Category: Safety

Activism, Firearms, Health, politics, Public health, Safety, Violence

One good thing Trump has done: Banning bump stocks

by Anne Landman • March 29, 2019 • 3 Comments

Trump banned bump stocks last December by executive action, and the new law is effective NOW.

Watch out, local gun nuts. President Donald Trump is coming for your guns.

Last December, President Trump issued an executive order banning bump stocks (pdf), devices that use the recoil energy generated from each shot of a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firearms’ rate of fire. The new rule amended the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks.

The ban went into effect three days ago, on March 26, 2019, exactly 90 days after it was published in the Federal Register.

On March 28, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court refused an effort by gun nuts to block the ban, so Trump’s new rule is currently in full force, making anyone who owns a bump stock a felon.

Sign the letter: Prioritize people’s health and safety above unfettered drilling by supporting SB 19-181.

by Anne Landman • March 8, 2019 • 2 Comments

Firestone, CO home explosion due to oil and gas lines, April, 2017 (Photo: CBS)

In a reaction to a letter the Mesa County Commissioners sent to the state legislature opposing SB19-181(pdf), Mesa County residents can now easily add their names to a letter that urges state legislators to PASS Senate Bill 19-181, a landmark bill to refocus the mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission away from fostering oil and gas development to instead protecting public health, safety and welfare and the environment when considering new applications for drilling.

The bill was crafted with input from Erin Martinez, who lost her husband and brother in the explosion of a hidden gas flowline under their house in Firestone, Colorado in April of 2017. The bill will require public disclosure of flowline information.

Grand Junction wants to increase its sales tax, but it should stop wasting existing funds and tap obvious sources of new revenue first

by Anne Landman • February 10, 2019 • 11 Comments

As a liberal progressive voter, I believe it is our patriotic duty to pay taxes for public amenities that make our quality of life great, like public safety.

This coming April, though, Grand Junction City Council will ask voters to increase the City’s combined sales tax rate from the current 8.02% to a whopping 9.16%, a rate even higher than the City of Boulder.

City Council has very good arguments for needing more money: we need more fire stations, emergency response times are too long, and we have roads and bridges in need maintenance and repair.

Of course City residents want the safety and security of these amenities, but the City hasn’t done anywhere near all it could to make the best use of revenues it already has, and to create new revenue streams to fund City necessities before it goes to City residents with a request that they pay such a big increase in city sales tax.

Grand Junction may soon lose its only secular hospital

by Anne Landman • January 30, 2019 • 9 Comments

A previous blog discussed why Mesa County residents should be glad to have an alternative to a Catholic hospital in the valley and why it is so important to people’s health to have a secular hospital option available for medical care. But our valley’s one non-religious hospital option may disappear, and soon.

In October 2018, Community Hospital and Centura Health Network signed a letter of intent to merge. It provided each party with a 120 day-long window to evaluate the deal and decide whether or not to go ahead and finalize it.

Those 120 days are almost up, and a final decision on the merger must be made by February 10th.

Do you recognize this guy? Your anonymous tip could be worth money.

by Anne Landman • January 25, 2019 • 2 Comments

Surveillance camera photo of suspect who placed harassing classified ad in the Nickel

Another view of the suspect wanted on charges of harassment for placing a bogus classified ad in The Nickel.

Reposting from Mesa County CrimeStoppers Crime of the Week, 1/24/19

The Grand Junction Police Department needs your help to identify a male suspect that is wanted for harassment.

On Wednesday, January 2nd , an unknown male placed a malicious classified ad in “The Nickel” stating the victim’s house was “For Sale by Owner.” Security cameras capture a white male in his 50’s with a gray beard and last seen wearing a dark colored coat, blue jeans and a baseball cap. The surveillance photo of the suspect can be viewed at http://www.241stop.com.

If you know the identity or location of the suspect involved in this crime, please contact Crime Stoppers at (970) 241-7867. Information reported to Crime Stoppers that leads to an arrest can earn you up to $1,000 cash reward and you will remain completely anonymous. For more information, see us at http://www.241stop.com.

Safety, Security, Violence

Leon’s Mexican restaurant robbed

by Anne Landman • December 22, 2018 • 3 Comments

Leon’s Mexican Restaurant at 507 30 Rd. at I-70 Business Loop was robbed and vandalized sometime between closing last Wednesday night, 12/19, and Thursday morning, 12/20. The criminals broke into the restaurant, took money from the cash register, drank some of the restaurant’s vodka and other hard liquor, stole beer and vandalized the restaurant by cutting hoses on their soft drink machine and cutting the wires to the video surveillance cameras and stealing the cameras. Leon’s employees discovered the damage and theft when they arrived at work Thursday morning.

