The Capistrano Insider

Changes to the Gift-Receiving Rules

Just in time for the holidays, from the Fair Political Practices Commission:

The Commission recently approved simpler, easier to understand gift regulations that contain more stringent provisions than previous rules.

With the regulatory changes, the Commission sought to strike the proper balance between ensuring that public officials do not use their positions for personal gain while applying more sensible rules to gifts that must be disclosed and regulated.

“Gift regulations should apply only in situations when the public official receiving the gift makes governmental decisions that directly affect the person giving,” said Commission Chair Ann Ravel. “We also wanted to close loopholes to ensure that people with business before an official will not be able to influence that official.”

In addition to making the regulations easier to navigate, several of the adoptive changes are more restrictive than previous requirements.

Lobbyists, for example, will no longer be able to claim “a home hospitality” exemption from the gift limits and disclosure requirements unless they have a relationship that is unrelated to the public official’s position and the home hospitality is related to that purpose. Previously, there was no requirement for disclosure, meaning that lobbyists could entertain public officials at their homes and spend an unlimited amount of money without the public’s knowledge.

Areas where the Commission has approved or is considering stricter gift rules include:

• Ceremonial Role: The Commission in its December meeting is considering restrictions on what qualifies as a ceremonial role and has provided specific examples such as ribbon-cutting ceremonies, making a proclamation, or giving out an award. The regulation was adopted to address past abuses that included officials receiving free tickets to attend sporting events, concerts and other entertainment venues, claiming they had a “ceremonial role” while not having any active participation in the events. The value of the tickets to events where an official performs a “ceremonial role” is not required to be reported, nor is it subject to gift limits.
• Gifts To An Official Through Family Members: The new rules treat gifts to family members of public officials as gifts to the official unless there is an established social or work relationship with the family member and the donor does not have business before the official. The regulation covers gifts to family members from anyone seeking to influence the public official, such as individuals registered to lobby the official’s agency, a person who contracts with that agency, or someone who is regulated by the agency. Previously, the family gift regulations applied only to the highest ranking public officials and did not cover such a wide range of persons with business before the agency.
• Home Hospitality: Lobbyists will no longer be able to claim the “home hospitality” exception for gifts of home entertainment to an official unless there is a existing relationship between the parties that is unrelated to the official’s position and the hospitality is provided in connection with that relationship, such as a backyard barbeque between neighbors.
• Valuation of Tickets: A loophole was closed in the valuation of tickets that previously allowed gifts of unused collectible tickets (some with values approaching $1,000) because they were deemed to have no value if they were not “ultimately used.”
• Bona Fide Dating: The proposed revisions would prohibit officials from participating in certain decisions involving their dating partner if the partner lobbies the official’s agency, has a contract pending before the official’s agency, or is regulated by the official’s agency and the official received gifts from his or her significant other of $420 or more. Current rules do not bar officials from participating in decisions involving their dating partner.

More gift regulations will be presented for consideration at the Commission’s December 8, 2011 meeting. They include proposals to codify Commission opinions and staff advice letters for “acts of neighborliness,” and “bona-fide dating relationships.” New exceptions for “acts of human compassion” and “long term friendships” are also scheduled to be proposed.

Councilman Reeve: Don't Worry When I'm Not There Tonight

The San Juan Capistrano hosts a special meeting at 4 p.m. today to consider a new plan for the 241 South toll road, but beleaguered Councilman Derek Reeve won't be there.

But Reeve, dismissed from a teaching job at Concordia University in the wake of plagiarism allegations, a lightning rod for debate after announcing from the dais that he'd named his dog Mohammad and scorned by many after suggesting Capistrano lift its ban on firearms in city parks, won't be there.

Don't draw anything into it though:

"Since rumors have run amuck the last few weeks, I thought it would be prudent to inform you that I will not be attending the special city council meeting tonight. This meeting was scheduled rather quickly and it is my understanding it had to take place no later than Wednesday. Unfortunately I have an unavoidable conflict today at 4pm. I assume one or more of the other council members had conflicts on Monday and Wednesday. I will see you at the regular scheduled meeting next Tuesday."

Derek Reeve

The "rumor" that Reeve is talking about, best I can figure, is actually one started by his own supporters, who contend all of this is a plot by other council members to get Reeve, a first-term councilman, to resign.

The reasoning: Mayor Sam Allevato and Councilwoman Laura Freese are up for re-election in 2012. With Reeve on the five-person council, one supporter opined, those two seats can actually swing the direction of the council by creating a Reeve-included majority.

Reeve, as you recall, ran with Jim Reardon and Clint Worthington.

