Janet Rowland’s March 28 Instagram post touting her devotion to “the truth.”
County Commissioner Janet Rowland (R), in a campaign plug she posted March 28 on her VoteJanetRowland Instagram page, says she “will always fight for the truth, even when the media presents the facts in a way that distorts the truth.”
But even as Janet denigrates the local media as untruthful, we must remember an episode in 2007 when Janet deceived the public herself by using local media.
Making it worse is the fact that even after it was exposed, she’s never taken responsibility for it, or apologized for it.
Shortly after losing statewide election for lieutenant governor as Bob Beauprez’s running mate in 2006, while she was previously Mesa County Commissioner, Janet was a columnist for the Grand Junction Free Press, at the time a competing newspaper to the Daily Sentinel. She wrote several columns for the Free Press under her own name until one day a sharp reader spotted the fact that Janet had been lifting the text of her columns word for word from government pamphlets, and brought this to the attention of the Free Press’s editor.
Making excuses
Janet’s first reaction to being charged with plagiarism was to claim she couldn’t even remember writing the columns. When that failed to tamp down the controversy, she said the information in her columns had been intended for “mass duplication anyhow,” adding that if people wanted to make out what she did as something evil, that was THEIR prerogative. Next, she tried to blame the plagiarism on others, saying she had included the necessary attributions in her column, but Free Press staff had edited them out. Free Press management quickly produced the emails Janet had sent to the paper for publication, exactly as she had sent them, showing that they contained zero references or attributions.
The Feb. 3, 2007 issue of the Daily Sentinel about Janet Rowland plagiarizing columns in the Free Press
Needless to say, the Free Press subsequently fired Janet as a columnist.
Why the big deal about a little plagiarism?
Plagiarism isn’t just dishonest and untruthful, it’s morally reprehensible for several reasons.
First of all, you make a deliberate decision to lie to the public when you claim a work is your own when it’s not. Second, it is stealing the work of others, which is theft. A person who commits plagiarism commits fraud by taking credit for the accomplishments of others. Plagiarizing combines all of these moral wrongs — lying, theft and fraud — into a single act. It is academic dishonesty, the equivalent of cheating on tests and fabricating data for a study. In academic circles, plagiarism destroys the reputations and careers of those who engage in it, and it speaks poorly of the institution you graduated from, in Janet’s case, Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington — a Christian university where she obtained a degree in Bible literature.
It doesn’t matter where the information was stolen from, whether from an individual or a government source. If the writing is not your own words and ideas, you need to attribute the work to the original, authentic source.
Janet never took responsibility for the plagiarism.
Janet never apologized to the readers of the Free Press for her plagiarism after it was publicly exposed. Instead, she tried to deflect her wrongdoing by making lame excuses and leaving it to the managing editor of the Free Press to apologize to readers for the deception.
From the February 6, 2007 issue of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
There’s nothing honorable, ethical or truthful about what Janet did or how she handled it, and the fact that she used a local media outlet to perpetrate it — media SHE now denigrates as “distorting the truth” — makes it even worse, and far more hypocritical.
To voters’ benefit, though, the episode gives insight into Janet’s character that voters need to evaluate her fitness for elected office.
It demonstrates that:
1) Janet will try to get away with unethical acts when it serves her purpose and she thinks she can get away with it;
2) She will pass off the work of others as her own if she beleives she is unlikely to get caught, and,
3) She will deflect responsibility for unethical or immoral acts by making excuses and blaming others rather than taking responsibility and apologizing as a person of integrity would, although a person of real integrity would be unlikely to commit such unethical acts to begin with. If a truly ethical person thought any action they were about to undertake might remotely be considered unethical, they would likely consult others before doing it.
This is important information voters need to decide who is best suited to be county commissioner. Do you want a commissioner who tries to get away with things, skirt the letter and intent of rules and agreements and who will do end runs around the law, or someone who will serve honestly and ethically, strive to be moral and abide by all laws and rules to the best of their ability?
We just need to look how she supported Tina Peters!!! Rowland is one false eyelash smarter than Tina, but just as crooked and deceitful as the clown Peters! Remember both the crooked Peters and the fiasco Rowland created with the health department when you go to vote,
Same old Republican rhetoric with more lies etc. Sounds like Blowbert!
She’s still touting this absurd fiscally conservative image, yet has singlehandedly cost Mesa County hundred of thousands of dollars in settlements and questionable spending? What a laugh! Just like Co-Commission Crony Davis, she’s the poster child of self-important impropriety and representing the supposed party of Law & Order; so long as they don’t have to actually obey them. I’d surely also donate to see a billboard keeping a running tally of her financial improprieties, reported “personal expenses” and frittering of taxpayer monies…just sayin
Just take a look at the recent county co cases in the commissioners name, Janet has the county attorneys, and codes offices perjuring themselves twisting facts, ignoring laws, and what ever else they need to do to win for her friends. Its all public records, look it up.
Saw plenty of her deviance with her power grab in Health Dept. fiasco. She is no honest broker by any standards. She spouts “transparency” as she lacks her own. Lots of stuff they don’t teach you at Bible School. Unfortunately she thinks we buy her words and lack the intelligence to see her clearly.
She has a lot in common with our disgraceful TP!
If she was interested in Truth, she could give the reader a couple of facts. But the flyer as written is innuendo spiced up with a dog whistle. I suppose it isn’t really directed at anyone who needs to ask what she means.
“A Machiavellian personality is manipulative and strategic,” says Aimee Daramus, a clinical psychologist in Chicago. “When they have a goal, they think through how to achieve it very skillfully, but without any consideration for the feelings of other people involved.”
“They might also use manipulative behaviors to get what they want, as well as deception or exploitation. They often come off as unemotional.”