Leon’s is an unpretentious, single-location Mexican restaurant owned and operated by a hard-working local family that has been serving the community consistently great food for years. They have been at their location for many years and are known for their signature dish, their famous Creamy Chicken Enchiladas. Leon’s started as a little seven-table restaurant almost eighteen years ago. Most of their staff has been with the restaurant for many years and the family considers many of their customers friends.

If you know anything about the vandalism and theft from Leon’s, please call the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department right away at 970-244-3500.

Crazy Republicans, Economics, Energy, Environment, Ethics, politics, Public health, Safety, Stupid Republicans, Worker advocacy

Senator Ray Scott’s absurd efforts to block progress in the energy industry

by Anne Landman • August 14, 2018 • 4 Comments

Colorado State Senator Ray Scott, die hard promoter of fossil fuels

State Senator Ray Scott (R-Mesa County) isn’t just your average fossil fuel cheerleader. He goes far beyond defending the oil and gas industry by working to hobble and block advancements in clean, renewable energy, including solar energy, electric cars and even by finding creative ways to attack bicycle transportation. Even worse, Scott ignores inevitable injuries and deaths caused in pursuit of fossil fuel development, like the deadly explosion of a home in Firestone, Colorado on May 4, 2017 that killed two people and the July 27, 2018 explosion at a gas collection facility just over the state line in Cisco, Utah that badly burned two workers.

It’s time to stop advertising guns.

by Anne Landman • May 21, 2018 • 52 Comments

In keeping with the culture of linking of firearms to masculinity, Daily Sentinel ran a Sportsman’s Warehouse’s ad promoting guns as gifts for Father’s Day, 2018

It’s time for our local paper, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and other publications to stop advertising guns. This is the rock-bottom minimum that can be done to end the glorification of guns and senseless proliferation of gun violence in society. It is the metaphorical lifting a pinky finger to take action against a problem, but it is necessary.

Given the rate at which gun massacres are happening in our country, as a matter of health and safety, it’s time to just stop promoting guns in any way, and nowhere is this more true than in Mesa County.

The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce takes off it’s fig leaf

by Anne Landman • May 7, 2018 • 9 Comments

Grand Valley Drainage District pipe choked with weeds. (Photo credit: GVDD)

If there is a shred of doubt left that the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce exists only to promote it’s own political ideology, it dispelled that notion today with an ad in the Daily Sentinel endorsing the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) Board candidate notable for being the remarkably far less qualified person for the seat.

The Chamber endorsed the less-qualified candidate for one reason only: she opposes the fee imposed by the GVDD in 2016 to raise funds for crucial improvements needed to the Grand Valley’s stormwater drainage system. Residents pay an extra $3/month. The fees assessed to businesses are higher because their larger “big box” buildings and paved parking lots create far more polluted stormwater runoff than homes, burdening the valley’s drainage system more than residences do. The drainage system, designed in 1915 primarily to collect agricultural seep from fields, is already in bad shape and needs improvement and expansion to cope with the valley’s change from primarily a rural/agricultural area into an urban area. If runoff exceeds the amount of drainage capacity we have, the result will be flooding, property damage and damage to other important infrastructure, like roads.

Flex your muscle by getting out and voting in the May 8 Drainage District election!

by Anne Landman • April 25, 2018 • 4 Comments

Why drainage matters: Sherwood Park flooding after a sudden heavy summer rainstorm

Mark your calendars: there’s a local election coming up that Grand Valley progressives and intelligent voters can actually win if they just get out to vote: It’s an election in which typically only about 200 people turn out vote, so one or two dozen extra voters coming out could really tip the entire election in a good way for our valley. It’s for the District 3 seat seat on the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) board, and it’s coming up May 8. (pdf)

The difference between the two candidates is stark. It should make for a very easy decision by voters.

Don’t be fooled. Gun massacres are about GUNS, not mental illness.

by Anne Landman • April 6, 2018 • 25 Comments

Yes, President Trump, it IS a ‘guns situation.’

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, Republicans are claiming that the easy availability of guns in the U.S. isn’t even a factor in our national epidemic of mass shootings. Instead they point to mental illness as the only factor that should be considered.

Hogwash.

Trump’s war on worker safety

by Anne Landman • March 29, 2018 • 1 Comment

Construction is one of the most dangerous occupations, but the Trump administration is not on the side of workers.

