Are you voting a Republican primary ballot and trying to figure out who to vote for for Mesa County Clerk and Recorder? The race is between two candidates: Tina Peters and Bobbie Gross. Here is a brief rundown on both of them, to help you make up your mind about who is most likely to do the best job. Once you know about them both, the choice is very easy.
Consumer advocacy, Corporations, Corruption, Economics, Elections, Ethics, Fake patriotism, politics, Republicans violating laws
State Senator Ray Scott of Mesa County caught double-dipping
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A Daily Sentinel article from May 24 details how Republican State Senator Ray Scott double-billed his legislative expense account and his campaign account for over $1,000 in Uber rides, and didn’t correct it until the Sentinel exposed it and questioned him about it. The Sentinel obtained information on Scott’s expenditures through a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request to the state.
Consumer advocacy, Crazy Republicans, Economics, Equal rights, Ethics, politics
Sen. Ray Scott supports big-government interference in the construction industry
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Water intrusion problems around windows may not become apparent until years after construction is complete.
An election is coming up this month, and supporters of incumbent Senator Ray Scott (R, Dist-7 – Mesa County) need to know who they’re voting for.
Scott supports big nanny-state government interference in the construction industry, according to a bill he introduced in 2015 — a bill that advantaged shoddy homebuilders and was terrible for home buyers.
Advertising, Children, Ethics, Gun violence, Marketing, Media, Safety
It’s time to stop advertising guns.
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In keeping with the culture of linking of firearms to masculinity, Daily Sentinel ran a Sportsman’s Warehouse’s ad promoting guns as gifts for Father’s Day, 2018
It’s time for our local paper, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and other publications to stop advertising guns. This is the rock-bottom minimum that can be done to end the glorification of guns and senseless proliferation of gun violence in society. It is the metaphorical lifting a pinky finger to take action against a problem, but it is necessary.
Given the rate at which gun massacres are happening in our country, as a matter of health and safety, it’s time to just stop promoting guns in any way, and nowhere is this more true than in Mesa County.
Activism, Advertising, Consumer advocacy, Democracy, Environment, Equal rights, Ethics, politics
Anti-Ray Scott billboard campaign starts May 11
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Mesa County residents who are fed up with State Senator Ray Scott are running a campaign urging people not to re-elect him in 2018.
Constituents say they’re fed up with Scott’s narrow-minded fossil fuel boosterism, ignorance of climate science, sub-par spelling and grammar and inability to tell credible research from industry-backed studies designed to reach a specific conclusion. Scott’s constituents are also offended by his rudeness. Scott calls voters who disagree with him “idiots.” In February, 2017, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel threatened Scott with a defamation lawsuit after he called an opinion piece critical of him “fake news.” When a Mesa County resident commented on Scott’s Facebook page that the Sentinel was actually a conservative newspaper, Scott responded with this grammatically-challenged comeback: “Your [sic] a foolish Democrat, go cry somewhere else” and blocked the constituent from his page.
Advertising, Crazy Republicans, Extremism, Grand Junction Chamber, Lobbying, politics, Pollution, Safety, Stupid Republicans, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce takes off it’s fig leaf
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Grand Valley Drainage District pipe choked with weeds. (Photo credit: GVDD)
If there is a shred of doubt left that the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce exists only to promote it’s own political ideology, it dispelled that notion today with an ad in the Daily Sentinel endorsing the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) Board candidate notable for being the remarkably far less qualified person for the seat.
The Chamber endorsed the less-qualified candidate for one reason only: she opposes the fee imposed by the GVDD in 2016 to raise funds for crucial improvements needed to the Grand Valley’s stormwater drainage system. Residents pay an extra $3/month. The fees assessed to businesses are higher because their larger “big box” buildings and paved parking lots create far more polluted stormwater runoff than homes, burdening the valley’s drainage system more than residences do. The drainage system, designed in 1915 primarily to collect agricultural seep from fields, is already in bad shape and needs improvement and expansion to cope with the valley’s change from primarily a rural/agricultural area into an urban area. If runoff exceeds the amount of drainage capacity we have, the result will be flooding, property damage and damage to other important infrastructure, like roads.
