Anne Landman

Janet Rowland, Local concerns, Mental health, Public health

Sources: Mesa County Behavioral Health Director Lisa Mills pushed out

by Anne Landman • March 12, 2025 • 12 Comments

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 in 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.

Democracy, Democracy under threat, Destruction of the federal government, Energy, Environment, Health care, Jeff Hurd, politics

Summary of Rep. Jeff Hurd’s 3/11/25 town hall meeting

by Anne Landman • March 12, 2025 • 7 Comments

Republican House Rep. Jeffrey S. Hurd. CD-3

Here is a summary of CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd (R)’s town hall meeting held on 3/11/2025, with thanks to author Jim Marshall, who compiled the notes.

First, some observations by me: Hurd pulled last minute switches to both the time and the instructions for participating in the meeting, which made it difficult for constituents to join the call and probably reduced the number of participants. Many people who followed the last-minute changes and called in reported they were unable to hear the meeting. I personally dialed the updated (833) number on my cell phone at the appointed time and got 15 minutes of silence. After I heard voices, I put the phone on speaker but noted that the speaker phone did not work on this call. Unsure whether it was a setting on the other end, I tried hanging up and dialed in using my Google Voice number, and was able to hear the call on the computer speaker.

After about 20 minutes of introduction, softball questions were taken first and more serious questions about Ukraine, Russia, Trump & Musk’s attacks on the federal government and their efforts to erode democracy were addressed later.

Here is the summary of the meeting provided by Jim Marshall:

ALERT: Hurd pulls last minute switcheroo on when & how to participate in his promised Tuesday, 3/11/25 telephonic town hall meeting on

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2025 • 6 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

CD-3 House Representative Jeff Hurd (R) has made VERY last minute changes to the time and way to participate in his promised telephonic town hall meeting scheduled for TODAY.

Previously constituents were told they had to call a number and give the person who answered their telephone number, and that THEY would get a call from Hurd at 6:00 p.m. today, at the established time the meeting was to begin, 6:00 p.m.

That’s all changed.

NOW, constituents are being told THEY must call a different phone number, (833) 380-0417 and the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m.

French Senator discusses global ramifications of the Trump regime

by Anne Landman • March 11, 2025 • 19 Comments

This is a video of French Senator Claude Malhuret posted on March 7 in which he discusses what is going on in the United States, and how Europe needs to react to it. Sen. Malhuret is a French physician and lawyer who has been in the French Senate since 2014. He is a center-right legislator. This video has been going viral and reflects what European countries think about the current state of affairs we are enduring here in the U.S. under Trump. The full video is about 8 minutes long.

It tells us much about what the rest of the world thinks of what the Trump regime is doing to the United States.

Here is an excerpt of the talk from the beginning of the video:

29 Road interchange project still alive despite being resoundingly defeated at the ballot box in Nov., ’24 election

by Anne Landman • March 9, 2025 • 7 Comments

Screenshot of March 5 meeting at which City Council discussed moving forward with the 29 Road interchange project, even though it was resoundingly voted down at the ballot box just 4 months ago

Even though voters turned down the proposal to build a new interchange on I-70 at 29 Road in the November 5, 2024 election by a margin of 56.44% to 43.36%, a discussion of how to push forward with the project was on City Council’s agenda at their March 5, 2025 regular meeting. The proposal on last fall’s ballot asked voters to approve the City and County taking on $80 million in debt to fund the project, with a payback cost of $173,438,202.

At the time, the City’s finance manager told City council members at a workshop that the debt the from the project would “decimate city capital, basically.”

The City and County combined have already invested over $2 million in trying to make the project happen, and the City is now considering what to do with $800,000 remaining under a current design contract for the project.

Below are notes about the project from Council’s 3/5 regular meeting. Boldfaced emphasis was included by a person who lives on the 29 Road corridor and is following the project closely.

CMU fostering a climate of hate

by Anne Landman • March 7, 2025 • 14 Comments

This piece was written by Jacob Richards and is reprinted here with permission from The Revolutionist. The Revolutionist accepts no advertising and is 100% volunteer-run and subscriber-funded community media. You can subscribe to it at this link.

Colorado Mesa University’s Western Culture Club is hosting an out-and-out white Supremacist as a speaker on campus later in March. (Time and date erased because we don’t platform nazis).

A new campus club, the “Western Culture Club,” appeared on campus in early March promoting a talk by Jared Taylor to be held at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) later in March. Taylor is an avowed white supremacist and author, and this is just the latest escalation by bigots on campus, seemingly with the blessing of the CMU administration.

When students started a new semester at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction on January 20th, the same day Trump took office, the campus seemed different.

