Lisa Rickerd Mills (Photo: Facebook)
Lisa Mills is a behavioral health strategies manager for Mesa County’s Department of Health and Human Services and by all indications seems to be a key figure in the County’s recent ongoing, unhinged efforts to take down Dr. Jeff Kuhr as longtime Director of the Mesa County Public Health Department (MCPHD).
Board of Mesa County Commissioners. (L-R: Bobbie Daniel, Cody Davis and Janet Rowland). Photo: Mesa County
District Attorney Dan Rubinstein announced he’s closed the investigation into the Mesa County Commissioners’ allegations of financial wrongdoing by Mesa County Public Health Director Dr. Jeff Kuhr, saying,
“We lack sufficient evidence of anything criminal…” and “…[We] lack sufficient evidence that Mr. Kuhr was personally involved in, or personally directed, any level of reporting that would make him criminally culpable for material misstatements.”
With Janet Rowland at the helm, so far the Commissioners have spent $49,000 in taxpayer funds on a financial audit of Kuhr in an attempt to try find some reason to fire him, in addition digging up and spreading around negative personnel comments about Kuhr from as far back as 2011. So far, everything they’ve found, including a $219 alcohol purchase that has since been reimbursed, have fallen flat. Even four members of the Mesa County Board of Health have said nothing they’ve seen about Kuhr so far rises to the level of a fireable offense. Then they all resigned in protest after learning the Commissioners were going to fire them if they didn’t agree to fire Kuhr.
Andrea Haitz, District 51 School Board President
Some people have asked where they can read the text of the petition to recall District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz.
You can read the entire petition here.
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.
The long-established Blue Pig Art Gallery in Palisade features quality art by local artists
Something’s going on at The Blue Pig Art Gallery at 101 W. Third Street in Palisade.
In January of this year, Darin Carei sold the building and the gallery to Charles and Heather Nowak for $1,135,000.
Things seemed pretty normal for awhile after the sale, with great local art continuing to be on display and art classes being offered in the building.
But things took a grim turn last Friday, when the new owners suddenly fired longtime Gallery director Kay Anglim Crane and the Gallery’s longtime bookkeeper, Sue Keddy.
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.
Janet Rowland probably did the most damage to current vaccination efforts through her campaign last year where she denigrated masking and embraced Q-Anon conspiracy theories about Covid-19.
Updated 5/6/23 to reflect support for the REOPEN movement by the violent, seditious hate group The Proud Boys, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, and the homophobic comments Rowland made on a statewide political TV show in 2006.
In a move akin to appointing an arsonist as fire chief, Mesa County Commissioners Cody Davis and Bobbie Daniel appointed Commissioner Janet Rowland to the Mesa County Board of Public Health yesterday, Tuesday, April 25.
Rowland has been an outspoken enemy of public health for years.
She fought Covid-19 precautions before vaccines were available and disseminated disinformation about the virus that was linked to QAnon. Her social media posts promoted the notion that Covid-19 was no more deadly than the flu. She said things on social media about the virus that contradicted public health messages instructing people in how to stay safe and reduce spread of what was then a largely deadly virus.
Lauren Boebert grinning in her vile T-shirt making fun of an accidental shooting death on a movie set
In the days after the tragic October, 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin while he was rehearsing a scene with a prop gun on the set of his movie, Rust, Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert relentlessly spewed vile, unconscionable jokes about the incident at Baldwin’s expense.
Boebert grinned as she wore a creepy T-shirt joking about the tragedy while out shopping.
Red Rock got this free media from the Daily Sentinel on January 19, 2023, with this photo of their donation to Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). Red Rock also got Joy Thompson of CASA to say “We love Red Rock” on a January 19, 2023 local KREX-TV news segment about the donation.
After a company has been outed as over-the-top greedy, there’s nothing left for it to do but make conspicuous donations to local charities to score public relations points and blow smoke to make people forget about how their business has harmed the community in the long term.
That’s likely why, near the end of 2022, after all the unseemly tactics Red Rock Auto dealerships had been using on customers to fleece them out of thousands of dollars over the last 7 years were exposed, Red Rock suddenly started ramping up its donations to local charities and promoting their donations in ads on TV and through free media given to them by local TV stations and newspapers.
A company that ingratiates itself to reputable charitable causes as a way to distract from its immoral acts is engaging in a form of “greedwashing,” a term developed during the taxpayer-funded federal bailouts of the big banks during the economic crash of 2008-2009:
Rep. Lauren Boebert’s eldest son, Tyler, who impregnated his girlfriend at age 17. His mother praised the situation. The baby is due this month. Tyler caused a rollover car crash in his father’s 2021 Ford Expedition on 9/17/22 that left his passenger with serious injuries. (Photo: Instagram)
Westword, Newsweek, the U.K. Independent, Daily Mail and other news outlets are reporting that Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s eldest son, Tyler, caused a serious car crash on September 17, 2022 that gave his passenger life-changing injuries, and the injured passenger is saying since then Rep. Boebert has been covering up the incident and minimizing the severity of his injuries.
Tyler Boebert, 18, was driving his father’s black Ford Expedition SUV at 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night on Garfield County Road 100, going to a party with a friend, Noble D’Amato, 19, when he failed to negotiate a curve and flipped the vehicle 180 degrees. It landed on its roof in Cattle Creek, leaving the driver and passenger upside down. D’Amato was taken to the hospital with concussions and a severely lacerated hand, an injury D’Amato says has kept him from being able to hold a torch for welding, and forced him to change vocations. He is now a personal caregiver. D’Amato says the injury will probably affect him for the rest of his life.