Activism, Atheism, Diversity, Equal rights, Ethics, politics, Religion, Secularism, Separation of Church and State
Celebrate the National Day of Reason Thursday, May 3, 2018
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The first Thursday in May of every year is the National Day of Reason, a celebration that coincides with the National Day of Prayer, which encourages Americans to pray to God for peace and prosperity for the nation. A big problem with the National Day of Prayer, though, is that it excludes almost a quarter of the U.S. population that doesn’t belong to any religion or doesn’t believe in God. That’s a whole lot of people to leave out of a national celebration.
Activism, Elections, Grand Junction Chamber, Inept Republicans, politics, Pollution, Safety, Stupid Republicans, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Flex your muscle by getting out and voting in the May 8 Drainage District election!
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Why drainage matters: Sherwood Park flooding after a sudden heavy summer rainstorm
Mark your calendars: there’s a local election coming up that Grand Valley progressives and intelligent voters can actually win if they just get out to vote: It’s an election in which typically only about 200 people turn out vote, so one or two dozen extra voters coming out could really tip the entire election in a good way for our valley. It’s for the District 3 seat seat on the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) board, and it’s coming up May 8. (pdf)
The difference between the two candidates is stark. It should make for a very easy decision by voters.
Consumer advocacy, Corruption, Crazy Republicans, Energy, Environment, Front groups, Pollution
Sen. Ray Scott tanks bill to boost electric vehicle charging stations across the state
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Colorado State Senator Ray Scott
Mesa County’s State Senator Ray Scott was the key “no” vote that killed a bill to encourage utility companies to build more infrastructure across the state for electric vehicles (EVs). The bill, SB18-216, would have permitted electric companies to build more EV charging stations and recoup the costs of the construction by charging fees to users. The bill would have expanded the use of clean-running electric vehicles in Colorado by making it easier for people to charge them when traveling across the state.
Tanking the bill was a goal of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an astroturf front group funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, owners of Koch Industries, a private conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas.
Consumer advocacy, politics, Public health, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Canal roads voted “Best Health Club” in Sentinel’s “Best of the West” contest
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Area residents voted trespassing on the Grand Valley’s irrigation canal roads as the “Best Health Club” in the Daily Sentinel’s “Best of the West” contest in a “favorite write-in votes” section. Almost 4,000 people voted in the “Best of the West” contest.
Crazy Republicans, politics, Public health, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
State Sen. Ray Scott votes with Dems
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Corporations, Crazy Republicans, Gun violence, politics, Propaganda, Public health, Safety, Security, Stupid Republicans, Trump Insanity
Don’t be fooled. Gun massacres are about GUNS, not mental illness.
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Yes, President Trump, it IS a ‘guns situation.’
In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, Republicans are claiming that the easy availability of guns in the U.S. isn’t even a factor in our national epidemic of mass shootings. Instead they point to mental illness as the only factor that should be considered.
Hogwash.
Crazy Republicans, Extremism, Hate
Milo Yiannopoulos’s Grand Junction show cancelled
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Milo Yiannopoulos
Grand Junction has been spared a potentially embarrassing and costly problem. A show by white supremacist provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos scheduled for April 14th at an undisclosed location in Grand Junction has been cancelled. The website for the event, “A Night with Milo, Grand Junction” says tickets to the Grand Junction event are no longer on sale. No more details are provided. The tickets had been priced at $40-$109 — expensive for any event in Grand Junction. Yiannopoulos was also supposed to appear in Las Vegas the night before the Grand Junction event, but that appearance has also apparently been cancelled.
Great news, and another win for Grand Junction’s growing liberal/progressive community.
