I met Frank Tysen in 2008, the year I joined the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation Board of Directors. One of my first experiences as a board member was the ceremony celebrating the Class 1 historic designation of Casa Cody.
Frank’s passion for Casa Cody led him to write the Class 1 nomination himself. His astute research and deep love of history produced a nomination that was unanimously accepted by the city council.
In Tracy Conrad’s Desert Sun column following Frank’s passing, she referred to him as a gadfly. The word has been defined as “a person who upsets the status quo by waking people up from complacency and forcing them to think.” That was Frank in every sense of the word.
Frank made news. He challenged the status quo through countless
opinion pieces in The Desert Sun. The topics were wide-ranging, but his purpose was consistent: to preserve the Palm Springs he knew and loved and to advocate for thoughtful, smart growth. He formed an advocacy group, the Association for Better Community Development, with an emphasis on creating a better community.
Frank opposed a large county jail proposed just outside Palm Springs and alerted us to the oversized sports arena planned for downtown. He supported a ban on short-term vacation rentals in the city.
He opposed the Aberdeen Project, which would have demolished architect Hugh Kaptur’s Tahquitz Plaza for a misguided retail-residential complex. He took a stand against the city’s placement of the Marilyn statue in the middle of a street. He supported the Palm Springs Art Museum’s position that the statue should not block important sight lines to the museum. And when the coronavirus struck, Frank supported the city’s lockdown.
Frank was not content to make his case from the pages of a newspaper. He was a vocal advocate for the causes he believed in, appearing at countless board, commission and city council meetings over the years.
Frank brought intelligence and confidence to those meetings. He challenged council decisions and urged elected officials to consider what would benefit the citizens of Palm Springs rather than developers.
I spoke with Frank this past spring. He was still full of energy, advocating for the city to ban large warehouses and data centers. Frank was even arguing for better design on an In-N-Out Burger planned for Palm Canyon Drive. That was Frank: still engaged, still paying attention and still willing to speak up.
Frank didn’t just make news; sometimes he was the news.
In 2014, then-Mayor Steve Pougnet publicly denounced Frank at the State of the City Address, calling him an “obstructionist” for standing in the way of “The New Downtown.” The packed room erupted in loud boos over the mayor’s inappropriate comment, but there were cheers as well.
Frank loved the moment. He was undaunted. With a beaming smile and his head held high, he mingled with the attendees, shaking hands and continuing to make his opposition to the project known.
A few years later, Pougnet would leave Palm Springs disgraced. Frank took no pleasure in his downfall. Instead, he empathized that Pougnet had made “poor choices.” Even in disagreement, Frank could separate the person from the position.
Frank will be remembered for helping preserve the character of Palm Springs.
There is no large jail at the entrance to our city. There is no sports arena downtown. There is no Aberdeen Project. Tahquitz Plaza is now a Class 1 historic site and has been renamed Kaptur Plaza. And the Marilyn statue finally resides in a park rather than in the middle of a street.
Thank you, Frank Tysen.
Gary Johns is president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation’s Board of Directors.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Thank you, Frank Tysen, for your work to preserve Palm Springs
