Candidate Conflict in Cathedral City’s Special Election

Just two weeks before the Cathedral City’s District One special election is over, a candidate filed a restraining order against her opponent’s husband claiming she was intimidated at a friend’s event.

Rita Lamb finished filing a Civil Harassment Restraining Order on Friday against Alan Carvalho, the husband of Shelley Kaplan who is running against Lamb for the city council seat.

Lamb said she was sitting at a friend’s event when Carvalho went up to her, “Pointed at me and leaned into me and he’s a big guy and I was intimidated and frightened.”

This interaction was regarding a video clip shot by Carvalho and used by the Lamb campaign without his permission.

Kaplan showed NBC Palm Springs a past interaction between the spouses, on that instance, Carvalho approached the Lambs while moving a campaign sign, Carvalho said, “I haven’t seen you in any LGBT events ever.”

Lamb’s husband responded, ” Are you Heterophobic?” 

Carvalho said, “Thank you for saying that.”

Lamb said she did not expect any of this conflict when she decided to run for the city council, she is a retired school principal who worked for Desert Sands Unified School District and Coachella Valley Unified School District.

While Kaplan is running to be re-elected, he served in the Cathedral City Council from 2014 to 2018, they are both running to fill the seat left by the deceased Mayor Greg Pettis.

Kaplan said this time around the race is getting personal and ugly.

“I believe that there are people supporting my opponent who basically have a level of hostility and malice against me, my husband and my family,” Kaplan said.

He said his spouse was served twice already with a restraining order from people they say are Lamb supporters, both were dismissed by a judge but Kaplan sees this as a tactic from his opponent.

Kaplan said, “So for my perspective, this is the use of the courts for intimidation.”

While Lamb claims intimidation is the reason why she filed a restraining order in the first place.

Lamb said, “I will not be intimidated, I am a private resident running for public office and I expect to be treated with dignity and I will not be backed into a corner.”

For his part, Kaplan said he still has unfinished business left in the city such as starting construction for the downtown casino, “A  lot of projects in the works related to the downtown entertainment district.”

Lamb who has lived in the desert since the 1980s said she keeps her ear to the ground and plans to win by listening to the concerns from residents.

She said, “My husband and I have lived in Cathedral city for 20 years, so I want to do my part to maintain that and represent the community.”

The Cathedral City residents have until Monday, August 12 for the special election, and August 27 is the last day to submit the mail-in ballot.