Category: politics

Findings from the 2023 Colorado Latino Policy Agenda Survey to be presented on 3/11 @ 7 p.m. @ UU Congregation

What issues are top of mind for Latino voters in Colorado? How do Colorado Latino voters feel about the major political parties?

The public is invited to this review of the Colorado Latino Policy survey findings from 2023, with some very knowledgeable local panelists. The review has the highest number of findings from CD-3.

Started in 2021, the Colorado Latino Policy Agenda (CLPA) is an annual, nonpartisan report that provides insights into the demographic makeup and views of Latino voters in Colorado on a number of pressing policy, political, and social issues.

CD-3 candidate Adam Frisch holding meet and greet Wed., 2/28@Kannah Creek Brewery 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Grab your chance to meet Adam Frisch, the leading candidate for the 3rd Congressional District seat, and the one who single-handedly chased Lauren Boebert out of our District for good.

Adam is hosting a Meet-and-Greet Wednesday, 2/28 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at Kannah Creek Brewing Company, 1960 N. 12th St., Grand Junction. Adam advocates a climb-down from the “angertainment” politics we’ve had to endure in CD-3 for the last few years

Adam Frisch

and seeks instead to represent CD-3 in Congress in a more normal way, meaning he would actually represent and promote the needs of our district in the House instead of seeking fame and notoriety by constantly engaging in outrageous behavior. He also seeks to restore dignity to CD-3’s representation in Congress, while actually making progress towards solving problems in our District.

Civil War & Feeding Migrants to Wolves: Western CO Congressional Forum Gets Extreme

The forum for Republican candidates for CD-3 held at Appleton Christian Church, 2/12/24. (Photo: Sharon Sullivan)

Article by Sharon Sullivan, Feb. 14, 2024

This article is republished with permission from the Colorado Times Recorder. You can see the original article here. 

Immigration policy dominated the discussion among five of the Republican candidates vying to win Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District primary election in June, and it included some eyebrow-raising statements.

The candidate forum, which took place Monday night at Appleton Christian Church in Grand Junction, included all but one of the Republicans hoping to become their party’s nominee following Congresswoman’s Boebert decision to abandon her hometown district for redder pastures on the Eastern Plains.

While their positions on immigration varied, the candidates found more consensus around their doubts about Colorado’s election system. Four of the five participants spoke in favor of banning the mail ballots used by nearly all Coloradans, based on the debunked conspiracy that they have been used to rig elections. All but one of the candidates advocated for a return to hand-counting paper ballots, a process which has been proven to be less accurate and far more expensive than Colorado’s current system. Hanks, Andrews and Varela all promoted elements of another debunked conspiracy theory: that the Dominion Voting machines used by nearly all counties to tabulate their elections could be manipulated to rig the results.

KREX TV explores how the County seized control over all of Mesa County Public Health Department’s contracts when it only contributes 4.2% of the agency’s budget

KREX reporter Michael Loggerwell’s story about Mesa County’s new Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the Health Department- Part 1

KREX-TV News recently did a two-part series about the Mesa County Commissioners’ new, post-Jeff Kuhr Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) that more tightly regulates the County’s relationship with the Public Health Department (MCPHD), and how it differs from the old 2012 agreement in important ways that could negatively affect public health and safety in the county.

D-51 School Board candidate Barbara Evanson wants to teach creationism alongside science in public schools

“I feel like we need to be teaching both ends of the spectrum when we’re teaching things in school as well….What I mean by that is if we’re teaching the Big Bang Theory then we need to teach creationism as well.” — Barbara Evanson

On October 31, the Colorado Times Recorder highlighted a locally-made video interview with District 51 School Board candidate Barbara Evanson in which Evanson says that if schools teach what is scientifically known about the origins of the universe, then they should also have to teach creationism alongside that information so kids can decide on their own what’s true.

Creationism is the religious belief that God created the universe. It is a wholly religious construct with no scientific proof behind it,

The idea of mandating creationism be taught in public schools alongside scientific information has been declared by U.S. courts to be illegal.

