Tag: Politics

Crazy Republicans, Cronyism, Deplorables, Elections, Embarrassing Republicans, Environment, Extremism, politics, Worker advocacy

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.

It’s time to admit Republican firearm policies have completely failed America

by Anne Landman • August 13, 2019 • 1 Comment

Americans young and old are getting slaughtered every day just going about their daily lives shopping in supermarkets, attending concerts and movies, going to services at churches, mosques and synagogues, going to school, going to work…

How did America get here?

Decades of Republican-backed liberal firearm policies have gotten us here. Republicans say they value freedom, but the people of this country no longer feel free. We live in fear of getting gunned down just living our lives every day because of the cumulative effects of liberal Republican gun policies.

Tim Foster’s political stumping as CMU president may violate laws

by Anne Landman • August 13, 2019 • 7 Comments

Ad posted by Janet Rowland may violate the Hatch Act and the Fair Campaign Practices Act

[Update 8/14/19: Mesa County Commissioner candidate Janet Rowland pulled this ad from her Facebook page after this article was published].

People are questioning whether an ad that Mesa County Commissioner candidate Janet Rowland recently posted on her campaign Facebook page violates the law.

In the ad, Colorado Mesa University President Tim Foster endorses Rowland for commissioner in his capacity as president of CMU, not as a private individual as the law requires. The law says Foster is permitted to make such an endorsement, but ONLY in his capacity as a private individual; he is specifically prohibited from using his position as a state employee for politicking or attempting to influence an election.

The ad appears to violate two separate federal laws: the Hatch Act and the Fair Campaign Practices Act.

Technical guidance issued for state employees by the Colorado’s Division of Human Resources (pdf) on the implementation of these laws states,

“The Hatch Act limits the political activities of individuals employed in state departments and higher education institutions (departments) that have programs financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants.”

CMU accepts federal funding, thus Foster is subject to both laws.

Wife of CMU Vice President given vacant seat on G.J. Regional Airport Board

by Anne Landman • July 22, 2019 • 3 Comments

John and Linde Marshall (Photo: Facebook)

Eight people applied for the open at-large seat on the Grand Junction Regional Airport Board, and it was awarded to just one, Linde Marshall, who happens to be married to Colorado Mesa University Vice President of Student Affairs, John Marshall. According to CMU’s website, Linde Marshall also works for CMU, in the office of University President Tim Foster.

The Daily Sentinel for some reason failed to mention either of Linde Marshall’s important connections to CMU and it’s powerful president and rainmaker, Tim Foster when providing descriptions of the candidates for the seat. The Sentinel only said Ms. Marshall is “a small business owner with a background in public relations.” Seems like important info to omit.

“Incredibly political”: Grand Junction’s newest City Councilman selected after heavy pressure on mayor

by Anne Landman • July 18, 2019 • 17 Comments

Grand Junction’s newest City Council member, Kraig Andrews (right), pictured here with Donald Trump Jr. Councilman Duke Wortman lamented that City Council has gotten “incredibly political,” but then made it political by pushing to select a candidate with low initial support, but a solid Republican background. [Photo: Facebook]

The Grand Junction City Council voted last night to fill the vacant District E seat, but only after a tense session in which one council member publicly pressured another to change his vote after the six council members deadlocked four times in trying to choose a candidate.

The meeting started congenially enough as each council member was allowed to name up to three of their favorite candidates from among the pool of people who applied for the vacant seat. The top three vote-getters in the first round continued on to the next round of voting, and that’s where the trouble started.

The 5 Minute Mueller Report

by Anne Landman • June 2, 2019 • 18 Comments

Special Counsel Robert Mueller stated that after two years of investigation, his team was unable to exonerate President Donald J. Trump of committing crimes.

Don’t have time to read the whole 420-page Mueller Report (pdf)? That’s understandable.

You can download an audio recording of it for FREE and listen to the whole thing while you’re driving, doing housework or exercising. A free recording of it available here, on Audible.

If you don’t have time to read or listen to the whole thing, but still want to know why it’s such a big deal and why everyone is talking about it, here’s a quick summary:

There’s a seat on Grand Junction Regional Airport Board up for grabs

by Anne Landman • May 27, 2019 • 1 Comment

Want to gain some influence in town, and have a voice without having to get elected? Here’s another chance to do just that.

With self-declared “deplorable” Grand Junction City Councilman Duncan McArthur leaving his his seat on Council, yet another position besides his Council seat has opened up: a seat on the Grand Junction Regional Airport Authority.

The seat is currently being offered to the public, albeit quietly. You have to dig a little to find information about the vacancy and how to apply, but the page with what little information there is about the airport board is here.

Now’s your chance! City seeks to fill open City Council District E seat

by Anne Landman • May 21, 2019 • 3 Comments

The $64,000 plaza in front of Grand Junction City Hall, installed for the purposes of circumventing laws regarding separation of church and state and keeping the Ten Commandments tablet on public land.

If you’ve ever wanted to serve on Grand Junction City Council but didn’t want to have to endure a campaign and election to do it, now is your chance.

City Councilor Duncan McArthur is stepping down from his seat on Council because of health problems, and City Council will be choosing his replacement.

Mr. McArthur represents District E (map). To be eligible to fill this vacant seat and if you want to obey the law, you must have lived within the boundaries of District E for a minimum of 12 months. The boundaries include all of the green area represented on this map, and comprise a strip of land between 7th and 12th Streets running south from Orchard Ave., all City land south of D Road/Riverside Parkway, and all City land on Orchard Mesa. The eastern boundary extends to 32 Road, but the City is a hopscotch of parcels to the east, so if you’re interested in the seat, consult the map to see if your residence is within City boundaries or not.