An open records request to the Colorado Department of Revenue Auto Industry Division (AID) seeking all complaints submitted about the major Grand Junction auto dealerships over the last two years showed no complaints were submitted against Western Slope Auto, which sells Ford, Lincoln & Toyota, no complaints were submitted against Ed Bozarth Chevrolet & Buick, no complaints were submitted against Grand Junction Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram, and no complaints were submitted against Jim Fuoco Motors or Fuoco Honda in 2021, before it was sold to Red Rock Auto Group in April of 2022, but within the last two years at least 15 complaints were submitted about Red Rock Auto Group’s stores. There were at least two more complaints beyond the 15 documented ones the Auto Industry Division sent that were submitted against Red Rock, but one of them was still undergoing investigation and they could not release information on it, and the other was dismissed after the complainant chose not to pursue it further. This makes a total of 17 known complaints lodged against Red Rock Auto Group stores in Grand Junction in the last 2 years.
Tina Peters’ trial on felony charges for election tampering has been delayed again, this time until October 17, according to the Daily Sentinel.
The reason given was that the federal government still hasn’t turned over the electronics they seized in the case.
Kyle Clark of 9News in Denver interviewed Tina on March 30, and at the 1:15 mark into an 11 minute interview, Tina said,
“Today they just moved my trial out again, until October 17, so this could be moved out for decades…
Clark asked Tina about her take on Donald Trump’s indictment. Towards the end of the interview he asks Tina if a year and a half from now, she and Trump might both be in prison.
She answered,
“Just like Donald Trump’s indictment, my indictment has nothing to do with the facts.”
Tina now has her own show on Rumble.com once a week in which she hawks deeply discounted “My Pillow” merchandise:
There is also now a page about her on Wikipedia.
Chart provided by ChalkBeat.
On November 8, 2022, Colorado passed Proposition FF, a ballot measure to provide free meals to all public school students. The measure, called the Healthy School Meals for All Program, was referred to the ballot by the state Legislature and passed by a healthy margin of 57-43%. The measure generates funds by limiting state tax deductions for people earning over $300,000/year, and is set to raise more than $100 million/year. The program will reimburse participating school districts to provide free meals to all students and will provide grants for Districts to purchase local food. According to the Healthy School Meals for All FAQ guide, there is also an option for participating districts to provide wage increases or stipends to front-line staff who assist with the program.
The above mailer was recently sent to homes of prospective Grand Junction voters by the Best Slope Leadership Project, a 501 (c) (4) social welfare group based in Grand Junction.
Andrea Haitz and Greg Haitz are a married couple who over the last few years have been seeking more power in Grand Junction. Andrea is currently District 51 School Board President and Greg is trying to get onto Grand Junction City Council in the upcoming election.
Andrea Haitz’s Feb. 15 mass email violates an ethics rule that says school board members must refrain from using their board positions for partisan gain
District 51 School Board President Andrea Haitz violated the School Board’s ethics rules by sending out an overtly partisan, political mass email February 15, 2023 using her position as School Board President to promote her husband Greg’s bid to get a seat on Grand Junction City Council this April.
Andrea Haitz
Haitz wrote,
I am writing to you today because, despite our victory, the LEFT is still here seeking majorities in local government to make Grand Junction the Denver of the Western Slope.
We can put a stop to this by voting for conservatives in the April 4th Grand Junction City Council Election like my husband, Greg Haitz, who is running for District B. [Underlining emphasis in original.]
Haitz’s email violated Mesa County Valley School District 51’s Code of Ethics for School Board Members (pdf), Policy BCB-E, which says school board members will
Avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using my board position for personal or partisan gain.
Greg Haitz
Greg Haitz’s campaign sent out a mass email today, March 20, that appears to be from Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel, saying Daniel endorses him for a seat on Grand Junction City Council and asking people to send a minimum donation of $50 to his campaign.
If Commissioner Daniel actually endorses Haitz for Council, then she is endorsing someone who is openly perpetrating a fraud on Grand Junction citizens by selling a “dangerous” and “reckless” weight-loss program on his business website, RimRockWellness.com.
Bobbie Daniel (R), shown here with indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters
“Dangerous” and “reckless” are the words the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses to warn people about the type of weight loss program Haitz is currently promoting for $199 — a discount from his usual much higher price of $399, according to his website.
Screen shot from Ranger Mitchell’s body camera showing the moment he shot Gage Lorentz point-blank in the chest after pulling him over for speeding on a dirt road in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Lorentz was unarmed, unintoxicated and alone at the time.
Gage Lorentz, a graduate of Fruita Monument High School, was murdered on March 21, 2020, by a law enforcement officer while heading home to Montrose. He was driving home alone on an isolated back road in Carlsbad Caverns National Park to see his family after working for weeks on a drilling rig in the outskirts of Pecos, Texas.
National Park Ranger Robert Mitchell pulled Gage over for speeding on a dirt road inside the Park. Gage was alone, unarmed, unintoxicated and followed all of Mitchell’s orders until he ordered Gage to turn around and put his back to him. At that point, Gage refused to comply. The officer’s body camera video shows that seconds later, Mitchell had pinned Gage to the ground, was on top of him and shot him, point-blank, in the chest, killing him.
