2024: Who is running?