Yes, you read that right.
Denver news is reporting (video) that the Secretary of State will strip Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters of power and “appoint someone other than [Mesa County] Clerk Tina Peters to oversee Mesa County’s elections.”
At the same time, the Mesa County Commissioners are holding a special meeting tonight to consider only one item: deciding whether to “approve or deny” an apparent replacement for Tina Peters.
| Consider and approve or deny the conditional appointment of a designated election official pursuant to C.R.S. 1-1-104(8). (Todd Starr, County Attorney) |
This begs the question: Why are the County Commissioners holding a meeting to decide whether or not to replace Peters when the Secretary of State is already going to replace her? Is it just right wing theater to placate the batsh*t crazy “Stand for the Constitution” crowd? Or what is going on here?
The Commissioners don’t usually hold public meetings about personnel matters. They didn’t do it when Mesa County was dealing with County Administrator Frank Whidden and his multiple age discriminations lawsuits, charges of sexual harassment and other sordid situations.
The Commissioners’ single meeting agenda item has the name of County Attorney Todd Starr beneath it, so I called Starr’s office to ask why this meeting was being held. Someone answered the call who claimed to have absolutely no idea whatsoever about the meeting, who said no one was there who did, and said it was all the County Commissioners’ doing. That person referred me to the County Commissioners’ office. A call to the County Commissioners’ office was answered by someone who said they had no idea why the meeting was being held, and referred me back to the County Attorney’s office.
It was the classic Mesa County runaround.
At the same time, reports are that the FBI has now joined in the criminal investigation of Clerk Tina Peters.
So confusion reigns from top to bottom now inside Mesa County government, as Peters’ elected Republican pals struggle to figure out how to deal with what looks more and more like a criminal County Clerk who intentionally facilitated a security breach that compromised Mesa County’s own voting equipment.
According to the Sentinel, the commissioners want Wayne Williams, former SoS who lost his job to Griswold, now senior adviser to the Phoenix-based Runbeck Elections Systems. I don’t know his political stance on the election, but the fact that he has business ties to a competing company to Dominion, should have been a cause to remove him from consideration. This isn’t the way to try and re-instill people’s trust in the election process.
They will probably support her somehow.