“The Devil Made Me Do It!”

February 18, 2026

Jim Reeves Gay, News , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In my previous blog, “Hate In A Small Town 5 (Visalia Edition)“, I talked about the how the community responded to ten Redwood High School seniors taking a picture of themselves in tshirts that spelled out “2FAG6OTS”. It’s caused quite the dust-up in our community, and has become international news.

You can read my previous post about the situation to see what the Visalia Unified School District has done about the situation, but I wanted to highlight a particular response by one of the Visalia Unified School District Board of Trustees, Paul Belt.

In a Facebook post on 2/17/26, Belt says the incident was a “student mistake”. Then in the comments, he blames it all on being part of a “spiritual battle”, rather than young people being raised in an environment that condones such actions. He seems much more bothered by the uproar in the community than he is with the students actions. “Hatred and vitriolic language have no place for young minds to grow and flourish”. Does he think the students should be free to express hatred and vitriolic language, since it’s just a “mistake”.

I wonder if he would think it was a “mistake” if the students had spelled out “SATAN ROCKS”, or something similar. I’m suspecting not, but, hey, you never know, right?

I think we can tell what Mr. Belt thinks about the LGBTQIA+ community, when he says a deliberately committed act of making and posting a derogatory image to social media is a “student mistake”.

Screenshot

The March 10, 2026 School Board meeting promises to be a packed affair. A lot of folks have a lot to say to the Board and the District. I think it will be a long night, unless the Board moves to limit comments.

The regular session begins at 5:30pm, at the Board room of VUSD, 5000 W. Cypress, Visalia.

UPDATE 2/23/2026:

Belt has deleted (or hidden) his posts about the “student mistake” from his Facebook page. Makes one wonder if someone at the Visalia Unified School District yelled at him, sorry…, ‘recommended’ he delete those posts.

Hate In A Small Town 5 (Visalia Edition)

February 15, 2026

Jim Reeves Personal, Gay, News , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Since the Pride Month proclamation fiasco in Porterville, California, in the summer of 2013, I’ve written several blogs on ‘Hate In A Small Town’. You can find them here: Hate In A Small Town (1) 9-18-2014, Hate In A Small Town (2) 6-18-2014, Porterville City Council Still Snubbing LGBTQ Community 9-24-2014, and Hate In A Small Town 4 – It’s Déjà vu all over again 3-19-2025. The first blog was printed in the Weekend Edition of the Visalia Times Delta on September 21-22, 2013. Those blogs all dealt with a nearby city, Porterville, California. My city, Visalia, has been better about LGBTQ issues, for the most part, until this incident. (Not that Visalia has been a gay beacon, by any means. In 2002, the ACLU settled a lawsuit against the Visalia Unified School District, in which the District “agreed to adopt sweeping reforms to address anti-gay harassment, including groundbreaking measures to train staff and students with the goal of preventing harassment before it happens,” *see below for the Consent order)

The picture above started making the rounds on social media on Thursday, February 12, 2026. Here’s the background, as I know it at the time of this publication.

A class picture was taken in an auditorium, with some of the ASB officers wearing white t-shirts with lettering, designed to spell out “Always Legit Class of 2026”. See the image below.

The event was apparently also hosting freshman orientation, with students from feeder middle schools on campus. The current story circulating is that two eighth grade boys were seen holding hands, triggering the students in the above picture to spell out a homophobic slur, and have other students take pictures. It’s not known if the targets of the slur saw it in the moment, but they have certainly seen it on social media since. It’s also not clear where Redwood High School staff and teachers were during this incident, as they appear not to have put a stop to the students posing for the picture.

Students immediately posted to Instagram and other social media sites, and the shit hit the fan. “Going viral” doesn’t do justice to how those posts took off, and how they were received by the community.

Visalia Unified School District began immediate damage control. Click on ‘more’ for the rest of the story.

More

Part 2: Visalia City Charter – is the City following it’s “Constitution”?

February 12, 2026

Jim Reeves geek, News, Personal , , , , , , Leave a comment

Visalia’s City Charter was adopted in 1923. It was updated in 1974, but only one change is obvious in the text. “Article XVI Miscellaneous Provisions Section 21. (Deleted November 4, 1974)” If anything else was changed, there are no indications in the current Charter. (That was a prohibition on city employees supporting a candidate for municipal office. I suspect that runs afoul of Constitutional rights): ARTICLE XVI. MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
(Section 21. Neither the City Manager nor any person in the employ of the City shall take any active part in securing, or shall contribute money toward the nomination or election of any candidate for a municipal office.)

As I’ve been reading through it, I have some questions. They were originally triggered by the sections dealing with the city library, which we no longer have (it’s now a branch of the Tulare County Library). There are a few other things, too.

Ready to dive in? Click on ‘more’.

More

Visalia’s Charter: Time for a Library Trustee Update?

February 10, 2026

Jim Reeves commentary, News, Personal , , , , , , Leave a comment

I was perusing the Charter of the City of Visalia, as one does, and I ran across a bit of a mystery, and a conundrum. I think it’s time for an update. It was last modified in 1974, and some of the things in it need some changes. For starters, it needs to become gender neutral:

Article VIII
City Manager
Section 1. The City Manager need not be a resident of the State of California at
the time of his appointment. His powers and duties shall be:

The City of Visalia has had a woman as city manager for some time, now. The Municipal Code does, at least, cover itself in this situation, with the following:

1.04.030 Grammatical interpretation.
The following grammatical rules shall apply in the ordinances of the city unless it is apparent from the context that a different construction is intended:
A. Gender. Each gender includes the masculine, feminine and neuter genders.
B. Singular and Plural. The singular number includes the plural and the plural includes the singular.
C. Tenses. Words used in the present tense include the past and the future tenses and vice versa, unless manifestly inapplicable. (Ord. 9605 § 2 (part), 1996: prior code § 111)

But that’s not what this blog is about. This is:

Article VI
Legislative. The Council. Powers and Duties
(5) Appoint a City Attorney, a City Manager, a City Clerk, and five Library
Trustees.

More

Change is inevitable – except from vending machines

February 2, 2026

Jim Reeves commentary, News, Personal , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Change has come to Visalia. Specifically, on Tulare Avenue. From Demaree east to Cotta, new lane configurations have upset a lot of people.

I put a video up on Facebook and Instagram about these new lane configurations, and it’s garnered over 11 thousand views in just one day. (You can view the YouTube version, here.)

Change doesn’t come easily for some folks. My Facebook post has 55 comments so far in the 24 hours since I posted it. (That’s a lot for a post by me.) Most were not favorable towards the new layout.

Change doesn’t come easily for some folks. Here are some comments made, and my response to some of them.

More