Sonny Bonaparte? : Palm Springs’ Famous Mayor Gets Mixed Reviews After 15 Months in Office

PALM SPRINGS —  It was April 20, 1988, Sonny Bono’s first official day as mayor of this desert resort, and His Honor’s debut at the evening City Council meeting was drawing near. He was scared, really scared.

“I can’t tell you the fear I had,” Bono said recently. “I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I didn’t know how to conduct a meeting.”

And so, like any savvy, seasoned celebrity would do, Mayor Bono asked for a script. Stunned at first, the City Clerk ultimately obliged, producing a detailed dialogue with Bono’s lines highlighted in bright yellow ink.

“It was great,” the mayor recalled with a grin. “I was able to say the right things, like, ‘Do we have a second for that motion?’ ‘What is the council’s pleasure?’ ‘Shall we have a roll call vote?’ ”

By all accounts, that inaugural meeting went smoothly. But today, 15 months after the actor-turned-politician first picked up his gavel, the reviews are far more mixed.

There are those who praise him. As these fans see it, Bono, 54, has worked diligently in his freshman year to overcome his political inexperience and learn the ropes at City Hall.

His high visibility--exploited through appearances on late-night television shows and at various special events--has placed Palm Springs in the national spotlight, and his plans for an international film festival in town have attracted widespread interest.

Some business leaders even credit the rookie mayor with wooing back developers driven elsewhere in recent years by the city’s inhospitable regulatory environment.

But more frequently heard these days are the voices of Bono’s critics, who charge that the mayor has reneged on campaign promises and has done little to rejuvenate the city’s struggling downtown.

Many former supporters, who initially viewed Bono as a savior who would rescue Palm Springs from the grip of less progressive leaders, now believe that his bid for mayor was merely a stunt to help revive a flagging entertainment career, which peaked when he starred with former wife Cher in a popular television show in the 1970s.

Lately, the hisses from the balcony have grown louder. A few months back, Bono failed to take part in a walk to fight AIDS and took a flogging from gay leaders--as well as actor and Palm Springs homeowner Kirk Douglas, who remarked on the mayor’s absence during the march.

More recently, Bono was lambasted by residents and two council colleagues when he led a successful move to boot three members off a city tourism board. At a meeting on the issue, Bono prohibited testimony from the public and the three board members, prompting outcries of “dictatorship” and rekindling talk of a recall.

“Sonny Bono is now Sonny Bonaparte and we’re not going to put up with it here in Palm Springs,” said Shirley Barker, a real estate broker who volunteered in Bono’s campaign. “I’d like to see him run right out of town.”

Thick-skinned from his years in the public eye, Bono says he scarcely feels the sting of such barbs. Moreover, he’s proud of his performance and believes that his critics are merely a boisterous minority.

“I take a lot of heat . . . and people don’t usually write letters to the editor saying, ‘Gee, Sonny was a great guy today,’ ” Bono mused recently, sipping a diet soda at a corner table in his Palm Springs restaurant, Bono’s.

“But I think most of the town is happy with me. There is one group that thought I would just come in and rubber-stamp everything, but that’s not reality. So if I’ve made them angry, then that’s just part of the job.”

When he launched his campaign in 1987, Bono was the classic maverick politician--a local businessman infuriated when the city told him he couldn’t erect a larger sign.

Pledging to throw out “the good old boys” responsible for such policies and “give City Hall back to the people,” he quickly drew a loyal band of followers, most of whom believed that Palm Springs needed a change--fresh, exciting leadership for the coming decade.

Now, many who backed him are disillusioned, saying that Bono--who pledged to be accessible and do battle for the little guy--has been absorbed by the Establishment he once criticized so vigorously.

“I think he’s a guy who came in wearing the reformer’s mantle and ended up in the emperor’s new clothes,” said Gary Walker, a travel writer who was one of the three men ousted from the Visitors and Promotion Board.

Critics say Bono has failed to produce on promises to tighten rent control laws, relax sign ordinances, fire the city manager and build a senior citizens’ center. In addition, they say he has failed to remain accessible to those who carried him into office.

“He said he was going to have coffees at his restaurant once a month where people could come in and air their gripes,” said Glen Symonds, who served as volunteer coordinator for Bono’s campaign. “Has he done that? No. I can’t even get him on the phone. . . . The biggest mistake I ever made was helping Sonny Bono get elected.”

Calls Not Returned

Even Bono’s colleagues complain that he is unavailable: “I can’t get him to return my calls,” said Councilman Tuck Broich, who describes himself as “extremely disappointed” in Bono. “That makes it kind of hard to communicate.”

Other residents had hoped that Bono would spark a renaissance in the city’s downtown, where a hemorrhage of retail businesses has created numerous vacant storefronts in recent years. Dale Hoke watched eagerly after Bono’s election for signs that the economic gloom was lifting but finally closed his card and gift store, The Snow Goose, in March.

“When he was campaigning, I bought a ton of ‘Sonny Bono for Mayor’ T-shirts and sent them to nieces and nephews,” Hoke said. “Now I won’t even wear mine.”

