Alan Carvalho: ‘You’re Dead’

Former City Council Candidate Alan Carvalho tells Mark Carnevale, ‘You’re Dead,’ in threatening phone call

CATHEDRAL CITY — About  6 p.m. on June 16, former Cathedral City Council candidate Alan Carvalho called City Councilmember Mark Carnevale and blasted him saying, “You’re dead! I’m gonna fuck you up! I’m done. I’m gonna fuck you over,” according to a Cathedral City Police Report.

Carnevale has chosen not press charges for what was described in the report as a “threaten crime with intent to terrorize.”

“There is always a time to forgive and forget,” Carnevale told Uken Report. “I don’t believe it was done out of hate or maliciousness. We used to be really good friends. We had eight years of good friendship. He’s a really funny guy.”

Carnevale said he, Carvalho and his husband, former City Councilmember Shelley Kaplan, would often have dinner together and share laughs.

The purpose of Carvalho’s call, according to the police report, was to express his displeasure with Carnevale over Sue Townsley not being elected to the Public Arts Commission.  Carnevale explained to Carvalho the reasoning behind the 4-1 vote in favor of the other candidates but Carvalho became “enraged,” according to the police report.

Carnevale told police that Carvalho had “blasted him on Facebook before but never “became furious” like he did on June 16. Carnevale, according to the report, contacted the city attorney and was advised to notify the police chief.

It wasn’t the last phone call Carnevale received, Earlier this month at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning, Carnevale received another call from Carvalho, according to Carnevale. He was “crying and raging,” Carnevale said.

At 6:01 a.m. that same day, the police department received a report about Carvalho who had been leaving suicidal-type messages on friends’ voicemails. Part of one message stated, “I don’t know what to do but I can’t take it anymore. I’m done.”

At 10:39 a.m. that same day, Townsley sent the entire City Council, city manager, economic development director and more an email to their official city addresses, which are a matter of public record, to say Carvalho would enter a 45-day treatment center in Arizona.

“Maybe things happen for a reason,” Carnevale said.

Carvalho ran unsuccessfully for City Council in November 2020.  Carvalho, who also served as a member of the Public Arts Commission, told Uken Report in July when first asked about the allegations, “I don’t know what this is about, I swear to God. On my mother’s soul, I know nothing, I’m always the last to know.”

In what appears to be a related matter, the Cathedral City Evening Rotary Board of Directors on June 28, 2021, sent Carvalho a letter stating that his membership in the Club “has been terminated” effective June 30, 2021.

“The termination is based on the guiding principles of the Four-Way Test and the high ethical standards that one should hold as a Rotary member,” according to the letter Uken Report obtained.

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.

Carnevale isn’t the first one to have an issue with Carvalho. In August 2019, Rita Lamb, a candidate in the District 1 special election, filed a Civil Harassment Restraining Order against Carvalho, saying she was “scared” and “frightened” of him. She later dropped it.

Earlier this year, Carvalho cautioned the entire City Council that he would be “watching” them. One Councilmember said it was, like “stalking.”

Most recently, when Carvalho went off on a tangent during a City Council discussion on billboards, Mayor Raymond Gregory hung up on him.