Jody Green
Jody Green is running for the Grand Junction City Council District E seat in the April 6, 2021 municipal election. His campaign website says he is construction worker and that he helped build the Oxbow subdivision, the Postal Annex on Patterson, Ratekin Tower Apartments, Lakeside Apartments and other buildings in Grand Junction. Green writes on social media that he “Works at School of Hard Knocks, University of Life,” but provides no other information about his educational background.
In a February 4, 2021 article in the Daily Sentinel, Green told the paper that he is running for City Council because God asked him to.
Claims of group participation
On his campaign website Green writes that he has volunteered for over 25 years with Mesa County Search and Rescue (MCSAR), but an inquiry to MCSAR to verify this information brought a response from Sergeant Richard Acree of Mesa County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Services and Fire Management that calls Green’s claim into question. Sergeant Acree wrote:
“I had to ask around to see if anyone knew [Green]. I have been involved in SAR for the Sheriff since 2005 and never heard of him. I heard he was on the ATV team but I do not have any records showing his 25 year involvement. It must have been prior to 2000 but I can’t confirm this without a lot of research.”
A Facebook post by the “Public Lands Access Association,” to which Green claims to be a board member. The page appears to be a political outlet for someone named Linda Bestland, whose posts dominate the page. Few posts have anything to do with public lands.
Mr. Green also writes on his campaign website that he “served as the President of Citizens Access for Public Lands.” A search of the Colorado Secretary of State’s database shows a nonprofit corporation with that name was formed in 1998 and was “administratively dissolved” in 2004. Its registered agent was Jody Green. The group weighed in on the proposed closing of roads in Mesa and Garfield Counties, but the minutes of a 2005 Garfield County Commissioners meeting (pdf) showed that Green sometimes misunderstood the positions taken by public officials on these issues when he was protesting their proposed actions.
Green also states he was a board member of the “Public Lands Access Association,” a group that does not appear in any Colorado Secretary of State database. The only available reference to a group named the “Public Lands Access Association” that wasn’t a Facebook page was a 2014 legal case in Montana about public lands access. The “Public Lands Access Association,” in the context in which Green mentions it, appears to be a politically right wing Facebook group that posts anti-mask ideology and derides local politicians who follow state orders by public health authorities aimed at reining in the pandemic.
Questionable literacy level
Green appears to have noticeably poor writing skills, as is made clear in the descriptions he posted on his profile on LinkedIn:
A sample of Green’s writing from his LinkedIn page
The “Experience” section of Jody Green’s LinkedIn profile
This low level of literacy could pose a problem should Mr. Green be elected because City Council members often need to read and be able to understand hundreds of pages of documents — things like draft ordinances, planning commission reports, legal opinions and other information — to be informed enough to do their jobs.
Green did not participate in the February 24th online Western Colorado Alliance Candidate Forum, nor did he fill out the Outdoor Recreation Coalition’s questionnaire. His responses to his candidate survey in the Daily Sentinel appear to have been largely copied from his campaign website, calling into question whether he wrote either of them himself, or with assistance.
If Mr. Green’s literacy level is actually higher than what it appears to be in his profile on LinkedIn, he should make an effort to demonstrate that to the public unequivocally prior to the election.