In most races, the June 2 election is a primary, with voters deciding who advances to November. But thanks to Riverside County’s election rules, the head-to-head matchup between county Supervisor V. Manuel Perez and challenger Steve Sanchez will likely decide who represents the valley in county government for the next four years.
If either candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they will win the seat and there will be no November general election in that race.
Primary ballots have already arrived in the mail, and for most Coachella Valley voters, the Perez-Sanchez race is perhaps the highest profile local race on the ballot.
Perez, who has been on the board since 2017 is seeking his third full term, while Sanchez, a La Quinta City Council member, is seeking to move from city to county government.
They’re running in the county’s fourth district, which stretches from the mountains of Idyllwild eastward to Blythe and the state’s border with Arizona. The district includes all nine of the Coachella Valley’s cities as well as its unincorporated areas.
Perez was first appointed to fill the seat in 2017 after the death of John Benoit, then he won elections to two full terms, defeating Palm Desert Councilmember Jan Harnik in 2018 and running unopposed in 2022. Sanchez has been a La Quinta council member since 2016.
Sanchez is a Republican and Perez is a Democrat, although the supervisor’s position is officially nonpartisan. Perez holds a massive fundraising advantage over Sanchez, with roughly $244,000 in his campaign fund as of late April, per campaign finance reports. Sanchez’s campaign fund had a balance of roughly $10,000 as of late April.
The candidates spoke separately with The Desert Sun about their positions on an array of topics, including the valley’s infrastructure needs, data center proposals, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s election investigation and former Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez’s felony conviction.
Infrastructure a top priority for both candidates
Sanchez, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said he decided to run for the supervisor’s seat after observing what he called a “lack of leadership” from Perez. Sanchez said he, not Perez, has often been the first to raise issues with, for example, the Coachella Valley Animal Campus or the Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe.
He said he’s often led the charge on those issues while representing La Quinta on several regional agencies, including the Riverside County Local Agency Formation Commission, the Riverside County Airport Land Use Commission, the Southern California Association of Governments’ Regional Council and the Coachella Valley Animal Campus Commission.
“There’s just a whole host of issues that I’m constantly bringing up,” Sanchez said. “We just need somebody who has the vision to kind of carry it forward, everything from technology to infrastructure to public safety. These are all the issues that affect not just the Fourth District, but the entire county.”
Perez defended his record, saying his wide-ranging career in government — from the Coachella Valley Unified School District to the California State Assembly to the Coachella City Council — has sharpened his abilities as a policymaker.
“At the end of the day, people come to you for everything in this role as supervisor,” Perez said. “Many times, folks don’t know the difference between what a supervisor does, or a school board member or a water board member or a city council member, a state assembly member, and they don’t care about that.”
“My job is to connect the dots and to help people connect those dots and try to bring partnerships together to make things happen,” he added.
Both candidates mentioned improving the Fourth District’s infrastructure as a key issue. Perez specifically noted the power outages and unsafe drinking water at mobile home parks in the east valley’s unincorporated areas, where county officials have relocated some people living in mobile home parks into safer living conditions.
“I link infrastructure to housing and housing overall means stability, and I think that if you have housing and you have the infrastructure that’s necessary and it pencils out, then people are able to at least stabilize their families,” Perez said.
With some luxury developments gaining approval in communities such as Thermal in recent years, Sanchez and Perez both offered support for requiring such plans to include some sort of public benefit contribution to improve the surrounding area’s infrastructure.
“We want responsible development, and everybody just needs to ensure that any public resources that are being used are either replenished in a different way or in a like manner,” Sanchez said.
Perez noted he advocated for those types of community benefit requirements with the approval of the Thermal Surf Club in 2020, adding that he always prioritizes the feedback he receives from an unincorporated area’s community council before voting on a project.
Sanchez saw other opportunities for growth in the area. He said the Thermal airport, which currently serves only small, private flights, is “primed for expansion,” and he mentioned the possibility of starting an aviation-focused trade school at the facility.
“People often say, ‘The Thermal airport is just for the rich,’” Sanchez said. “But once you start getting a control tower in there and customs (checkpoints), you’ll be able to import, export more local goods out of there and services because of that.”
Perez changes stance on Coachella data center
The candidates discussed a newly proposed data center in eastern Coachella that has drawn strong pushback from community members in council meetings and at a recent town hall meeting. Plans for the data center, including reports on its potential impacts, have not yet been formally submitted at city hall.
Perez — who received a $5,000 contribution from the data center’s developer in 2025 — wrote a letter in March supporting the proposal, as previously reported by KESQ. But he later rescinded his support for the project, describing the letter as a “mistake” while speaking with The Desert Sun.
“At the end of the day, I take responsibility for writing the letter, and I also want to make sure that people understand, though, I take responsibility for rescinding that letter for the right reasons,” Perez said. “Bottom line, there was no (environmental impact report). There was no economic impact report conducted.”
