# Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1

Compare records and positions simply between Edouard Boumendil or Gary Gardner for Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Desert Hot Springs's City Council. The council has four district seats. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. Desert Hot Springs also directly elects a citywide Mayor. The Mayor serves a separate four year term, limited to two terms. That Mayor's seat is not up this cycle. Districts 2 and 4 are also not up this cycle. They were last elected in November 2024. They are next up in 2028, on a staggered schedule. Districts 1 and 3 share that schedule.

- Jurisdiction: City of Desert Hot Springs
- Election: November 3, 2026 California general election
- Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements.
- Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/desert-hot-springs-council-1
- Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/
- Sources last retrieved: September 3, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 83 out of 100 (Strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Edouard Boumendil**
- **Gary Gardner** — Incumbent

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Two candidates -- Edouard Boumendil and incumbent Gary Gardner -- are on the November 3, 2026 ballot for Desert Hot Springs's District 1 City Council seat. Whoever gets the most votes wins a four-year term; there is no primary or runoff.

This person holds your district's seat on Desert Hot Springs's 4-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. Desert Hot Springs also directly elects a citywide Mayor to a separate 4-year term, limited to two terms -- but that seat, along with Districts 2 and 4, is not up this cycle. Districts 1 and 3 were first elected by district in November 2022 and recur every four years; the Mayor and Districts 2/4 were first elected in November 2024 and recur on their own four-year cycle starting 2028.

Gardner's incumbency is confirmed by the city's own certified candidate roster, which marks them with an asterisk. Their own campaign site describes roughly eight years on the council and a rental-registration ordinance Gardner sponsored that the council adopted unanimously in early July 2026. No independent news coverage, campaign site, or biographical detail of any kind was found for Boumendil despite a genuine attempt, including guessing their own campaign-domain pattern and a targeted name search.

## Edouard Boumendil

Edouard Boumendil is a challenger for Desert Hot Springs's District 1 City Council seat. No independent biography, occupation detail, campaign site, or platform statement was found for them beyond their name and nomination-paper filing dates on the city's own certified candidate roster.

**Strengths:** None could be independently confirmed; no occupation, background, or platform is documented for them beyond their name on the ballot.

**Trade-offs:** No independent biography, professional background, campaign site, or stated platform was found for them anywhere.

**Keep in mind:** With no public record of their priorities, this is a vote with essentially no documented basis -- a genuine, hard-tried search found nothing.

## Gary Gardner

Gary Gardner is the incumbent District 1 councilmember, seeking reelection after roughly eight years on the council. Their own campaign site frames their run around keeping the city safe, business-friendly, and fiscally responsible, and cites a rental-registration ordinance they sponsored -- aimed at protecting renters, whom Gardner describes as almost half the city's population, from unsafe conditions -- that the council adopted unanimously in early July 2026.

**Strengths:** Roughly eight years of incumbency plus a concrete legislative record: a rental-registration ordinance they sponsored, adopted unanimously in July 2026.

**Trade-offs:** Nearly all detail about their record and platform comes from their own campaign site; no independent news coverage of their tenure was found.

**Keep in mind:** A vote for continuity in a seat they have already held for two terms, against a challenger with no public record to compare Gardner to.

## Review notes

- Gary Gardner for Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1 -- campaign site: roughly eight years on the council seeking reelection, describes District 1 as the area south of Pierson Boulevard and west of Palm Drive, cites a rental-registration ordinance he sponsored that the council adopted unanimously in early July 2026, and lists endorsements including Mayor Scott Matas, Rep. Raul Ruiz, and County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

## Sources

1. [City of Desert Hot Springs -- City Clerk "General Municipal Election -- November 3, 2026" page: nomination period (July 13-Aug. 6, 2026) and requirements, plus two embedded images -- an office-count table ("FOR CITY COUNCIL": District 1 and District 3, each a 4-year term, each "Currently held by incumbent") and the City Clerk's own "08-10-2026 Final Roster of Candidates," naming all four qualified candidates (District 1: Edouard Boumendil, and incumbent Gary Gardner; District 3: Joseph Erndt, and incumbent Jan Pye) with each one's nomination-paper issued/filed/qualified dates. No Mayor, District 2, or District 4 race appears anywhere on the page.](https://www.cityofdhs.org/general-municipal-election-november-3-2026/)
2. [City of Desert Hot Springs -- City Council department page: current roster (Mayor Scott Matas; Mayor Pro Tem Dirk Voss, District 4; Gary Gardner, District 1; Daniel Pitts, District 2; Jan Pye, District 3), confirming by-district council elections since November 2022, staggered 4-year terms, an at-large 4-year Mayor limited to two terms, and an annually rotating Mayor Pro Tem selected by the council each December.](https://www.cityofdhs.org/departments/city-council/)
3. [City of Desert Hot Springs -- "District Elections" page: the council adopted Ordinance 754 on April 5, 2022 establishing by-district elections; Districts 1 and 3 were first elected November 2022 and recur every four years (i.e. 2026), while Districts 2 and 4 and the at-large Mayor were first elected November 2024 and recur every four years (i.e. 2028) -- the source for why no Mayor, District 2, or District 4 race is on the November 2026 ballot.](https://www.cityofdhs.org/district-elections/)
4. [Riverside County Registrar of Voters — 2026 Annual Election Calendar (lists every November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election office by city, including "City of Cathedral City: City Council District 3 / District 4 / District 5 / City Treasurer")](https://voteinfo.net/sites/g/files/aldnop371/files/2026-02/Annual%20Election%20Calendar%202026.pdf)
5. [Gary Gardner for Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1 -- campaign site: roughly eight years on the council seeking reelection, describes District 1 as the area south of Pierson Boulevard and west of Palm Drive, cites a rental-registration ordinance he sponsored that the council adopted unanimously in early July 2026, and lists endorsements including Mayor Scott Matas, Rep. Raul Ruiz, and County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez.](https://gardnerfordhs.com)
6. [City of Desert Hot Springs NetFile public campaign-disclosure portal — candidate and committee filing search](https://netfile.com/public/DHS/campaign/search-entities)

## The rest of the ballot

Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/

## How to cite this page

Vote or Else, "Desert Hot Springs City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/desert-hot-springs-council-1 (sources last retrieved September 3, 2026).

Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.