Public Records Request: Visalia Unified School District – update 1/21/2026

January 21, 2026

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So.

What are we to assume with this response? Here are the previous posts about this situation.

  1. The first post. No recording?
  2. The second post. Requesting a clarification.
  3. The third post. No, we don’t have that, and where do you want us to look?
  4. The fourth post. I get a bit detailed about my request.

They don’t have a specific Board policy to not record “special meetings” when they are held in the Board room at VUSD headquarters. They also don’t have any documentation such as emails or memos, from January 1st, 2021 directing these meetings not be video recorded and posted to YouTube.

So. Again. What are we to assume with this response?

Either the decision was made prior to January 1, 2021, so VUSD is not going to provide any documentation, or someone made a decision and informed relevant staff verbally, and left no documentation. Or, perhaps, my specific job titles and descriptions didn’t cover who made such a decision, and VUSD will not step out of the parameters of the specifics in my latest email to provide a response.

At any rate, the practical effect is that VUSD does not video record and make available to the public “special meetings” of the Board of Trustees, regardless of the ability to do so.

Someone, somewhere, sometime, made this decision.

My next step will be questioning the Board of Trustees directly, during public comments at a Board meeting.

We’ll see if that rattles any cages anywhere, and gets me an actually responsive answer.

Stay tuned.

(In case it’s a bit difficult to read the response letter, here’s the text)

January 21, 2026
Sent Via Email Only: jim.visalia@gmail.com
Jim Reeves
Re: Further Response to Public Records Act Request
Dear Mr. Reeves:
This letter serves as the further response of Visalia Unified School District (District) to your
correspondence dated December 6, 2025 (received by the District on December 8, 2025), and
January 11, 2026 (received by the District on January 12, 2026). Your correspondence requests
records pursuant to the California Public Records Act (PRA), Government Code section 7920.000
et seq.
You have requested a copy of the District’s “policy of not recording ‘special meetings'” and “any
internal memos, emails, or other directives of any sort that direct staff not to record ‘special
meetings’ that occur in the Boardroom.”
The District initially responded to your December 6, 2025, request on December 18, 2025,
advising you there were no documents responsive to your request for a “policy of not recording
special meetings” and seeking clarification on both the date range and identifying staff names
and/or titles for your request for “any internal memos, emails, or other directives of any sort
that direct staff not to record ‘special meetings’ that occur in the Boardroom.”
You responded to the District on January 11, 2026, stating that “To limit unnecessary records
searches, I believe that the District employee(s) responsible for recording Board of Trustee
meetings held in the Boardroom of the Visalia Unified School District, or their supervisor(s), are
the most likely sources of the information requested. These job titles may include senior
administrative assistant, technological services; senior information technology technician;
information technology technician; and/or information technology assistant. Please provide
copies of any memos, emails, or other directions to District employees responsible for recording
and posting the regular Board meetings that direct them to not record or post ‘special meetings’
held in the Board Chambers. Since Board meetings have been posted to the District’s YouTube
channel as of 1/25/2022, please limit the search to 1/1/2021 through the present date.”
After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no records that are
subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will
be produced.
The District takes seriously its responsibilities as a guardian of the public’s information and
understands its obligation under the PRA to assist you with making a focused and effective
request that would facilitate identification of responsive records. (Government Code §
7922.600.) If we have not correctly interpreted your request and you believe that records
should be disclosed, please explain your position and assist the District in clarifying your request.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Snrck Sara Sanchez
Legal Coordinator
Human Resources Development

Steven does Dallas

January 17, 2026

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Steven G. “Slade” Childers (Left-circa 1972 – Right-2025)

Wait, no… that’s not right. Steven sued Dallas. The Dallas Police Department.

Why?

Because they didn’t want a homosexual working for them. Really.

Later court and legislative battles are often remembered, like Lawrence V. Texas, California Propositions 22 and 8, and the Supreme Court of the United States case Obergefell V. Hodges. But in 1981, Childers V. Dallas was an early opening salvo in the battle for equality.

It was the 1970’s. Stonewall was just a few years earlier, in June of 1969. The Dallas LGBT community held their first Pride Parade in 1972, and Steven G. “Slade” Childers was there. He was 21 years old at the time, and working for the City of Dallas, Texas, in the city water department.

It had become clear to Slade that he was not being promoted in his current position, so when he saw a job opening listed for “storekeeper seven” with the city, he applied. The listing did not specify it was with the Police Department, so at this time, it could be assumed it was a position with the city administration. Slade took the placement test, making the highest score. He was put on the list for interviews, and was called by the Police Department for a job in their evidence storeroom. He was not hired, and not informed why.