Activism, Atheism, Diversity, Education, Religion, Secularism
Atheist billboard graces entrance to Grand Junction at Easter, 2018
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Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers (WCAF) has a new digital billboard up in front of Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A at Rimrock Marketplace on I-70 B just in time for Easter. It shows a child with a shocked look on his face holding a book that looks very much like a Bible. It says “Belief without proof is gullibility.” You can see the board as you are heading west on I-70 B.
WCAF wanted their spring billboard to have an educational component this year. The group wanted to emphasize that people deserve proof before believing what they’re told. They also want to urge people to come to logical conclusions based on verifiable facts rather than on lore, mythology or pure faith.
WCAF’s mission is to educate the public about atheism, promote acceptance of atheism as a rational belief system and preserve and promote the wall of separation between church and state.
The board is up through Tuesday, April 4. WCAF says anyone who takes their photo with the billboard and posts it on WCAF’s Facebook page will get a free package of M&Ms. To donate to more billboards like this, go to WCAF’s Donation page.
Consumer advocacy, Safety, Trump Insanity, Worker advocacy
Trump’s war on worker safety
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Construction is one of the most dangerous occupations, but the Trump administration is not on the side of workers.
Falling from scaffolding, getting hurt by chemical hazards, getting cut by, caught in or crushed by equipment… many Mesa County workers face hazards like this every day on the job.
A significant number of people in Mesa County work in some the country’s most dangerous occupations. Nationwide 5,190 workers were killed on the job in 2016. On average, that’s more than 99 people a week, or over 14 worker deaths every day. The construction industry has by far the highest fatality rate of any industry in the U.S., accounting for fully 21% of workplace fatalities. 823 oil and gas industry workers were killed on the job in the U.S. from 2003 to 2010 — a fatality rate seven times greater than the rate for all U.S. industries. There were over a dozen fires and explosions at Colorado oil and gas facilities in the eight months following the fatal blast in Firestone, Colorado, in April, 2017 that killed two people in their home. In one 12 year span, one oil and gas worker was killed every three months in Colorado, all while workers face a system more focused on protecting drilling companies than the people who work for them.
Activism, Children, Ethics, Gun violence, politics, Public health
Grand Junction’s huge anti gun-violence march and rally
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Around 3,000 people attended Grand Junction, Colorado’s March for Our Lives, on Mach 24, 2018. It was one of 800 “sibling” marches happening around the country and the world at the same time as the main March for our Lives in Washington, D.C., organized by students who survived the February 14 gun massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The attendance at Grand Junction’s march was impressive given that this area of Colorado has long been considered a gun-friendly, conservative stronghold. That may not be the case any more, as many gun owners are joining with the students in saying there are now too many guns in too many people’s hands, and a higher priority should be put on people’s safety rather than on guns.
Such significant participation in an event like this was unthinkable as recently as just a couple of years ago.
Consumer advocacy, Corruption, Crazy Republicans, Ethics, politics, Trump Insanity
Rep. Scott Tipton votes to let Trump’s family and senior officials benefit financially from changes to federal banking rules
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Chart from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 3/19/2-18
Western slope Congressional Representative Scott Tipton on March 14 voted against a motion to prohibit President Trump and his family from benefitting personally from a bill currently under consideration by the federal legislature to change federal banking rules.
Crazy Republicans, Equal rights, Ethics, Ethnic/Minority, Extremism, Fake patriotism, Religion, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
City Council chooses to keep mostly Christian prayers at public meetings
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“We say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” — City council members bow their heads during Christian prayers at a public meeting at City Hall, September 2, 2015
At their workshop Monday evening, Grand Junction City Council decided mixing religion with government was a good thing to do, and they would continue to do it.
City Manager Greg Caton told council members the City’s invocation policy dates back to 2008, saying they all inherited the practice. Council had an opportunity Monday at their workshop to discontinue prayers at City Council meetings and avoid further controversy over the City’s persistent endorsement of religion, modify the current policy or substitute a moment of silence instead.
But history shows the City of Grand Junction always has a hard time coming into the 21st Century.