Category: Worker advocacy

Consumer advocacy, Economics, Health, Local concerns, Worker advocacy

SNAP participants: New program adds $60/month to SNAP benefits for fresh fruits and vegetables

by Anne Landman • August 26, 2024 • 5 Comments

Updated with additional information on 9/2/24 @ 9:57 a.m.-

Thanks to a grant from the Biden administration’s U.S. Department of Agriculture, Colorado’s Department of Human Services started a new program August 1, 2024 to boost healthy eating called the Colorado SNAP Produce Bonus. The program gives SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) participants a 100% reimbursement for any qualifying purchase of fruits and vegetables credited directly back to their EBT card at the time of purchase. The bonus provides for up to $20 per transaction and a maximum of $60 per month. Notice that only fruits and vegetables qualify for the SNAP Produce Bonus reimbursement, but the reimbursed funds that get credited back to your EBT account can be used to buy any SNAP eligible items.

Former CMU Professor Tom Acker to run against Cody Davis for County Commissioner

by Anne Landman • March 26, 2024 • 6 Comments

Retired CMU Spanish Professor Tom Acker

A Democrat has joined the race against Cody Davis for Mesa County Commissioner. Tom Acker is currently the only Democrat running for local office in Mesa County.

Acker was a professor of Spanish language at CMU for two decades. He is now a retired professor emeritus, an honorary title conferred upon him for his distinguished service to the academic community. He is a founding member of the award-winning Hispanic Affairs Project.

Originally from the east coast, in the 1980s Acker worked with refugees from the Mariel Boatlift, after over 125,000 Cubans piled into boats and headed for Florida after the Cuban government announced that anyone who wanted to leave the country was free to do so.

While he lived in Pennsylvania, Acker worked with a federally-funded agency to help farmers interact with agriculture workers.

Local Postal workers warn of changes coming that will further slow mail delivery

by Anne Landman • January 11, 2024 • 20 Comments

A brand new sorting machine lies in a dumpster at the Postal Sorting Annex on Patterson Rd. and Burkey St. on August 24, 2020. Employees said it was ordered dismantled and disposed of by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who has been carrying out changes that are leaving the U.S. Postal Service in disarray

Local Postal Service workers shared a memo distributed to employees at the Burkey Street Sorting Facility on January 10 that warns changes are likely coming to the Burkey Street facility that will threaten jobs and further slow mail delivery by moving mail processing and distributing (PD&C) out of these facilities to Denver.

The 6 page memo, called a “Stand Up Talk” (pdf), warns of an impending facility review that will likely lead to consolidation of plant operations here in Grand Junction and the relocation of parcel operations from here to Denver. It indicates Trump-appointed Postmaster Louis DeJoy will likely take steps that will further erode mail service in Grand Junction and mountain towns. A veteran postal worker said the plan “will definitely slow down mail processing and probably cost some jobs in our areas,” adding that “They seem to cut service then lower their standards so it looks like they are ‘fixing things’.”

Why are the Mesa County Commissioners sending taxpayer money out of town?

by Anne Landman • November 19, 2023 • 7 Comments

The Commissioners used a roofing company in Keenesburg, Colorado to replace the roof on the Old County Courthouse on Rood Ave., instead of a company located in Mesa County

The Mesa County Commissioners recently had the roof replaced on the Old Courthouse at 544 Rood Ave.

They gave the job to Better Line Roofing, LLC in Keenesburg, Colorado, 279 miles from here, instead of a local roofing company.

Instructor salaries at CMU remarkably low compared to state and nation

by Anne Landman • November 13, 2023 • 6 Comments

Classified ad placed by Colorado Mesa University in the 11/12/23 issue of the Daily Sentinel for a tenure-track assistant professor of nursing

Colorado Mesa University (CMU) has been advertising for a tenure-track assistant nursing professor for its Montrose campus.

