Miss Palm Springs will not be among the contestants next month in the 2010 Miss California USA Pageant, but Palm Springs will be represented.

Ashley Dewitt, who was named Miss Palm Springs earlier this year, decided this week she will only attend the state pageant as a spectator when it comes to The Show in Rancho Mirage on Nov. 22.

“I'm not going to be competing. This whole thing has just become a big mess,” said Dewitt, 23.

Katie Polos, 19, of Yucca Valley will represent Palm Springs in the competition instead.

But the title of Miss Palm Springs will remain with Dewitt, who lives in La Quinta and is a 2009 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic Girl.

“We're here to stop every Tom, Dick and Harry from using Ashley's title,” said Louise Madlin, who operates the Miss Palm Springs Pageant.

Madlin, who does not have a business license on record in Palm Springs, has registered close to 15 variations of fictitious Miss Palm Springs Pageant business names, according to officials with the Palm Springs business license office.

This prevents any other entity from operating under the same name.

Madlin said she saw Katie Polos with her sister Brea, 16, on television raising funds under the Miss Palm Springs title and asked them to stop.

Brea will compete in the Miss California Teen USA Pageant.

“I'm having my attorney send them a letter,” Madlin said.

But Jodi Polos, Katie's and Brea's mother, said they never claimed to have the title.

“We're just a regular family and all of a sudden we're being shaken down for a name. ... Our girls never said they were Miss Palm Springs. They're not,” Jodi Polos said.

Miss California USA Pageant officials also say they are not using the Miss Palm Springs title.

The Polos sisters are competing as representatives of Palm Springs, said the pageant's executive director Keith Lewis.

In the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Pageant system California is an open state, Lewis said.

“Each girl can apply and if selected, she can pick her title territory if available,” he said.

This is different from preliminary states where representatives are voted in to compete.

“When you think of towns and stuff, you think of Miss Newport Beach or Miss Beverly Hills,” Jodi Polos said. “The closest big city was Palm Springs, so we chose Palm Springs. Plus my daughters grew up 75 percent of their life in Palm Springs.”

Katie Polos was selected to compete by pageant officials in April, paid $1,500 in fees and chose Palm Springs as her area.

“The girls who are representing Palm Springs are in good standing,” Lewis said.

Although Dewitt applied and was interviewed after the pageant's Sept. 1 deadline, she was still selected to compete in the Miss California USA Pageant as a representative from Palm Desert, Lewis said.

“She is more than welcome to compete,” Lewis said.