D-51 School Board candidate Barbara Evanson says she wants to ban “a ton” of material from school libraries

In this excerpt from an interview with “Ruth” and “Lisa” (who do not provide their last names) posted on a YouTube account named “MesaCountyCompass” on October 8, 2023, “District 51 School Board candidate Barbara Evanson says she would ban “a ton of material” from school libraries that she feels is inappropriate.

Woodland Park-based Christian nationalist group working to influence Mesa County District 51 School Board election

Truth & Liberty Coalition fliers seek to influence the local school board election by focusing on right wing culture war issues. The fliers were placed at La Milpa Tortilleria on 30 Road.

High-quality, multi-colored, bilingual fliers created by the front range Christian dominionist group Truth & Liberty Coalition are showing up at businesses around town. The fliers use right wing culture war rhetoric targeting gay and transgender students in an attempt to influence the outcome of the November 7 District 51 School Board election. The fliers appear to endorse CynDee Skalla, Jessica Hearns and Barbara Evanson.

The fliers were found at La Milpa Tortilla Factory in Grand Junction and are bilingual in English and Spanish.

“Stand for the Constitution,” which still supports Tina Peters, is working to get Evanson & Skalla elected to D-51 School Board

A slide shown at a mid-October, 2023 Stand for the Constitution meeting that indicates the group still supports criminally-indicted, election denier Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. The same group is supporting Evanson and Skalla for D-51 School District Board.

It seems like Mesa County never seems to learn from its past mistakes.

Stand for The Constitution (SFTC), the local extremist group that pushed to get Tina Peters elected County Clerk in 2018, that continued to support Peters even after her loss of 574 of ballots in 2019 and even after her indictments on multiple felony criminal charges related to election tampering, is now working to get Barbara Evanson and CynDee Skalla elected to the District 51 School Board in the November 7, 2023 election.

Stand for the Constitution also backed the three conservative school board members Haitz, Lema and Jones who have brought rancor, questionable ethics, uncertainty, disruption and hatred to the school board.

Tina Peters takes the 5th Amendment repeatedly in deposition about soliciting illegal campaign contributions

Tina Peters’ mugshot for her arrest on 3/9/2022

On September 29, Colorado Administrative Law Judge Timothy Nemecheck fined former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters $15,400 for illegally soliciting and accepting contributions to a 2022 re-election campaign for county clerk without first registering as a candidate with the State.

The fine was the end result of two campaign finance complaints filed in 2021 by Scott Beilfuss, who is now a Grand Junction City Councilman. The first complaint was dated August 16, 2021. Beilfuss wrote a single sentence:

“Tina Peters flew up to Mr. Pillows cybersymposium on a private plane provided to her and is staying as a guest of the Pillow foundation in a clear violation of accepting gift laws.”

9News reports Tina Peters fined $15,400 for campaign finance violation while running for Mesa County Clerk

Marshall Zelinger of 9News’ Next with Kyle Clark reported on Friday, October 6, 2023 that an administrative law judge has fined Republican former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters $15,400 for soliciting donations to run for re-election as Mesa County Clerk without having first filed the necessary paperwork with the state that requires she report all the money she raised and spent on her campaign. The $15.4k fine pertains to Tina’s campaign for Clerk that she dropped out of in 2022 to run for Colorado Secretary of State instead.

Colorado Public Radio has published additonal information on Tina Peters’ campaign finance fine here: Former Mesa Clerk Tina Peters fined for failing to register reelection campaign, by Bente Berkeland, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2023

County Commissioners set to exert control over what Public Health Board members can discuss at their own meetings

Welcome to the new Mesa County Board of Public Health (Photo: AP/Matt York)

At the meeting of the new Mesa County Board of Public Health (BOH) scheduled for tomorrow, Monday, September 11, 2023, the County Commissioners hope to impose a new Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) (pdf, page 10) on the Board of Health that will tie the BOH tightly to most County policies and procedures eliminate the BOH’s ability to control their own meeting agendas, and allow the Commissioners block discussion of any subject the commissioners don’t like.

Rep. Boebert lies to constituents about missed debt ceiling vote

Despite railing against the debt limit deal for weeks, tweeting against it 23 times and calling the bill “D.C. self-created garbage,” on May 31, 2023 Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert missed her chance to vote on the bill.