Emboldened by the inauguration of an openly racist and openly fascistic president, racist students on the campus have begun a now months-long sticker campaign. The stickers call on students to fulfill “civic duty” to “report any and all illegal aliens” to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

CD3 Representative Jeff Hurd to hold telephonic town hall meeting Tuesday, March 11 @ 6:00 p.m. – people must call today to participate

by Anne Landman • March 7, 2025 • 18 Comments

Republican House Rep. Jeffrey S. Hurd, CD-3

House Rep. Jeff Hurd plans to hold a telephone town hall meeting on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.

To participate, people must call his office at (719) 696-6968 and give them your name and phone number before 4:00 p.m. TODAY, Friday, March 7. They will then call you at the appointed meeting time and give you a code to use to ask the Congressman a question.

Authoritarianism, Conservatives, Corruption, Dangerous Republicans, Democracy under threat, Destruction of the federal government, Economics, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom under threat, Inept Republicans, Law and Order under threat, Local concerns, Oligarchy

DOGE cancels leases on four federal agencies in Grand Junction

by Anne Landman • March 5, 2025 • 25 Comments

Local TV news stations KJCT and KKCO are reporting that Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is terminating the leases of four federal Agencies in Grand Junction:

Fact-checking convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser and President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress on 3/4/25

by Anne Landman • March 5, 2025 • 5 Comments

Donald Trump flat-out lied to Congress and Americans last night in his talk to Congress and the country. Here are some of the lies, fact-checked immediately after the speech by political commentator Rachel Maddow.

Here is more vetting of Trump’s lies by the New York Times.

Here is more fact-checking of Trump’s lies by CBS News.

More checking of Trump’s lies by ABC News/Politifact.

The Guardian: “Trump’s talk was littered with false claims he’s been corrected on but continued to repeat.”

U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to review Tina Peters’ conviction

by Anne Landman • March 4, 2025 • 5 Comments

Tina Peters’ mugshot for her arrest on 3/9/2022. She was sentenced to 9 years incarceration on charges related to election tampering and is currently trying to get Trump to help her get out of prison. He can’t pardon her because she was convicted on state, and not federal charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now a tool that convicted felon, sexual abuser and President Trump wields to help his friends and punish his enemies, has agreed to review former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ 2024 criminal conviction which led to her incarceration. The DOJ will be looking for “political bias” in her case.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy publicly bullied and berated over his war time clothing at White House visit

by Anne Landman • March 3, 2025 • 17 Comments

At a shameful White House meeting last week between convicted felon/adjudicated sexual abuser President Trump and his #2, JD Vance, Trump and Vance bullied and yelled at Ukrainian President Zelensky in a televised display of anger and resentment toward the leader of a democratic country that’s been invaded by Russia. Beyond this, as bad as the made-for-Russia meeting already was, Brian Glenn, White House correspondent for the right-wing cable channel Real America’s Voice, chimed in and berated Zelenskyy over his war time clothing, to the delight of Trump’s cabinet. You can see the harassment of Zelenskyy over his war time attire playing out in the clip above.

Trump’s illegal, unappointed “co-president,” billionaire Elon Musk, dominates a cabinet meeting at the White House on 2/26/25 wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt. No one publicly criticized his attire.

Brian Glenn, who attacked Zelesnkyy over his clothes, is the boyfriend of right-wing firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, and one of the hand-picked reporters the White House has chosen under its new policy of choosing the press pool reporters who will cover them favorably and excluding reporters they think won’t cover them favorably — a classic authoritarian move to assure a positive spin on all news coverage of the regime.

Republicans push for pause in federal funds coming to Colorado until Gov. Polis pardons Tina Peters

by Anne Landman • March 1, 2025 • 33 Comments

9News’ Kyle Clark in Denver reports that Colorado Republicans are pressuring Gov. Polis to pardon Tina Peters, and have contacted the U.S. Attorney General to ask the Department of Justice to prosecute Mesa County Court Judge Matthew Barrett, who presided over Tina’s criminal case and sentenced her to 9 years of incarceration after the jury found her guilty of multiple criminal charges related to election equipment tampering.

Angle-in parking coming back in front of downtown G.J. Post Office in April

by Anne Landman • March 1, 2025 • 2 Comments

Homeless people hang out in a part of the street that used to have angle-in parking spots in front of the main Post Office on 4th Street in downtown Grand Junction. The angle-in parking is coming back as soon as it gets warm enough to re-paint the street.

In a conversation on February 15, 2025, City Councilor Randall Reitz said the City is going to restore the original angle-in parking in front of the Main Post Office in downtown Grand Junction “in April, when it’s warm enough to repaint.”

Last fall the City re-vamped 4th and 5th Streets to be more friendly to bicyclists. Unfortunately, the new arrangement made the area in front of the Post Office far less friendly to motorists by narrowing it one lane and requiring motorists to parallel park into parking spots located about 12 feet into the street. The new parking arrangement accommodates fewer cars in front of the Post Office and often caused a single motorist to hold traffic behind them while parking. Once parked, motorists were faced with opening their doors into oncoming traffic squeezed into the single, narrow lane.