The next year, he applied again, and again scored highest on the written test. He was called in by the Police Department for the same position as before. During this interview, he asked the person conducting the interview, the same person who had interviewed him before, why he hadn’t been hired?

Although it probably didn’t seem like it at the time, the proverbial feces hit the oscillating air mover.

The plot, as they say, thickens.

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Follow Up – Public Records Request – City of Visalia – Dodge Durangos & “upfit”

January 14, 2026

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My request for information regarding the purchase and “upfit” of 14 new Dodge Durango Police SUVs landed in the Visalia City Clerk’s email Monday, 1/12/2026, and the response landed in my email Tuesday, 1/13/2026, shortly after 5pm. Talk about quick service!

If you’d like to follow me down this particular rabbit hole, click on ‘more’ below, and you’ll see the pages of information about the Durangos, and the “upfit” equipment to be installed in each.

If you don’t want to fall down that hole, then I’ll just say that it takes a lot of equipment to outfit a modern police vehicle, and while I think $33,000 each is making someone a lot of money, I doubt this is a case of “we can get it cheaper somewhere else”.

Thank you to the City Clerk for the rapid response to my request.

Images of the vehicle invoices next:

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Public Records request: City of Visalia

January 9, 2026

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Legacy Visalia City Logo
Visalia

Perusing the Visalia City Council agenda can be tedious, at times. Monotonous, filled with, frankly, less than enlightening information. Generally, there’s not much to grab your attention, as it’s the nuts and bolts of running a city. I often refer to it as “the sausage making” of city government. Sometimes, though…

Last November, I noticed consent calendar entries for new police cars (SUVs, actually. Seems nobody is producing sedans for police work anymore). Included in the agenda packet information was an approval request for:

“Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles – Request authorization to award a purchase contract for fourteen (14) fully marked Police patrol units with National Auto Fleet Group located in Watsonville, CA, in the amount of $1,281,193 for 2026 Dodge Durango’s, appropriate $14,130 from General Fund, $106,395 from Measure T, and $122,674 from the Replacement Fund for total appropriations of $243,200.”

Each Durango had a purchase price of $57,193.47, with an equipment “upfit” of $33,895.03 each.

Now, we can ponder about a $1.3 million purchase being included in a “consent calendar” item, relegating it to the shadows and holding no public discussion on the expense. (You should see some of the “consent calendar” items and the associated dollar amounts that float through the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meetings. Yikes. And some retro-active, at that! – but that’s maybe for a different discussion.)

I’m a bit torn between the idea of not bogging down meetings with endless procedure, and I also firmly believe in hiring good people, setting their parameters and goals, and then getting out of their way and let them do their jobs, but… that’s a lot of money for important city assets.

Here’s my public records request to the City of Visalia (sent late on a Friday, so no action until next week at the earliest):

To: City of Visalia City Clerk cityclerk@visalia.city
01/09/2026

Dear City Clerk,

This is a request under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.).

I request that the following records be made available for public inspection and/or that copies be provided:

On 11/17/2025, the Visalia City Council passed consent item #8, “Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles”.
The agenda packet includes quotes from National Auto Fleet Group for 14 new Dodge Durango Pursuit AWD vehicles, at $57,193.47 per vehicle.
Also included in the quote are twelve “upfit” specifications, at $33,895.03 per vehicle.
These vehicles are listed as available under Sourcewell Contract 091521-NAF.

I would like documentation on the “stock” equipment level of the vehicles being purchased. This would be satisfied by the information included in the “Monroney” sticker attached to new vehicles.
I would also like a detailed listing of the equipment to be installed in the “upfit” of the vehicle prior to delivery to the City of Visalia.

If any portion of these records is deemed exempt from disclosure, I request that you redact only those portions and provide the remainder of the records, citing the specific legal justification for each redaction as required by the CPRA.

Please inform me in advance of any fees associated with compiling or copying these records. If the estimated costs exceed $20, please contact me for approval before proceeding.

As provided by the CPRA, I look forward to your response within 10 calendar days regarding the availability of these records.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Jim J. Reeves, Jr.

jim.visalia@gmail.com

Visalia, CA 93277

The Missing Video – VUSD update

December 7, 2025

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On November 9, 2025, I posted about my attempts to obtain a video recording of the joint Visalia City Council / Visalia Unified School District meeting of October 23, 2025. In that post, I included the school district’s response, which was “After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.”