So, if Reeve resigns, that will allow the counci to appoint a replacement, presumably thinks like they do. That would lock up control of the council, a supporter told me.

As it is, I suspect Allevato and Freese aren't too worried about Reeve sharing the dais with them. The votes are usually 4-1 on any contested item, and Reeve certainly hasn't made any allies up there the past few weeks.

The election will be interesting -- to see if anyone seek Reeve's endorsement or aligns themselves with him in the wake of the above-mentioned incidents.

SJC Councilman Reeve's Response to Plagiarism Allegations ....

San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve sent this to The Capistrano Dispatch to publish. I asked him about reports he no longer teachers at Concordia University. He said he can't comment on that ... yet.

Here's his column:

DEREK REEVE: Guest View

A Message to the Community

I take this opportunity to thank the many members of the San Juan community who have expressed their support of my recent positions. Here’s some information that may be new to you.

Last month the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded that I apologize because I had named one of my dogs “Muhammad.” It is notable that they found nothing objectionable in my naming another dog “America.” My view is that no religion has the right to demand obedience by persons who are not members of that religion. I do object to the dogma: “You must do as I demand or else I will ‘be offended.” Therefore, my respect for the many honorable members of that faith notwithstanding, I rejected the unreasonable demand of this Muslim organization. A recent poll by The OC Register showed massive local support for my position.

I was stunned when my colleagues on the City Council, Mayor Allevato and Councilman Kramer, took up the cause of CAIR and proposed disciplinary action against me. This is the first time in the 50-year history of the City that such a mean-spirited act against a Councilman has been attempted. In a whirlwind of contorted logic, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with CAIR. They concocted a novel theory that because I am an elected official, I had a “higher duty” to abandon truth and logic and confine myself to “political correctness.” Nowhere in law or custom does such an inane requirement exist. These gentlemen never mentioned the fact that I was being pressured to forego my constitutional right of free speech.

I suspect the real reason for the assault against me by Mayor Allevato and Councilman Kramer had nothing to do with dogs, Muhammad or Islam. As a fiscal conservative, I am proving to be a thorn in the side to a spendthrift, politically correct, ultra-liberal Council. They cannot argue with my facts so they search for issues, real or imagined, in a desperate attempt to discredit me and cause you to consider that I am some sort of peculiar “nut case.” It is standard political deception which brings to mind an old quote: “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the truth, pound the truth. But, if you have neither the facts nor the truth on your side, pound the table.”

I believe the real objective of the attack against me by Mayor Allevato and Councilman Kramer is to pressure me into resigning from the Council. This would afford Allevato et al the opportunity to appoint a liberal spendthrift replacement without any say by the voters who would be excluded from the entire process. Then the proverbial fox truly would be in charge of the hen house. That is the way politics works, since my presence as a Council member represents a risk to their political control of the City and disturbs their closed-session sanctum. Rest assured, I have no intention of resigning the position voters have entrusted to me. Someone has to watch out for the taxpayers; clearly the council majority has not, as evidenced by our debt which has ballooned to more than $150 million.

The latest attack is in the form of the charge of plagiarism by a “journalist” on Patch, an arm of the Huffington Post. On balance, I may be partly responsible—along with most of the human race that uses the Internet. In the atmosphere of today’s massive electronic echo chamber, in which we are assaulted with dozens of concepts and ideas each minute, I doubt if any of us have had a totally original idea in the past 50 years. Certainly that is the way it is in the legal profession in which I work. Yes, in formal documentation, one is more precise in adding footnotes to identify the origin of our ideas, which makes it extremely complicated when wading through such writing. However, in normal everyday communication, not to mention blogging, it is impossible for us to precisely identify each antecedent and besides, the atmosphere is much more relaxed and informal (or so I thought).

I think it is clear that the objective of these petty attacks in not “precise journalistic accuracy” but an attempt to besmirch me personally and shift blame away from the website that carried my comments. I am not happy to be the object of these personal attacks but I do take pride in the fact that they are totally unrelated to neither my beliefs nor what I have to say.

Frankly, I am unhappy that these press-amplified attacks have diminished our City on a national scale. As a fiscal conservative, I note that the self-serving attacks upon me by Mayor Allevato and Councilman Kramer wasted thousands of dollars at the last Council meeting as the staff spent a good part of the evening doing nothing while speakers stepped up to express their concern about the council being offended by a dog’s name.