A CNN reporter caught video of Boebert running up the Capitol steps too late to vote on the bill. As Boebert is dashing up the steps the reporter tells Boebert “It’s closed.” Boebert stops, turns around and says, “It’s closed?” then turns keeps running up the steps.

Rep. Lauren Boebert misses vote on debt ceiling bill

For all her railing against the debt ceiling bill, Colorado’s 3rd District House Representative Lauren Boebert missed voting on the bill entirely on Wednesday night. The vote passed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan margin of 314-117. The Senate passed the bill this morning by a vote of 63-36. The bill had to pass before Monday to avoid a potentially catastrophic, historic federal government default on paying debts the nation has already incurred.

Boebert had vowed to vote “no” on the bill, saying “Our base didn’t volunteer, door knock and fight so hard to get us the majority for this kind of compromise deal with Joe Biden. Our voters deserve better than this. We work for them. You can count me as a NO on this deal. We can do better.”

Unaffiliated Black Nigerian immigrant elected Mayor of Colorado Springs, defeating Republican Wayne Williams

Yemi Mobolade, the new mayor of Colorado Springs, defeated long time Republican political figure Wayne Williams.

In a seismic political shift for Colorado Springs, Yemi Mobolade, a Nigerian immigrant with no political experience, defeated Republican Wayne Williams in the city’s mayoral race.

Mobolade describes himself as a “progressive political newcomer,” according to Axios,

Mobolade won by a wide margin.

The unofficial results reported as of 9:40 p.m. last night show Mobolade ahead with 57.47% of the vote to Wayne Williams’ 42.53%. Wayne Williams has conceded the race to Mobolade.

Wayne Williams was a veteran Republican political figure on the front range and state wide.

New website up for the effort to recall D-51 School Board President Andrea Haitz

Click the image to go to the new website for the Andrea Haitz recall effort

The public can now keep track of the effort to recall School District 51’s Board President Andrea Haitz by going to SignForKids.com, where people can find out where to sign petitions, get trained in how to gather signatures, donate to the effort or volunteer to help. The organizers need to gather 15,000 valid signatures of registered voters within the next two months.

The website states the public’s grievances against Haitz:

  • Andrea Haitz was elected to the District 51 Board in 2021, promising transparency.

  • Instead, Haitz has turned local control of school dollars over to extremist organizations, turned fundamental parts of her job over to expensive lawyers, denied student pleas for mental health services, and used her office for family political gain.

  • The biggest decisions at District 51 are now being turned over to outside interests and fringe extremists who don’t represent Mesa County families.

Darren Cook gives his take on the D-51 Board majority’s recent decision to send only lawyers to represent the District in negotiations with D-51 teachers

Darren Cook (Photo: CO Education Association via Twitter, 2015)

Note: This is a guest post by Darren Cook, a former longtime District 51 middle School teacher and former President of the Mesa Valley Education Association, which represents public school teachers. Darren started a website and blog to give the public his take on decisions being made by the current District 51 School Board majority. Darren is running to replace controversial current school board member Andrea Haitz  in the upcoming recall election.

On Friday, the Mesa Valley Education Association shocked the teachers of District 51 by announcing that for the first time in forty years, the Board of Education will not directly negotiate with teachers. Instead, they will be represented by two lawyers, David Price and Tammy Eret.

In my twenty-three-year career with D51, I was part of the teachers’ negotiation team for seventeen of those. We brought eight to ten teachers, paying attention to having representation from each instructional level, content, and area of expertise. D51 administration brought a similarly representative team, with administrators from each level, the Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director of Human Resources, and Superintendent as key parts of their team. And, of course, all five Board members were there. Always.

City of Grand Junction election results, 2023

Below are the results of the April 4, 2023 City of Grand Junction election. These are marked on the City’s website as the final election results. There will be a ballot curing period of 8 days following which the official final results will be viewable by going to this link on the City’s website.

Referred Measure 1A is the Community Recreation Center and 1B was to lengthen the lease on a parcel of City-owned land.

Winners of seats on City Council are Cody Kennedy, Jason Nguyen and Scott Beilfuss, and incumbent Anna Stout skated to re-election running unopposed.

The Community Recreation Center measure passed by almost 4,000 votes. Voters also passed the measure to lengthen the lease on City-owned property.