I thought that was a strange way to put it.

I’ve decided to pursue the matter further, since it’s not clear to me if the District means there is no recording at all, or that there is but is not “subject to disclosure”.

I sent an email on November 4, 2025, to the Board Chairman and the trustee covering my area regarding clarification. The Chairman sent me a response on November 5, 2025, indicating she would forward it to the appropriate person in the District administration, but I’ve not heard back from anyone about it.

I’ve sent the following request as of December 6, 2025:

Sara Sanchez,

This confirms receipt of your email dated November 4, 2025, regarding my request for a copy of any recording of the October 23, 2025 special meeting between the Visalia Unified School District Board of Trustees and the Visalia City Council. 

In that response, you said “…the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.” 

Please consider this email another request for information under the California Public Records Act.

Does this mean that there are no video recordings of this meeting created by VUSD, or that video recordings of this meeting made by VUSD do exist, but will not be released?

Looking at the “recent meetings” list on the District’s website, it appears that “special meetings” are not recorded. However, the meeting between the District and the Visalia City Council was held in the Boardroom of the District and utilized the same video equipment as regular Board meetings. Did staff not record this meeting, even though the same video systems were, apparently, used?

If there is a policy of not recording “special meetings”, I would like to receive a copy of that policy, or be directed to its location if online access is available. If there is no specific policy in place, I would like copies of any internal memos, emails, or other directives of any sort that direct staff not to record “special meetings” that occur in the Boardroom. 

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Jim Reeves

I’ve sent this email so that it should be in the district’s possession start of business, Monday, December 8, 2025. We’ll see what happens.

Visalia Unified School District/Visalia City Council meeting not recorded? Follow up –

November 9, 2025

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Jim Reeves & The Missing Meeting: An Analysis of Transparency, Accountability, and the Curious Case of Visalia Unified’s Unrecorded Oct 23, 2025 Session

Paul Flores does a deep dive into the situation regarding Visalia Unified School District and the Visalia City Council’s unrecorded joint meeting on October 23, 2025.

Visalia Unified School District/Visalia City Council joint meeting not recorded?

November 9, 2025

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A previous Visalia Unified School District Board meeting.

On October 23, 2025, the Visalia Unified School District held a special joint meeting with the Visalia City Council. This was the second such meeting held in 2025, and was held in the District’s Board room.

The following is a part of the posted agenda for that meeting:

Members of the public may address the Board on any agenda item when the item comes to the Board for consideration. At regular meetings of the Board, members of the public may also address the Board regarding non-agenda items that are nonetheless within the Board’s jurisdiction during the general public comment portion of the agenda. Pursuant to Board Bylaw 9323, the Board will limit individual comments to no more than 3 minutes and individual topics to 20 minutes.

The District reserves the right to not hear comments, or portions of comments, that violate meeting guidelines.

I was the only member of the public to take advantage of the public comments section of the meeting. In it, I updated the School Board and the City Council on the recent Pride Visalia festival, held on October 11, 2025. During the remarks, I reminded and invited both the City Council members and the Board of Directors for the school district that The Source LGBT+ Center was available to consult with them on LGBTQ+ issues, and provide resources and information they might find useful in both their professional and personal lives.

The Visalia Unified School District takes video and audio recordings of the meetings, and posts them to a YouTube channel for the public to view. No post of this special meeting occurred.

I waited several days for the video to appear, as sometimes delays in posting can occur, sometimes the posters fault, sometimes YouTube’s. No recording of the meeting appeared.

I sent an email to the school district, asking if a recording was made, and when it would be available.

From: Jim Reeves jim.visalia@gmail.com
Date: October 28, 2025 at 5:32:34 PM PDT
To: cgutierrez04@vusd.org
Subject: Board special meeting video

Hi,
Does a video recording of the October 23, 2025 joint meeting between the School Board and the Visalia City Council exist? I’ve checked the YouTube channel, and found no video. I’ve noticed in the listing of meetings that special meetings don’t show a video.
Is there a video available that I can get a copy of? Or an audio recording?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Jim Reeves
Jim.visalia@gmail.com
Sent from my iPad

After several days, I received the following response:

“After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.”

That’s a strange way to phrase it, at least to us non-lawyers.