Looking to the future, I pray for a more mature, business-like approach. I am not angry with anyone. I recognize that the attacks upon me were politically motivated; such comes with the job. My focus is on today’s pressing problems. I am concerned with bringing your water rates down. I want to find a method to bring the Ground Water Recovery Plant into either efficient operation, or shed this albatross that has generated an $8 million dollar deficit and dramatically driven up our water rates. Unfortunately, some in the press and my fellow Councilmen seem to want to ignore these matters while focusing on mud-slinging trivia.

 I am pressing for a more effective workforce in City Hall and an investigation of possible outsourcing as a means of controlling personnel costs. I am committed to a more equitable pension system for our career city employees. I want to see the lease arrangement of the Rancho Mission Viejo Riding Park revised to increase the city’s income. We have these and many other challenges before us. Am I the only Councilman who is concerned because our small City is 150 million dollars in debt? We must set aside the recent annoying distractions and get to work on major problems. Please think kindly of me as I work on your behalf.

Derek Reeve was elected to the San Juan Capistrano City Council in December.

Reeve: Plagiarism Allegations Waste of Time, Part of Allevato-Kramer 'Smear'

Councilman Derek Reeve has responded to the allegations of plagiarism raised at www.sanjuancapistrano.patch.com. This from www.ocregister.com: For the past month, Mayor Sam Allevato and Councilman Larry Kramer have launched a smear campaign against me. These two asserted my dog Muhammad was offensive to them because it is offensive to the ideology of Islam. Allevato and Kramer sided with CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) – an organization condemned by even ultra-liberal Sen. Boxer – in trying to censure me and stifle my constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Now they are at it again, piling on in the most recent attack stemming from the charge of plagiarism by a "journalist" from The Huffington Post which operates as Patch. (Editor's note: Patch and The Huffington Post are two online entities owned by AOL.) I was invited to blog on the Patch and carelessly submitted previously published material. This involved one informal published blog that Patch made into three without my consent. This was a blog worthy of Facebook, not a formal article, yet now the editor has the chutzpa to compare this to a student's thesis, which is like comparing apples to gorillas.

In the legal and education professions in which I work, I take pains to add footnotes to identify the origin of ideas. But in everyday communication, and most especially blogging, the atmosphere is much more relaxed and informal, as was indicated to me when Patch invited me to blog. Most people recognize that blogging is an informal style of communication, like musings, in which the standards of communication are relaxed. Despite this, a false set of assumptions have been erroneously placed upon me in order to make pseudo-accusations of "plagiarism."
See the rest at www.ocregister.com.

More on Plagiarism --

Plagiarism is in the news, everywhere. Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve, of course, was outted by Patch.com as a potential plagiarist after dozens of passages he wrote for a blog on that site appeared to be lifted from other sources without attribution.

At Coffee Chat Friday, one of Reeve's former running mates said the issue was whipped up by SJC Patch Editor Jenna Chandler, who, he said, could have just stopped running Councilman Reeve's columns without any public explanation.

I pointed out that publications typically make public announcements when they find such activity, in an effort to repair/preserve community trust.

And the news brings me such an example. This from the Glendale News Press:

On Sept. 16, 2011, the Glendale News-Press printed a note stating that Dan Kimber’s Sept. 9, 2011, column largely duplicated the work of Sam Pizzigati’s Aug. 29, 2011 OtherWords column titled “Joe the Machinist.”

Kimber acknowledged the plagiarism, and the News-Press announced his column would no longer appear in its pages.

A review of Kimber’s columns from Jan. 2, 2009 to Sept. 9, 2011 revealed approximately one-fifth contained plagiarized material. The amount taken in each instance varied, from a few sentences to nearly the entire column.

News-Press guidelines are explicit about properly identifying and citing our sources. Trust is the backbone of this paper’s reputation.

Editing safeguards have been put in place to help prevent this from occurring in the future.

Within the online archive, each of Kimber’s columns will contain a note stating that multiple instances of plagiarism have been found. In those columns where plagiarism has been discovered, a “For The Record” note specifying the details will be appended to the piece.

***

Kimber was a professional educator who wrote on the education field. His initial response was that he inadvertently included someone elses work in his without attribution.

Another point some are making on behalf of Councilman Reeve: Reardon and others I've talked to privately try to make a distinction that Reeve's column appeared on a blog and not in print, so it's "not really" plagiarism. That simply is not the case.

Plagiarism is taking someone else's idea and passing it off on your own without attribution. The definition does not say it must be printed or published or anything else. Here's a website dedicated to stopping plagiarism: www.plagiarism.org

Reeve has not publicly commented on the issue, but told me in an email that he will send me a statement addressing the alleged plagiarism and other issues.

The Capistrano City Council meets tonight for the first time since these allegations surfaced.