Falling from scaffolding, getting hurt by chemical hazards, getting cut by, caught in or crushed by equipment… many Mesa County workers face hazards like this every day on the job.

A significant number of people in Mesa County work in some the country’s most dangerous occupations. Nationwide 5,190 workers were killed on the job in 2016. On average, that’s more than 99 people a week, or over 14 worker deaths every day. The construction industry has by far the highest fatality rate of any industry in the U.S., accounting for fully 21% of workplace fatalities. 823 oil and gas industry workers were killed on the job in the U.S. from 2003 to 2010 — a fatality rate seven times greater than the rate for all U.S. industries. There were over a dozen fires and explosions at Colorado oil and gas facilities in the eight months following the fatal blast in Firestone, Colorado, in April, 2017 that killed two people in their home. In one 12 year span, one oil and gas worker was killed every three months in Colorado, all while workers face a system more focused on protecting drilling companies than the people who work for them.

The G.J. Sentinel hawks cheap handguns while wishing readers “a safe and happy holiday”

by Anne Landman • November 23, 2017 • 7 Comments

With ads like these in the local paper, no wonder Grand Junction has such a high suicide rate

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel ran a big ad in it’s Thanksgiving Day paper selling handguns for cheap while on it’s Facebook page it simultaneously wishes readers a “safe and happy holiday.”

Many area residents would consider the ad alone grossly inappropriate in a community that recently reached a record high suicide rate, and which has for years struggled with one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.

Republicans at every level of government have blood on their hands for U.S. gun massacres

by Anne Landman • November 7, 2017 • 19 Comments

CO Senator Cory Gardner has taken $3.8 million from the NRA and reliably votes against measures to reduce gun violence in the U.S.

Another day, another gun massacre.

Still Republican legislators don’t even lift a finger to address it. “Thoughts and prayers” is their only response, since it holds off action on the insane proliferation of guns in this country, and blocks discussion of what can be done about mass gun violence in the U.S.

There is only one reason why gun massacres are now a common occurrence: America is awash in guns. It’s way too easy to get guns, even extremely dangerous ones, and it has been for far too long. People can legally amass entire arsenals. The colossal number of guns washing around in the U.S. compared to other countries makes it extremely easy for anyone with even the most petty grievance to use a gun to settle a perceived score by killing people en masse.

And that’s exactly what is happening.

If you had your say, where would City of Grand Junction taxpayer dollars go?

by Anne Landman • November 3, 2017 • 3 Comments

[socialpoll id=”2470324″ path=”/polls/2470324″ width=”620″]

Activism, Consumer advocacy, Economics, Ethics, Human rights, politics, Safety, Weird Grand Junction Stuff

Businesses beg city to fix Horizon Drive Deathtrap; City claims “Sorry, no funds”

by Anne Landman • September 6, 2017 • 11 Comments

Matthew Bandelin, struck by a vehicle and killed at age 38 while trying to cross Horizon Drive in January, 2015

The headline article in today’s Daily Sentinel, “No quick fix on Horizon,” tells how for years businesses along Horizon Drive have been begging the City of Grand Junction to make the street safer for pedestrians.

Three pedestrians, all tourists, have been killed by vehicles on Horizon Drive in the last seven years trying to cross the street between the hotels and restaurant establishments. The three victims were all killed within 700 feet of each other. These people lost their lives merely because they visited our town. Many others have been very badly injured crossing Horizon Drive, but lived. The safety problem on Horizon has been well known to the City for a long time, but nothing has been done during all this time to make the street any safer for pedestrians.

Rep. Scott Tipton: A One-Man Wrecking Ball for Coloradans

by Anne Landman • July 24, 2017 • 4 Comments

House Rep. Scott Tipton votes against financial transparency in government, against protecting citizens’ health and against American workers

Think House Representative Scott Tipton is on your side? Think again.

In the last couple of weeks, Rep. Tipton has voted against cleaner air, against creating more American jobs, and in favor of keeping financial information secret that would allow Congress to tell if changes President Trump proposes in the U.S. tax code would benefit his family’s income.

Merely Carrying a Permitted Gun Can Get You Killed

by Anne Landman • June 21, 2017 • 4 Comments

Think carrying a legally permitted gun keeps you safe?

Not in the least. In fact, just having it can get you killed.

Philando Castile was an innocent man who was shot dead in his own car by a policeman after Castile was forthright during a traffic stop about having a permitted firearm with him.

Page 7 of 13

« 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 13 »