I’ve followed up with the following email to the Board President, and the Board member for my area:

President Naylor, Boardmember DeJong,

I attended the Special Meeting of October 23, 2025. On October 28, I emailed a request for a copy of the video, or an audio recording, of the meeting since it had not been posted on YouTube. On November 4, I received the attached email, indicating “that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request”.
I have noticed in the listing of prior meetings, that ‘Special Meetings’ often do not have a video recording. Is this a formal policy of the District? If so, can I be directed to that policy?
It seems odd that no recording is made of the meeting, despite it being held in the Board room, and utilizing the audio/video equipment there.
I would like to understand why the District does not record these meetings, and I hope you can clear this up for me.
Mr. DeJong, I’m CCing you on this because I reside in your area.

Jim Reeves
jim.visalia@gmail.com

Board President Naylor responded:

Jim,
Thank you for your email regarding the recording of the special board session with the city. I have forwarded your email to the district office to look into this matter.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Joy

We’ll see what the next week brings, and if the District responds further.

My goal now is to find out if a recording was not made of the special meeting, why not? Is there a District policy prohibiting it? If so, I want to see that policy, and when and how it was implemented. If it’s just a “we just don’t do that”, I want to know the reasoning why, and under whose authority.

Stay tuned.

The Price of the U.S. Presidency

May 13, 2025

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SOLD!

Orange Idiot (AKA Donald J. Trump, 47th President of the United States) has sold the Presidency of the United States to the Arab state of Qatar.

Qatar, and by extension most of the rest of the Arab world, just bought the US government for the cost of a 747 they already had. What a deal!

These planes are not something you run down to the Boeing dealership at pick up on a whim. They take years to build the plane itself, then another period of time to customize the interior (Boeing doesn’t do palaces, that’s a customizer business. Kinda like buying an empty cargo van and turning it into a luxury camper). So this means they already had this plane sitting around, ferrying various princes and maybe a king here and there. They’re not putting out anything extra to gain major shareholder status in POTUS.

They were probably thinking there had been enough orgies in that plane, and it was time to get something fresh anyway, so “gifting” it to the United States Department of Defense to be used as a temporary Air Force One wasn’t a big hit on their bank accounts.

Orange Idiot, however, sees only the gold veneer and luxury accoutrements, and that fits his self-image of King of America. He’s like a greedy, selfish kid who just got exactly what he wanted for Christmas. The security risks are not even on his radar.

MAGA is screaming that it’s a gift to the entire US, and since it will be under the “ownership” of DOD, and after Orange Idiot leaves office it will go to his “museum”, that makes it OK. Those of us who have read the United States Constitution and have even a basic understanding of it’s words, know it’s completely unconstitutional for Orange Idiot to accept this plane. He’s going to try, anyway. It will take either an act of Congress to prevent it, but that’s unlikely as long as the Republicans maintain control there, or a ruling by the Supreme Court against the deal. We can’t really trust SCOTUS these days, unfortunately. They’ve shown a smidgen of backbone in a couple of rulings against Orange Idiot, but we can’t count on that, sadly.

So, the price of the Office of the President of the United States of America is a used 747 with a garish luxury interior. One they already had parked at the airport in Qatar.

Hell of a deal.

Hate In A Small Town 4 – it’s Déjà vu all over again

March 19, 2025

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The Internet meme definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. I’m beginning to think it might be slightly insane to expect Porterville to ever join the rest of us in the 21st century. Here we go, again.

My previous blogs about Porterville and it’s LGBTQ+ community can be found at these links:

Hate In A Small Town (1) – where a Mayoral Proclamation proclaiming June 2013 as LGBT Month in Porterville is trashed by the rest of the Council and results in the Mayor and Vice-Mayor being removed from their ceremonial offices, the proclamation rescinded (a first anywhere, as far as I could find), and a bland replacement proclamation designating June 2013 as “a month of community charity and goodwill to all in Porterville”. They also changed the rules so that a vote of the Council would be required to issue a proclamation, rather than leave it as a function of the Mayor alone.

Hate In A Small Town 2 – Does Your God Hate? – One the one year anniversary of the Pride Proclamation, the LGBTQ+ community held a rally across from City Hall. Some haters joined in proclaiming the hate of God towards gay folk.

Porterville City Council Still Snubbing LGBTQ Community – (3) the same council as above refuses a Coming Out Day proclamation request.

Fast forward to 2019, and a different City Council.

We thought Porterville was finally growing and becoming a loving place. On May 21, 2019, a proclamation was issued by the City Council (a different council than the first mentioned above, and different from the current one), recognizing Harvey Milk Day In Porterville. On Tuesday, October 15, 2019, by a three to two vote, Porterville’s City Council declared October 11, 2019 as National Coming Out Day in the city. Things were looking up.

