Lisa Rickerd Mills, former director of Mesa County Behavioral Health (Photo: Facebook)
Sources inside Mesa County say the County’s Director of Behavioral Health, Lisa Mills, was “voluntold” to resign on March 11.
Mills played a key role in convincing former Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland to push Dr. Jeff Kuhr out of his long time position as Director of the Mesa County Public Health Department in 2023. Kuhr had been director of the health department for 12 years, had assured the Public Health Department was well funded and efficient, and won accolades for helping the County successfully get through the pandemic.
About a week and a half ago several sources contacted AnneLandmanBlog saying Mills had “left the building” and been put on administrative leave. At that time, an inquiry to the County revealed she was currently still employed by the County, but had no County email address or office phone number, which seemed to verify claims she was on administrative leave.
Now it appears Mills is permanently out.
A former employee of the County reported that 3-4 employees who had worked under Mills in the Behavioral Health department had all quit during Mills’ tenure. One had been contacted by an investigator named Christina Harney with the law firm of Bechtel & Santo, who was investigating Lisa Mills on behalf the County. At least one former Behavioral Health department employee under Mills had been put on an extensive paid administrative leave at great cost to County taxpayers while Mills was being investigated by the law firm. An open records request to the County for invoices from Bechtel & Santo related to investigations into Lisa Mills showed the County had received and paid five invoices between July and December, 2023 for investigations into Mills totaling $13,957.92 in taxpayer funds.
Mills is a Licensed Social Worker (LSW) with the State of Colorado. Public records show that in 2019 the State Board of Social Workers received a complaint about her work that, after an investigation, resulted in Mills being sanctioned by the state Board of Social Work Examiners. The Board ruled that Mills had “failed to conduct and document an adequate suicide risk assessment of a patient” and her “discharge plans were inadequate” while she was working at the VA Hospital in Grand Junction.
Despite this, the County hired Mills to head a new Behavioral Health Department created while her friend, Commissioner Rowland, was in office. Mills had depended on Rowland, a longtime county commissioner, to protect her and assure she kept her job with the County. But after the Behavioral Health department began continuously shedding employees, after voters rejected Rowland’s re-election bid in the 2024 primary election, and after multiple costly investigations into Mills, with Rowland gone, it became easier for County administration to push her out.
I had no idea about “Rene’s Place” and Cody Kennedy. Did anyone else know about this?
https://coloradosun.com/2025/03/15/affordable-housing-law-unrelated-residents-grand-junction-renes-house/?mc_cid=c1d7d1fb92&mc_eid=c9669d9a10
I just read about it. Very interesting.
It’s a much needed type of facility but it’s also obvious there needs to be disclosure to and buy-in from the neighbors.
In one of the articles I read Cody Kennedy was speculating the push back is because of the upcoming election and his opponent’s supporters.
Probably cold comfort for Jeff, but this demonstrates how insidious local politics can be. Please magatrolls, don’t do a “what about ism” – this sad saga was unique in all aspects, and unnecessary.
I never understood any of it and always thought there was more to the story than anyone knew.
By all accounts…except what Anne reports on, Lisa seems like a very accomplished and earnest person who was sincerely interested in stopping the cycle of incarceration. She organized the program Anne says she was fired from.
I continue to think there’s more to the story that we’ll probably never know. Anne’s obvious animus makes her an unreliable narrator and her supposition don’t add up to facts…as usual.
Lisa threw two of her employees under the bus, had an active HR investigation going on. She withheld funds from an lgbtq nonprofit in town. Yes, she helped with incarceration, building a co-responder unit and mapping but from those working around her, she knew how to play the game. She is skilled but lacks relationship and leadership skills. There are newspaper articles reporting on how she had a similar fallout in another town.
Thanks for the additional info. All of this Kuhr/Rowland/Mills stuff was happening just when I moved to Grand Junction and I just happened by this blog accidentally.
The local newspaper isn’t much help either and there was so much intrigue and innuendo concerning rascally republicans that the story is just confusing and not at all clear cut.
I always wondered, if Kuhr was so wonderful, why he didn’t just make a clear statement about what really happened.
What difference would that have made?
Since all of the players are “public servants” and a lot of resources were wasted getting through this mess, I think the taxpayers are owed an accurate accounting of events. Instead we get the half the story on this blog.
IMO, all of the parties are pretty awful.
Yet somehow you only ever critizise the liberal side.
And maybe if these overpaid bureaucrats knew that the truth would eventually come out for all to see they’d behave better.
Instead, they get to slink off the stage and not be heard from again.
If Rowland was as rotten as the people around here think she was, they should have been picketing the county buildings…not holding up signs protesting Trump or Musk.
Lisa Rickerd Mills also has two unpaid distraint warrants against her by courts granted on behalf of the Colorado Department of Revenue for unpaid taxes totaling $5,031.78:
https://annelandmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-13-at-12.06.50 PM.png
and
https://annelandmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-13-at-12.06.30 PM.png
Thank you, Anne for sharing this karmic news. I was working at MCPH when Janet Rowland and Lisa Mills cast their spells to unjustly oust exemplary leader, Jeff Kuhr. Lisa Mills clawed her power-hungry way up the county ladder with Janet’s help. With so little justice being served at the national level, this is a small victory.
I retired from the county several years ago. Janet Rowland was constantly firing department heads and leaders if they disagreed with anything she recommended or said. She was not a leader, she was a dictator. We truly never knew who was on her hit list.
People forget what an amazing leader Jeff Kuhr was, not only here but across the state during COVD. The health department flourished under his leadership. I read that he was able to leave the county with his held high and with a huge payout from the County because of the way he was treated.