Bono acknowledges that he spent much of the first year “in the learning mode” and that progress on some issues has been slow. But the mayor has also discovered that the world looks different from the top.

“When you get in, you see you can’t just wave a wand and make things happen in one year or two or five,” Bono said. Moreover, “you learn how all these things are interrelated, so if you give money to one thing, you’re taking it from someone else. It’s impossible to make everyone happy.”

Nevertheless, Bono insists that Palm Springs has benefited from his tenure already. His greatest accomplishment? “I think the most major thing is getting the town attuned to a marketing point of view philosophically and gaining acceptance of that point of view, that kind of vision.”

Selling Palm Springs

Specifically, Bono believes that he has helped Palm Springs swallow its civic pride and begin to shamelessly sell itself. This concept, he said, was anathema to politicians of previous eras who could not or would not believe that the city’s star was dipping as competing resorts rose in the growing Coachella Valley.

Key to this new marketing approach is a menu of special events Bono believes will give Palm Springs a distinct allure and a modern identity. The film festival, which the mayor likens to the venerable event in Cannes, is the centerpiece. The first one, scheduled for January, already has lured such heavyweight sponsors as American Airlines and Bank of America.

“This will be a glamour affair, with pizazz and glitz,” Bono said. Other events already staged include a Grand Prix vintage car competition and a hot air balloon race.

As for other accomplishments, the mayor boasts that he has kept his pledge to prevent the city from imposing a 3% utility tax on businesses, saved a drug education program for youth, persuaded the city to purchase and renovate a downtown theater, and sparked a “new attitude” of friendliness among city bureaucrats who deal with developers and local merchants.

Business leaders, meanwhile, see other good omens. They note that the amount of transient occupancy tax paid by visitors climbed 8.5% during the last year, while sales tax revenue rose 5.7%. Business has jumped 16% over the last year at the downtown Desert Fashion Plaza, and Buffum’s department store recently agreed to occupy a cavernous building vacated by a Walker Scott store.

“I think Sonny has made developers feel there is a more entrepreneurial atmosphere here and has made them believe we have an open door,” Councilwoman Sharon Apfelbaum said.

In the Spotlight

Bono supporters also note that having a celebrity mayor routinely vaults Palm Springs into the national spotlight. Since his election, Bono has appeared in a Miller Lite beer commercial and on the “Later With Bob Costas” television program. Recently, he filmed two pilots for a “cooking variety” show.

“How many people know who the mayor of New York is?” said Chamber of Commerce President Paul Madsen. “Just by being Sonny Bono, the mayor of Palm Springs, and being visible he has promoted us.”

But fame can have its downside. Over the last year, Bono has canceled scheduled appearances at a convention of hoteliers, a sister city program in Victoria, British Columbia, and the Indianapolis 500, where he was expected to lead the parade opening race festivities. Bono blamed scheduling conflicts and an illness in the family.

“It’s disappointing to me because certainly it doesn’t make the city look good,” Councilman Bill Foster said. “But nobody’s perfect and I have to assume he has a good reason.”

Until recently, it seemed the heat of summer had quieted critics who have dogged Bono throughout his first year. But then came the removal of the three members of the city’s Visitors and Promotion Board, and controversy flared again.

Bono said he took action because the three--Walker, Chuck Murawski and Bob Weithorn--were using the board “as a political arena” and working “as contra forces against what the city seeks to accomplish.” But there was an emotional side to the issue as well; Murawski had called Bono “Mayor Bonehead” at a meeting.

Testimony Barred

When time came for a vote on the matter, Bono decided to bar testimony from the public and the three men, saying later that he knew what they would say and wished to avoid “two hours of abuse.”

The move sparked cries of outrage from the crowd, and one councilman--Foster--walked out in disgust. Another, Tuck Broich, remains angry and said the issue has “truly divided this council.”

“When a mayor won’t allow the public to speak there is something radically wrong,” Broich said. “This was a kangaroo court. It was outrageous. . . . I don’t think the citizens here elected a dictator.”

That same evening, talk of a recall began. Sig Zeitlin, president of a citizens’ group contemplating the move, said he has become convinced that Bono “has a huge ego and just wanted the title of mayor for his own private marketing purposes.”

Bono seems unfazed by such commotion, but with the tumult of Year No. 1 behind him, one wonders whether his zest for the job--which pays $15,000 a year--has faded. His face, though well-tanned from lots of tennis, bears lines of weariness, and his wife, Mary, admits that her husband’s civic duties take “a whole lot of time.”

Still, Bono says he gets a kick out of the small-town politician’s life: “The great thing about it is you know right away what people think of you because they tell you at the grocery store or the movie theater or on the street. Of course the bad thing is the job never shuts off.”

As for a second term--the first ends in April, 1992--Bono says he’s not sure whether it’s in the cards. His wife is against the idea, and Bono himself concedes that the hours and constant scrutiny from constituents can wear thin.

But, “I’m a follow-the-yellow-brick-road kind of guy . . . so it’s hard to say what I’ll do.”