We should have known better.

Hate In A Small Town 4 –

The current city council of Porterville, California (ironically enough, an “All American City”).

Mayor Greg Meister
Vice Mayor Ed McKervey
Raymond Beltran
Stan Green
AJ Rivas

The Mayor and Vice-Mayor have teamed up to introduce anti-trans resolutions in Porterville. One would ban trans women and girls from bathrooms, locker rooms, and team sports. The other would require schools in the city to report to parents any requests by students to use names, pronouns, restroom facilities, or play on team sports that do not match their birth sex. (This would violate California state law, but that doesn’t seem to faze this council. They know about it, but are trying to find a way around that messy problem.)

From the March 4 agenda:

24: Consideration of Proposed Establishment of Ordinance to Protect Women’s Safe Spaces

Re: Council direction on the proposed establishment of an Ordinance to Protect Women’s Safe Spaces.

From the March 18 agenda:

21: Consideration of Proposed Establishment of Ordinance Safeguarding Parental Rights in Education and Child Upbringing

Re: Council to provide direction on the proposed establishment of an Ordinance

If you want to find these documents online, go to this page, and select the appropriate date.

A lot of people spoke during “oral communications” (they really need to change that name. ‘Public Comments’ seems much more appropriate). You can see the You Tube video here, but the whole show is almost six hours long! (they love to talk, and talk, and talk. It’s important that they express how MAGA they are) Most comments by the public were against the proposed actions.

Dr. Kathryn Hall, M.D., a long-time pediatrician in the area, who has treated many from Porterville over the years, spoke.

I said a few words, too.

The MAGA runs deep in this council. The Mayor and Vice-Mayor, at least in the two meetings I attended, tried very diligently to out-MAGA each other. Go watch some of their meeting video, if you have the stomach for it.

The Vice-Mayor doesn’t like being challenged on his ignorance. He takes it personally. He views folks who oppose these hate proposals as “triggered activists”. And after I spoke, he amended it to “triggered activists, from out of town”. He said he would not “participate in their psychosis”, referring to anyone who believes differently from him. The Vice-Mayor spoke disparagingly of the local LGBT+ center, essentially blaming it for gains made by the LGBT+ community in Tulare County. He was annoyed that anyone would speak confrontationally, and not grovel or kiss his ring. He condemned speakers for (paraphrasing, I’m not going back and try to find the exact words he used) yelling at them, rather than having a ‘conversation’. He seemed to forget that during ‘oral communications’, the public can only speak, and the council can only listen. There is no ‘conversation’ allowed by the Brown Act. He chastised speakers for being condescending towards the council, when most of his remarks on the issue were truly condescending of the public. I tell ‘ya, it’s all projection with these guys.

I did invite the council to contact The Source LGBT+ Center, and educate themselves with factual information on transgender issues. I’m not holding my breath on that.

Hate in a small town. It hasn’t been rooted out yet. It’s discouraging, but like I said during my comments, “we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going away”.

Porterville steps back into LGBTQ hate

February 23, 2025

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It’s like déjà vu all over again. Porterville’s current Mayor, Greg Meister, has proposed a new city ordinance, which he is calling “Protect Women’s Safe Spaces”. In it, he wants to bar “biological men” from using women’s facilities, locker rooms, or playing in women’s sports. Meister is quoted in the Porterville Recorder saying the ordinance is “really drawing some lines for sure”.

In 2008, Porterville became the only city in California to adopt a formal position on Proposition 8, which would have inserted into the state Constitution limits that would only recognize marriage as between a man and a woman (it passed, but was later rendered moot as SCOTUS made marriage equality the law of the land with Obergefell v. Hodges)(In 2024, California voters removed the language of Prop 8 from the state Constitution with Prop 3). The city council voted to urge Porterville voters to support Prop 8.

In 2013, then Mayor Virginia Gurrola issued a proclamation recognizing June as LGBT Pride Month in Porterville. All hell broke loose. In a fiasco-ridden panic to rescind the Mayor’s Proclamation (a proclamation she was entirely authorized to issue), it took three months for the other council members to get their act together and not only rescind the proclamation, but to remove the Mayor and Vice-Mayor from their ceremonial positions.

In 2014, then Mayor Cameron Hamilton became the right-wing echo chamber’s darling for his infamous “grow a pair” remarks, when a student-led anti-bullying program called “Safe Zones” was brought before the Council for support, by councilmember Virginia Gurrola. The conservative majority on the council wasn’t having anything to do with what they thought was a LGBT positive proposal. They shot it down, and Mayor Hamilton earned his 15 minutes of fame on Fox by uttering his now-infamous line.

