Friday, February 24, 2012
The City Council has demanded parade organizers change their policy of banning electric wheelchairs. They say they'll handle requests on a case-by-case basis. One councilman says that's not good enough.
The Swallows Day Parade may be cancelled unless the organizers behind it carry out a City Council mandate to allow participants in electric wheelchairs into the parade, said one San Juan Capistrano councilman. “As of now, there will be no parade,” Councilman Derek Reeve said Friday. The Swallows Day Parade has for its first 53 years prohibited motorized vehicles of any kind, including electric wheelchairs. Organizers pride themselves on hosting one of the larger non-motorized parades in the country. But the City Council said Tuesday it would not grant the parade permit, license and associated street closures unless the parade’s organizers, the Fiesta Association, changed its policy regarding electric wheelchairs. Association members met …
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
From now on, the prayers that kick off San Juan Capistrano City Council meetings will come from council members only and be nonsectarian.
“… In the name of a genderless, generic deity, amen.” Prayers said before City Council meetings will now be rotated just among council members and must remain nonsectarian, the council decided Tuesday in a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Derek Reeve opposed.. “I’m a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ,” said Councilman John Taylor. “I don’t have a problem with someone saying his name. But other people might.” Reeve raised the issue on what should and shouldn't be said during an invocation after a guest he brought in to pray at the December meeting was criticized by other council members for mentioning the “Son.” Typically, council members take turns giving the invocation. But Reeve said he wanted to give his turn to various members of the …
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
This just in: The city does not spend nearly as much as first reported on the plastic doggy waste bags in the parks.
The city of San Juan Capistrano does not spend more than $25,000 on doggy waste bags after all. City Councilman Derek Reeve questioned last week a $2,300 check for the small, green, plastic bags found in dispensers throughout city parks. He wondered if that amount covered a quarter or even a year. Nope, Finance Director Cindy Russell told him. That was just for one month. She said the city spend $27,000 a year on the powdery-smelling bags. But now comes news from the city’s Public Works Department that city only spends $9,500 a year on the bags, which come from Doggie Walk Bags Inc. (As an aside, the company has a great slogan: We’re the No. 1 solution to your No. 2 problem.) According to the Public Works memo, the figure includes $1,500 …
Friday, December 30, 2011
San Juan officials are set to discuss whether prayers at the beginning of their meetings should invoke the name of specific deities.
First it was a dog named Muhammad. Now it's a son named Jesus. Religion is back on the agenda at City Hall. San Juan Capistrano council members caught the attention of national media in September after Councilman Derek Reeve announced he had named his dog Muhammad. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly even called Reeve a “pinhead.” That same month, the city made national and international headlines when it fined a couple for holding popular Bible studies in their home. Although the fine was eventually withdrawn, the council is still grappling with how to handle large assemblies in residential areas. On Tuesday’s agenda, the council will discuss writing a new city law to address the issue. But on the same agenda is a discussion about whether the …
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The City Council votes 3-2 to bypass Councilwoman Laura Freese again, opting for sophomore Larry Kramer.
San Juan Capistrano has a new mayor in Larry Kramer, but the decision was not unanimous. For the second year in a row, the City Council shot down Councilwoman Laura Freese's bid for the job. Last year, a newly elected council majority opted for Sam Allevato, who relinquished the honorary title Tuesday night. At that time, Freese, who had served the year before as mayor pro tem – kind of like a vice mayor who often slides into the mayoral position – said she agreed to go along with the out-of-order shuffling because council members vowed to support her this year. “Was that just rhetoric? So it must have been,” Freese said Tuesday. This time, Freese did not go along with the majority vote. She had intended to nominate herself, but Councilman…
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A new state law says cities such as San Juan Capistrano cannot require E-Verify’s use even as a condition of receiving a government contract.
Attempts to crack down on illegal immigration in San Juan Capistrano are being reversed at the state level. Among a pile of bills signed into law this weekend in Sacramento is one that limits the ability of local governments to use E-Verify, an electronic employment verification system. The law, penned by a Cupertino assemblyman, bars cities, counties, special districts and the state from forcing employers to use E-Verify, unless required to do so by federal law or as a condition of receiving federal funds. The Employment Acceleration Act of 2011 could quash a proposal by a San Juan City Councilman to make employers use E-Verify a condition for obtaining a business license in the city. The new state law could also force the repeal of an …
Friday, October 7, 2011
No explanation is given, but the move follows accusations he plagiarized.
Amid plagiarism allegations and well into the fall semester, San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve is inexplicably no longer teaching at Concordia University. "Derek Reeve is not currently employed by Concordia," a university spokeswoman said Friday, declining to provide an explanation. The move comes two weeks after Patch reported that Reeve lifted numerous passages from copyrighted articles in blog essays he wrote for Patch, as well as in two of his City Council staff reports. The authors whose words he copied labeled Reeve's actions plagiarism. When the story broke, Reeve was employed part-time by Concordia, a private Christian university in Irvine. According to the school's fall schedule, Reeve was teaching two political …
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Derek Reeve defends writings that lifted the words of journalists and columnists. Academic experts question Reeve's fitness and integrity as a college instructor.
Most writers agree that imitation is flattering. But they still want credit—even when the "imitation" appears in a blog. City Councilman Derek Reeve, facing criticism for writing blog posts that heavily copied the words of other authors, offers a different view. Writing in today's Orange County Register, he acknowledged "carelessly" using "previously published material" while blogging for San Juan Capistrano Patch. But he dismissed accusations of plagiarism, saying blogs are informal musings "in which the standards of communication are relaxed." Reeve didn't directly address instances in which he similarly lifted the copyrighted words of journalists and other authors for City Council staff reports and a press release he wrote. Reeve, an …
Monday, September 26, 2011
San Juan Capistrano Councilman Derek Reeve has published essays that are virtually identical to the words of other writers.
He helps run the city, lectures at local colleges and practices law, but for the past few months, San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve has also blogged on Patch, opining on local issues and promoting some of his government proposals. He stopped blogging earlier this month after Patch questioned him about dozens of passages that appear to be lifted from other publications, word for word and without attribution. In one case, an entire post submitted by Reeve matched content from other publications. In others, as much as two-thirds of Reeve's essays were a patchwork of paragraphs identical to material written by newspaper columnists and reporters for such publications as The Oregonian and The Hill. (Editor's note: One of Reeve's …
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Fox News political commentator said of the San Juan Capistrano City Councilman: "why offend Muslims if you don't have to?"
San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve is a pinhead, political commentator Bill O'Reilly told his national TV audience Thursday night. The media spotlight was on Reeve this week after he announced during a public meeting that he had named his dog after the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and then refused to apologize to those who had been offended. Reeve said Tuesday night that his family picked the name Muhammad after teaching their children that in some parts of the world they could be sentenced to death for doing so. "Free speech issues aside, Mr. Reeve is a pinhead," O'Reilly said during the short "pinhead and patriots" segment his Fox News show. "Why offend Muslims if you don't have to? You wanna teach your children about tolerance …
Donna Taylor
10:51 am on Thursday, April 12, 2012
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