Rob Moon pledges transparency in mayoral run
Rob Moon had two goals: steer and survive.
The 38-year-old sailor served as executive officer of the USS Gary, stationed in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The U.S. Navy had just attacked the nearby Iranian fleet after taking damage from a mine.
The Iranians sent two missiles tipped with one-ton warheads at Moon’s ship. As second in command, he had to navigate the water while his captain handled the Gary’s weapons systems.
Moon steered the ship back and forth to dodge the first missile. Miss. He hadn’t slept in three days.
Nearly 30 years later, Moon — usually calm and confident — goes quiet at this point in the story.
“We really thought we were going to die,” he said recently in his Palm Springs home.
But they didn’t. The USS Gary’s self-defense system shot the second missile out of the sky at the last second. Eventually, Moon caught a few hours of rest.
Moon joined this year’s Palm Springs mayoral race in March, before incumbent Steve Pougnet blew the field open by announcing he wouldn’t seek reelection.
He’s approaching his campaign with the diligence expected of a military officer and former corporate executive — collecting endorsements, holding fundraisers and meeting with voters. The question is whether he can overcome the large fundraising lead City Councilwoman Ginny Foat currently holds, an edge of more than $55,000.
He has qualms about the city’s current leadership. He has called the City Council “arrogant” and believes the Sept. 1 FBI raid on City Hall shattered public trust in local government. The probe by a public corruption task force is ongoing.
Voters should pick him, Moon said, because his decades in military and corporate leadership make the perfect résumé for the next mayor of Palm Springs.
“If they put their trust in me, I’ll do my very best ... to never let them down.”
From Arkansas to the Persian Gulf
Moon was born in Kansas but spent much of his childhood in Arkansas, living near an Air Force base outside Little Rock.
His father served in the Navy, and his high school friends in the 1960s came from Air Force families.
“And these kids had lived in Japan, they’d lived in England, they’d lived in France,” Moon said. “They lived all over the world. And here I was in Arkansas.”
He entered the Naval Academy in 1968, when hazing was commonplace. Of the 42 cadets that made up his company on the first day, only 18 graduated, Moon said.
Moon joined his first naval vessel as a navigator in 1972, when the job still relied heavily on watching the stars, moon and sun. He had a handful of men reporting to him at the age of 22.
He moved through higher posts on bigger ships for about a decade, landing at the Pentagon in 1981. That’s when Moon met Bob Hammack at a piano bar. They’ve stayed together ever since.
Moon knew he was gay years earlier, when he watched the story of Air Force Tech Sgt. Leonard Matlovich unfold in public. Matlovich outed himself in 1975 to fight the military’s ban on gay members. The Air Force discharged him.
The military ban on homosexuality was hard for Moon and Hammack. In a 2013 “Valley Voice” editorial in The Desert Sun, Moon described attending Navy events with a female friend posing as his girlfriend.
When Moon again went to sea, the two men kept their constant letters nondescript enough to avoid tipping off military censors about their relationship.
Hammack, a retired forensic auditor, describes himself as “much more of a recluse” than Moon, and he said the long-distance relationship wasn’t too unbearable.
“A relationship is a two-way street. You have to compromise and celebrate the highs and celebrate the lows,” Hammack said in their home.
“And don’t you think it’s important to always try to put the other person first?” Moon asked.
“No, I don’t always put you first!” Hammack laughed. “It’s a two-way street.”
Moon was on track to command his own ship. But the Clinton-era policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” meant that a word about his same-sex relationship could end his career. He decided instead to retire as a commander in 1994.
That’s when he entered the private sector, spending more than 15 years as an information technology executive at companies like LeapFrog Enterprises and ViewSonic. He moved to Palm Springs with Hammack in 2001 and retired 10 years later.
Moon was the first person to chair the Palm Springs Measure J Oversight Commission, which advises the City Council on how to spend the proceeds from a 1 percent sales and use tax. He ran the commission for two years and spent another year as a member.
Moon resigned in late September, saying the City Council has largely usurped the commission’s advisory role; he noted that there was no new funding in this year’s budget. Other commissioners disputed that characterization, pointing to $1.9 million in reserves that could be committed to new projects.
When Moon assumed Pougnet would be his electoral opponent, he based his campaign on the current mayor’s split time between Colorado and Palm Springs homes. Moon has pledged to work at City Hall daily, giving residents the chance to air any concerns with him.
He’s enhanced that message of transparency amid questions over the mayor’s work for a local developer and the raid on City Hall. He wants to make the city’s annual budgeting process easier for residents to understand and weigh in on, and he’s publicly vowed not to take any money from developers. His campaign website includes a dozen short videos with his stance on various issues.
Moon is characteristically nonchalant when asked what he’ll do if voters don’t choose him on Nov. 3.
“I go back to my perfect life,” he said with a smile.
Desert Sun reporter Jesse Marx contributed to this report.
Kia Farhang is a local reporter for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at (760)778- 4625, Kia.Farhang@desertsun.com or on Twitter @KiaFarhang.
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Political Pop Up
The fall election is just around the corner. Are you ready? Do you know where the candidates stand on the issues that matter most to you? Do you want to meet your potential elected representatives in person? Join The Desert Sun on Saturday, Oct. 3 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Palm Springs Air Museum for a free, fun and informational event aimed at getting you ready to go to the polls. All candidates on Coachella Valley ballots have been invited to attend, along with the Riverside County Registrar of Voters office. We’ll also have some fun and informative entertainment with the help of Palm Springs Unified School District students. Hope to see you there.
Mayoral bio
Name: Rob Moon
Age: 66
Born: Kansas City, Kan.
Occupation: Retired Naval Commander and corporate executive.