In 2019, glimmers of hope were seen in Porterville, as then Mayor Martha Flores issued a proclamation recognizing May 22, 2019, as Harvey Milk Day. It was signed by the Mayor, and council members Milt Stowe, Monte Reyes, and Daniel Penaloza. Vice Mayor Brian Ward (author and instigator of many previous anti-LGBTQ actions by the Porterville City Council) did not sign the proclamation. (He was out of town at the time, but rest assured he would not have signed it regardless, in my opinion)

Also in 2019, on October 15, (a few days late due to scheduling issues) Porterville City Council recognized October 11 as National Coming Out Day. That proclamation was signed by Mayor Martha Flores, Vice Mayor Monte Reyes, council members Virginia Gurroloa, Milt Stowe, and Daniel Penaloza. Mayor Flores did throw some cold water on the festivities, however, when she, in an attempt, I assume, to sound inclusive, mentioned that she had “it” in her own family, referring to homosexuality.

We thought Porterville had turned a corner. We should have known better.

In 2021, more animus towards the LGBTQ community was on display when the city council decided that it needed to regulate billboards in the city, after The Source LGBT+ Center put up a couple of advertisements for STI testing.

Fast forward to 2025, and with a new administration in power in Washington, D.C., Porterville has decided it hasn’t been demonstrating it’s LGBTQ animus strongly enough recently. The Mayor, therefore, has decided to jump on the ‘transgender women are the devil’ bandwagon. Even though it very likely violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, Meister wants the city staff and attorney to bring an ordinance before the council that would ban “biological men” from “women’s spaces”.

Here’s an email I sent to Mayor Meister and the other members of the city council:

From: Jim Reeves <jim.visalia@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2025 1:55:44 PM
To: Greg Meister <gregmeister@ci.porterville.ca.us>
Cc: Raymond Beltran <raymondbeltran@ci.porterville.ca.us>; Ed McKervey <edmckervey@ci.porterville.ca.us>; Stan Green <stangreen@ci.porterville.ca.us>; AJ Rivas <ajrivas@ci.porterville.ca.us>
Subject: “Protect Women’s Safe Spaces”

Greg Meister, Porterville Mayor, and members of the City Council:

If the anti-trans bathroom ordinance proposed by Mayor Meister passes, and should the person pictured below have reason to visit your city, do you REALLY want him to walk into the women’s restroom? 

Meet Luke Ireland, U.S. Air Force. Both of these pictures are from the Air Force Times, the first from about a decade ago, the other from about three years ago. 

He is a trans man, and your proposal would require him to use the women’s facilities in Porterville. This proposal is a solution in search of a problem. There are no verifiable arrests or convictions of a trans-woman sexually assaulting a cis-woman or girl in a bathroom or locker room. It’s just not a thing, but you seem determined to embarrass Porterville by adding to its already notorious reputation as anti-LGBTQ. I thought Porterville was making progress, but we’ll see if and when this comes up for a vote if that progress is real, or just fantasy. 

I want you to consider the following scenario:

A man decides to follow a woman (or a young girl) into a restroom in order to sexually assault her. He does not want to attract attention, so what does he do? Just walk in? Risky. He stands out dressed like a man. Maybe someone sees him following his target into the restroom. As the ordinances stand now, if he wants to get in without attracting attention, he’ll need to get into some kind of women’s wear. 

Under your proposed ordinance, it will be common to see people who look like men walking into the women’s restroom, because you’ve required trans-men to use them. Our bad guy can now just walk right in, and if anyone challenges him, he can claim to be a trans-man, who you required to use this restroom. Nobody will know the difference, unless you’re going to post genital inspectors at the door. 

Knock off the anti-trans discrimination and hate, Mr. Mayor. It’s a bad look for you, and sets Porterville back a decade.

Jim Reeves

Visalia

jim.visalia@gmail.com

I’ve received nothing back except the following, from the Vice-Mayor, Ed McKervery:

“Go read what HHS stated about this.

Thanks for your input”

Protest rallies are planned for the next City Council meeting, where the first of many actions to pass this proposed ordinance may occur.

The Tulare Stonewall Democrats plan a protest rally to “Standup For Our Trans Community in Porterville“, 4:30 pm, Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in front of City Hall, 219 N Main Street, Porterville.

The city council meeting starts at 6:30pm.

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