The position requires teaching 12 course credit hours each semester, or 24 credits over an academic year, which is considered a standard, full-time teaching load. Applicants must also have a current RN license, plus a minimum of two years of full time professional clinical experience and a graduate degree in nursing from a nationally accredited school of nursing, with a Ph.D. preferred, as well as other requirements.

But the pay is only $55,000 – 60,000 a year.

It’s a bad time to go to the Main Post Office

by Anne Landman • June 23, 2023 • 7 Comments

Note taped in the window of the downtown Post Office on Friday, June 23, telling people about technical difficulties and delays.

If you’re thinking about heading to the downtown Grand Junction Post Office, you might want to think again.

If you do decide to go, bring cash or checks for your transaction.

About six weeks ago the Post Office changed their internet provider to Verizon, and now their internet is frequently down. When it does work, it is extremely slow, according to postal workers. Lines are long and the bogged-down computer systems are causing lost revenue and angry customers.

Basalt Post Office employee attacked by co-worker

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2023 • 4 Comments

A frightened employee in the Basalt, Colorado Post Office managed to video the last minute of a vicious assault she endured by a co-worker while at work early in the morning on January 26, 2023.

7th Street Deli saved by Tim Foster

by Anne Landman • February 2, 2022 • 6 Comments

The 7th Street Deli has been at the same location on 7th Street and Bookcliff for 15 years

The 7th-Street Deli has been saved!

The deli was threatened with eviction in mid-January for non-payment of back rent. The owner had suffered a prolonged 50% loss of business due to back-to-back renovation projects that took place on 7th Street in 2019 and 2020, and then got hit with the no-indoor dining order in 2020 from Covid. Deli owner Debbie Allen had made it through all those obstacles and was finally getting out of her debt when the property owner slapped her with an eviction notice and a lawsuit for tens of thousands in back rent. The deli started a GoFundMe account and donations poured in. By the end of January they had raised about $8,000, but it wasn’t enough to pay off all the back rent.

How Trump’s sabotage of the Post Office is playing out locally

by Anne Landman • August 18, 2020 • 1 Comment

Trump mega-donor and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

In May of 2020, President Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, a Trump mega-donor with no postal experience as Postmaster General of the United States.

After taking office in June, Mr. DeJoy immediately started making changes to the Postal Service that resulted in delayed delivery of mail across the country. His actions included removal of 23 top postal executives, removing high-speed mail sorting machines from post offices around the country and prohibiting employees from logging overtime to deliver mail.

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters using taxpayer funds to burnish her tarnished image with professional PR project

by Anne Landman • June 18, 2020 • 5 Comments

Internal county email about Tina Peters’ public relations project, paid for with taxpayer funds

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters used taxpayer funds to pay for a professional PR campaign promoting herself and her running of the Clerk’s office to counter the recall effort ongoing against her. The PR project comes during a time when the county is financially strapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and at a time when local governments are talking about layoffs. And she’s doing it during regular work hours and on taxpayer time, too.

Sen. Ray Scott’s tweet opposes progress and planning for future

by Anne Landman • September 14, 2019 • 1 Comment

Ray Scott’s tweet lamenting planning for the future, and indicating he can’t wait for such folly to end

Is Republican State Senator Ray Scott concerned about Colorado’s economy and workforce?

It sure doesn’t look like it, judging from his twitter feed.

On September 4, Scott posted a tweet that said “2022 an’t come fast enough.” It was his response to an announcement that Governor Polis had just created a new government office to deal with pressing new problems facing Colorado’s workforce. Scott’s tweet referred to the year when Governor Polis’s first term in office will be over.

Sen. Scott tweeted his disdain Governor Polis’ newly-created “Office for the Future of Work,” announced September 4.

Sen. Scott either 1) failed to investigate the need for this office, or he 2) doesn’t care what’s going to happen to Colorado workers in the near future if we fail to plan for coming trends.

BLM to G.J.? Moving federal offices out of D.C. is a way to dismantle them, Mulvaney tells Republicans

by Anne Landman • September 6, 2019 • 0 Comments

Don’t cheer the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) out of Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction until you understand the Trump administration’s real motive behind moving federal agencies out of Washington. Hint: It’s not to help them, and it’s not to help us.