Reitz said the parallel parking situation turned out to be “not a good model.”

Many City residents have clamored to have the angle-in parking restored in front of the Post Office. Come April, they’ll get their wish.

Ethics, Extremism, Freedom under threat, Grassroots advocacy, Inept Republicans, Jeff Hurd, Oligarchy, politics, Republican incompetence, Republicans violating laws, Trump Insanity

Rep. Jeff Hurd uses anti-semitic trope to dismiss constituents at the town hall meetings he refuses to attend

by Anne Landman • February 28, 2025 • 14 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

When CD-3 Rep. Jeff Hurd (R) was running for office, he was open to talking to all sorts of western Colorado residents when he wanted their votes. Now that he’s in office, though, Hurd can’t be bothered with meeting hundreds of voters clamoring to talk to him about the lawless destruction of the federal government now happening under convicted felon and sexual abuser President Trump and his co-president Elon Musk. Instead, Hurd dismissed multiple town halls and hundreds of constituents and their concerns by suggesting they are mere Soros-funded theater.

In a February 27, 2025 interview with Colorado Public Radio’s Ryan Warner, Warner asked Hurd about the 2/22 town hall meeting in Grand Junction attended by more than 400 worried constituents, that Hurd blew off. Here’s the part of the interview about it, and what Rep. Hurd said:

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd votes in favor of massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food) benefits

by Anne Landman • February 27, 2025 • 5 Comments

CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents western Colorado (Photo: X/Twitter)

Colorado CD-3 House Rep. Jeff Hurd voted for a budget resolution that, if approved in the Senate, will leave Congress no other choice than to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from programs the neediest Americans depend on, including Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food assistance benefits), housing assistance and energy programs.

Next protest: a 24-hour “economic blackout” Feb. 28 to highlight workers’ economic strife

by Anne Landman • February 26, 2025 • 28 Comments

Peoples Union graphic promoting the 24-hour Economic Blackout planned nationally for Friday, 2/28/25

Re-posting this article, previously posted on 2/19/25, as a reminder of the next protest.

The People’s Union, a grassroots organization that seeks to “unionize people to take back our power” is calling for a 24-hour nationwide “economic blackout” on Friday, February 28, 2025 targeting the biggest businesses in America, including companies like Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks, Target, Exxon and others, to highlight the companies’ part in creating an “economy designed to exploit workers, suppress wages, and keep the majority of us in a constant state of struggle. These are the forces that have stolen our financial freedom, manipulated our government, and kept power in the hands of the wealthy elite.”

Blackout participants are asked not to purchase anything online or at big retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Starbucks or other big companies for 24 hours on 2/28. Participants are also urged to not spend money on fast food or gas, or use their credit or debit cards for essential spending, since doing so financially benefits big credit card companies. Paying bills and buying food, medicine and other necessities are fine during the Blackout, but people are asked to patronize locally-owned businesses, and not big corporations or chain stores.

Convicted felon Steve Bannon, who gave a Nazi salute at CPAC on 2/21, is set to headline the Colorado Republican Party’s 2025 annual fundraising dinner in Denver

by Anne Landman • February 25, 2025 • 1 Comment

Convicted felon and former Trump aide Steve Bannon will headline Colorado’s Republican fundraising Centennial Dinner on March 28, 2025 in Denver.

Bannon plead guilty February 11, 2025 to defrauding donors to his “We Build the Wall” nonprofit organization, which told donors it was carrying out a private effort to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Charges against Bannon included money laundering, conspiracy and fraud. Bannon was also convicted in another similar federal case in 2020, but escaped prosecution in that case after Trump pardoned Bannon at the end of his first term. Bannon has also been banned from serving as an officer or director of any charitable organizations or nonprofits that has assets in New York, and is banned from accessing the names of people who donated to “We Build the Wall.”

Orchard Mesa Public Library facing possible closure or move

by Anne Landman • February 24, 2025 • 1 Comment

A Mesa County Library card holder posted a 3-page letter on Instagram that is being sent to library users announcing that the Orchard Mesa (OM) Library at 230 Lynwood is facing several problems that threaten its existence, including the sharply rising cost of rent, decreasing usage and a lower budget in 2026 due to changes in Colorado property tax laws.

Section 4 of Article X of the Colorado Constitution exempts public libraries from paying property taxes, but the OM Library doesn’t own its building. It rents the space, and the rent increased 21% in 2023. Also, in the last few years, Colorado has passed laws cutting property taxes to relieve pressure on property owners for rapidly increasing property valuations amid the housing shortage. The result is that less money is flowing to local governments to help fund public amenities like libraries.

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