Sen. Ray Scott sponsors bill to eliminate price break for low-income energy consumers

by Anne Landman • April 21, 2019 • 1 Comment

Colorado State Senator Ray Scott

Last week State Senator Ray Scott embarrassed Mesa County residents and made a fool of himself by actually saying out loud on the Senate floor that climate change has led to “massive improvements” in our climate.

Now Scott is co-sponsoring a bill, SB 19-250 (pdf), that will deal a blow to low income people served by Black Hills Energy, the gas and electricity provider for residents of Pueblo, Canyon City, Ordway and Westcliffe. Scott’s bill would do away with a two-tiered rate structure Black Hills Energy put in place in 2017 to help low income energy consumers by giving them more protection from a state-approved rate increase that happened that same year.

Colorado bill would prohibit teaching religious doctrine in public school sex ed curriculum

by Anne Landman • April 2, 2019 • 4 Comments

Colorado State Senator Don Coram

Delta County School District, are you listening?

Colorado State Senator Don Coram, a Republican who represents Montrose and Ouray counties, is a sponsor of HB19-1032, “Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education,” a bill to prohibit sex ed instruction in K-12 public schools from “explicitly or implicitly teaching or endorsing religious ideology or sectarian tenets or doctrines, using shame-based or stigmatizing language or instructional tools, employing gender norms or gender stereotypes, or excluding the relational or sexual experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals.”

The bill would appropriate least $1 million annually for a grant program to carry out the new law, and it would give highest priority for the grant funds to rural public schools.

Why is this bill needed? Because of the Delta County School District.

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.

AnneLandmanBlog Voter Guide: Grand Junction City Election 2019

by Anne Landman • March 27, 2019 • 4 Comments

Wondering how to vote in the City of Grand Junction 2019 election?

Following are AnneLandmanBlog’s recommendations for how to vote in the 2019 City of Grand Junction April 2, 2019 Regular Municipal Election.

I reached my conclusions about which city council candidates to vote for by listening to interviews, knowing the candidates personally or knowing something about them and their history in town, and considering factors like how well-funded their campaigns are. Decades of living in Grand Junction helps put this in context.

Gun laws WORK

by Anne Landman • March 26, 2019 • 6 Comments

Australia’s mandatory gun buyback

On April 28, 1996, a crazed gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people and injured 18 more when he went on a shooting spree at a historic and tourist site in Port Arthur, Tasmania in Australia’s worst gun massacre.

Within four months, the Australian government tightened the country’s gun laws, making the country’s gun restrictions among the strictest in the world.

The new laws banned all fully automatic, semi-automatic, pump-action and self-loading firearms, prohibited private sales, thus limiting who could legally sell or supply weapons, enacted minimum requirements for licensing of firearms and put in place more secure storage rules for firearms. The new laws also created a mandatory ‘cooling-off’ period of 28 days before a person could granted a gun license, introduced compulsory safety courses and required people applying to purchase firearms to supply a “genuine reason” that they needed to own a firearm, and that reason could not include self-defense.

Predictably, conservatives and gun owners strongly fought the new laws, but the government enacted them anyway. And lest anyone think the gun laws were the work of liberals, Australia’s laws were enacted under then-Prime Minister John Howard, well known as a conservative political figure.

Come on, G.J.: It’s time to charge a fee on single-use plastic grocery bags

by Anne Landman • March 19, 2019 • 5 Comments

Darrell Blatchley of the museum shows the plastic found in the young whale that beached itself near Davao, Philippines, last Friday

A necropsy done on a beached juvenile whale last Friday in the Philippines revealed it had nothing but 88 pounds of plastic in its digestive tract and likely suffered for up to a year with pain from bowel obstruction before dying. D’Bone Collector Museum, whose mission is retrieving dead animals rarely seen by the public and preserving them, collected the whale off the beach and performed the necropsy. They said it was the most plastic they had ever seen in a whale.

National Geographic reports that nearly every seabird on Earth now has plastic in its system. A 2016 study by the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. on the effect of plastics in the environment concluded that threat is “geographically widespread, pervasive, and rapidly increasing.”

Americans use about 100 billion single-use plastic grocery bags every year, which requires 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture. Every plastic bag is used for an average of 12 minutes, and can take up to 500 years to degrade in the environment.

All this has some big implications for Grand Junction and Mesa County residents.

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.

Burkey family doesn’t want Burkey Park sold off or turned commercial

by Anne Landman • March 15, 2019 • 7 Comments

“Burkey Park North” is a dry vacant lot with a trash can and split rail fence

Our Family has had many long conversations with Aunt Mildred and Uncle Lew Burkey about the Land that was donated for a park! They donated that land in good faith that it would be used as a park and in no way would ever agree to the City Selling that property to developers! i have never understood the City’s reluctance to plan and build a nice park out of that property! I guess it doesn’t line anybody’s pockets!

— Reader comment on this article

Sen. Ray Scott absent for full Senate vote on oil and gas bill, SB 19-181

by Anne Landman • March 14, 2019 • 4 Comments

Ray Scott’s tweeted this photo of his front door in Denver at 8:34 a.m.today, instead of making sure he was at the Capitol to vote with the full Senate on SB19-181, a bill he’s been telling everyone will kill oil and gas development in the state.

Mesa County’s State Senator Ray Scott didn’t even bother to show up for the full Senate vote today on SB19-181, the oil and gas overhaul bill that will change the mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission from fostering oil and gas development to instead making public health, safety and the environment top priority in consideration of oil and gas drilling permits.

The bill passed on a party line vote of 19-15, and now heads to the full House for a vote.

But instead of heading to the Capitol for the vote as taxpayers pay him to do, Scott stayed home and tweeted a picture of all the snow by his front door in Denver.

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.

Page 12 of 30

« 1 … 10 11 12 13 14 … 30 »