The real motive for moving agencies out of Washington is to hobble and destroy them.

Uprooting federal agencies and moving them out of D.C. into “red” areas is a method the Trump administration is using to pressure skilled federal workers to leave by attrition and destroy federal oversight agencies. Republican Senator Cory Gardner, all three of our Republican Mesa County Commissioners (John Justman, Rose Pugliese and Scott McInnis) and Trump administration employees have all been telling the public that moving the agencies out of Washington is a way to streamline them, and make them more efficient and responsive to the people and industries they oversee.

Hogwash.

Job openings with the county pay $87,500/year plus benefits and require no experience

by Anne Landman • August 14, 2019 • 3 Comments

Salaries for each of the three Mesa County Commissioners for the month of June, 2019

Mesa County has two job openings right now that pay $87,300/year gross salary with additional generous perks and benefits, and that require absolutely no experience and no required level of educational attainment. That’s a pretty good wage in Mesa County for someone with no experience and no particular educational attainment, since the wages here are so low compared to the rest of the state. (The average weekly wage in Denver in the last quarter of 2018 was $1,414. In Mesa County it was $895). The opening is for two new county commissioners. The only requirements to be county commissioner — literally — are that you have to be a minimum of 18 years old and have lived in either County Commissioner District 1 or District 3 for at least one year. That’s it. In case you don’t believe me, the photo above gives the salaries for each of our three county commissioners for just one month — the month of June, 2019. The information was printed in the legal notices in the Sunday, August 11, 2019 issue of the Daily Sentinel. You can see the minimal requirements for the job yourself posted on Mesa County’s website. Multiply the above salary by 12 to get your new annual gross salary if you land this job ($87,500/year). Oh, and did I mention it’s also free to apply? You can even have a criminal record and it’s okay. This position can be held for up to 8 years.

Lessons from past G.J. City Council elections

by Anne Landman • March 16, 2019 • 1 Comment

Rick Brainard, one of the best-funded candidates who ever ran for Grand Junction City Council, was backed to the bitter end by the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and the Old Guard Republican Establishment

Were you around for the 2013 City of Grand Junction election?

If not, then you really missed a doozy.

That was a year in which Grand Junction residents learned some big, important lessons about city council elections.

Here is one of them:

The best-funded candidates for city council are often the WORST people to sit on city council.

Sen. Ray Scott defends taking corporate PAC money

by Anne Landman • October 12, 2018 • 2 Comments

Colorado state Senator Ray Scott came out swinging in a blog posted four days ago defending himself against the hard-hitting new “Pay Scott” video posted online by his challenger, Chris Kennedy, that lists all the Corporate PAC money Scott takes.

Kennedy says he will not take any corporate PAC funds, “period.”

Scott justified his taking corporate PAC money by claiming that the PACs that fund him represent the “hard-working families of Mesa County.”

Ha!

Liberals, be very proud of who you are

by Anne Landman • September 2, 2018 • 8 Comments

Mesa County vehicle that displays enmity towards liberal and progressive residents

Right wingers often disparage political liberals in western Colorado with nasty names like “libtard” and “snowflake.” Some even claim without foundation that liberalism is a “mental disorder.”

But being politically liberal is a profoundly positive thing.

Why?

Because liberals have made most of the progress in American society.

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.

Club 20 screams like a spoiled toddler and charges $25 to attend it’s debate while Polis attends events that are free and open to everyone

by Anne Landman • August 9, 2018 • 11 Comments

Rep. Jared Polis

At the end of July, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis announced he was going to have to miss Club 20’s September 8 candidate debate. In response Club 20 took on the persona of a spoiled, whiny toddler, quickly issuing a nasty press release (pdf) that screamed Polis had — *gasp!* — snubbed it and was slapping the collective face of the entire western slope because he wouldn’t attend it’s exclusive, must-do event.

Come on, Club 20. Grow up. Polis has something else to do. Check it out:

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