“I do not support the idea of a data center until anything and everything needs to be thought through and really gone through the community,” he added.
Sanchez said the data center’s developer “did it the wrong way” and should’ve engaged with the community and neighbors proactively before approaching city hall with the proposal.
“That didn’t happen, and that was a huge mistake because people, even myself, I want to know: Where’s the power coming from?” Sanchez said.
Sanchez emphasized the “devil is in the details” with data center proposals, and both he and Perez noted the ubiquity of data storage and technology that’s given rise to the market for these centers nationwide.
“I think it is important that people understand that data centers, whether they know it or not, they are literally using it every single day, from the GPS in their car to the text messages they send to their friends every day,” Sanchez said.
Sheriff’s election probe awaits Supreme Court decision
The candidates offered their views on a recent investigation led by Bianco, the sheriff, whose office seized more than half a million ballots from last year’s Proposition 50 election as part of an investigation launched in response to concerns over ballot count disparities first raised by a group with right-wing ties.
The probe has been paused by the California Supreme Court while it reviews a lawsuit brought by Rob Bonta, the state’s attorney general, who criticized the investigation as baseless and said Bianco ignored his office’s directives to stop it.
Asked about the investigation, Perez and Sanchez both noted the board of supervisors only has power over the sheriff’s department’s budget, not the specific actions taken by Bianco, an independently elected official who is conducting the investigation while also running for governor as a Republican.
“The sheriff, whether we like it or not, can investigate wrongdoings of anything, and in this case, he had evidence or cause to believe that there were wrongdoings with the ballots,” Sanchez said.
“You can’t micromanage from the supervisor seat or a city council seat or a mayor seat what an investigator investigates,” he added.
Sanchez said the investigation is going through the appropriate checks and balances within the legal system right now.
“The sheriff believes an investigation is warranted, and now it’s up to the Supreme Court to say, ‘Well, let me look into it to see if you’re right or not,’” Sanchez said. “That is exactly what it’s supposed to be.”
Perez, who’s been endorsed by the Riverside Sheriffs Association, the deputies’ union, similarly noted the board of supervisors “don’t have any jurisdiction over (the sheriff’s) decisions” beyond setting its budget. He noted the county’s top election official previously told the board that the concerns raised over alleged ballot discrepancies were misplaced.
“I do feel that ultimately the attorney general was in the right, and I think that ultimately he will prevail (in the Supreme Court case), but we shall see,” Perez said.
Sanchez criticizes Perez’s ties to former Coachella mayor
During the campaign, Sanchez has pointed to Perez’s relationship with former Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez, who pleaded guilty in March to a felony charge that he illegally participated in votes as mayor in which he had a conflict of interest.
Hernandez was the chief of staff for Perez’s supervisorial office, and he was placed on administrative leave in October 2025 when he was initially charged with 10 counts of conflict of interest and perjury. Perez fired Hernandez from the position after his guilty plea, and Hernandez resigned as mayor.
Sanchez criticized Perez for not speaking publicly about Hernandez’s conviction at the time, saying it was disappointing and reflected a lack of leadership. “Your most trusted and vital staff member that you have — that’s your confidant, the person who helps you make decisions on budgets and policies — pleaded guilty to a felony,” he said.
Asked about those criticisms, Perez emphasized that the charges against Hernandez were unrelated to his role in the supervisor’s office,
“He made mistakes in filing his form 700, which were related to conflicts of interest, and obviously he’s taken responsibility for those mistakes now,” Perez said. “I have nothing to do with anything that he decided to do on those fronts, and as a result, he no longer works for the county.”
Sanchez also took issue with Perez’s staff, vowing that he won’t hire any elected officials to work for his office if elected as supervisor. Currently, Perez’s staff includes two members of local city councils, Coachella Councilmember Stephanie Virgen and Palm Springs Councilmember Grace Garner.
“As council members, we sit on regional commissions with the county supervisor and different county officials,” Sanchez said. “If your boss, the supervisor, is voting one way and you’re a council member or a mayor of another city that works for him and you want to vote a different way, how can you vote against your boss? That just leads to a conflict right there, or even the perception of conflict.”
Perez said he’s “always believed in empowerment” and has never forbid a staff member from seeking elected office, so long as they can explain why they’re seeking the seat. He also noted that other members of the board of supervisors have hired staff that hold other elected positions across the county.
“I know individuals at every level of government that also have individuals in policymaking underneath them, and they do a good job,” Perez said.
With vote-by-mail ballots already sent to California voters, the race for county supervisor will conclude on Election Day, June 2.
Tom Coulter covers local government and politics for The Desert Sun. Reach him at tcoulter@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Sanchez challenges Perez for county supervisor. What they have to say
Reporting by Tom Coulter, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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