UPDATE- 4/11/26 @ 3:14 p.m. –After this blog was posted, JJ Fletcher, current Chair of the Board of Mesa County Commissioners, agreed to move this item off the consent agenda and would like to have some public comment on it. The meeting is Tuesday, April 14 at 9:00 a.m. in the old courthouse on Rood Ave. (2nd floor). Please attend if you are able. You can read past blogs that discuss Stephen D. Daniels here.
At their public meeting on April 14, the Mesa County Commissioners will attempt to approve, with zero public discussion, the re-appointment of Stephen D. Daniels to another term on the Mesa County Board of Public Health (BOPH). The approval for his re-appointment is on the consent agenda for their meeting on 4/14/26, making it look as if it is harmless and inconsequential, since items on the consent agenda get gaveled-through (approved) without any public discussion.
This is wrong.
The re-appointment of Stephen D. Daniels is extremely consequential and inappropriate.
According to his past social media posts, Stephen D. Daniels — who was first appointed to the BOPH in 2023 by former County Commissioner Janet Rowland — is a strong supporter of anti-vax conspiracy theorist, highly damaging public health figure and now Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFKJr). RFK Jr. has been labelled as “dangerous,” “deceitful” and “Public Health Enemy #1” by public health experts across the country, and Daniels is a fan. RFK Jr.’s anti-vax views helped cause the biggest measles outbreak in the U.S in decades over the past year.
Daniels social media posts also show he is an anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Disney climate change denier and political extremist who opposed Colorado’s new family and medical leave law, which gives workers paid time off to care for a new baby or a loved one who has a serious health condition.
Other equally alarming posts on Daniels’ social media accounts show Daniels is a die-hard Trump supporter who believes the lie that January 6 was a peaceful day at the Capitol. Daniels openly detests Democrats and doesn’t believe professionals like plumbers, barbers or realtors should be licensed. He has also claimed that the current ethically-plagued Supreme Court is functioning “exactly as it’s supposed to.”
Daniels’ conspiratorial views about Covid-19 and vaccines mirror those of former County Commissioner Janet Rowland, who promoted QAnon-linked conspiracy theories about Covid-19 while running for commissioner in 2020.
Daniels is a tax cheat
Daniels has owed the State of Colorado $10,200 in unpaid taxes since at least 2010. Court records accessed on 4/11/2026 reveal he still has an outstanding Distraint Warrant issued against him by the Colorado Department of Revenue and the debt is still listed as “UNSATISFIED.” A Distrain Warrant functions as a lien on all of the property Daniels owns in Eagle County:
At the time he was appointed to the BOPH, Daniels was supposed to have been chosen to help make the Board more fiscally responsible, but court documents show Daniels himself has long been cheating the state by refusing to pay his taxes like the rest of us. If that’s not the case for some reason, he’s failed to publicly explain why this distraint warrant exists against him.
Here are a few of Daniels’ social media posts:
A video Daniels posted in 2023:
Posts from 2026:
Rowland, who appointed Daniels, ran for re-election in 2024 but got drop-kicked out of office by Mesa County voters by an 11-point margin, in large part because of her actions to seize control of, and personally manipulate the Mesa County Department of Public Health and the Board of Public Health. But Stephen D. Daniels remains on the Mesa Count Board of Public Health as a relic of Rowland’s harmful tenure, and as perhaps the Board’s most inappropriate and harmful member, and he will continue there unless the public speaks up, and loudly.
Voice your views to the commissioners here about the re-appointment of Stephen D. Daniels:
Email Commissioner Cody Davis at Cody.Davis@mesacounty.us, phone 970-244-1605
Email Commissioner JJ Fletcher at JJ.Fletcher@mesacounty.us, phone 970-244-1606
Email Commissioner Bobbie Daniel at Bobbie.Daniel@mesacounty.us, phone 970-244-1604