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).
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:
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.
This is always an interesting charge to find on a Red Rock dealership contract: “Worry-Free Gas.”
No one who has discovered this charge on their contract knows what it is.
None of them ever got any gas from Red Rock. They didn’t even get a full tank of gas with their purchase.
These days, if you visit the Better Business Bureau web pages for Red Rock Hyundai, Nissan and Kia, you’ll see a red warning at the top of the page like this:
BBB has “conducted a file review and found that this company has a pattern of complaints alleging contract issues and customer service issues. Specifically, consumers have alleged contract issues with requests to remove items from their contract. Issues with receiving inconsistent information for vehicle repairs. And receiving delayed responses for assistance and complaints.”
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.
A copy of a letter sent to Red Rock Nissan by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division. This copy of the letter came to Michelle Mondragon, whom Red Rock Nissan initially charged over $15k above the price they advertised for her truck. The Mondragons filed a complaint with the Auto Industry Division against Red Rock last October. The letter warns Red Rock that their dealer’s license could be in jeopardy.
Michelle Mondragon, whose hair-raising story about buying a vehicle from Red Rock Nissan last year was featured in this blog November 1, 2022, received the above letter from the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division last week indicating they have finally taken some action against the dealership, albeit a very weak action.
The letter warns Red Rock they “may have” violated several laws and regulations in the Mondragons’ case regarding deceptive advertising and sales of vehicles, and says “No action will be taken against your dealer’s license at this time. However, any further violations may be referred to the Motor Vehicle Dealer board,” and “your dealer’s license may be subject to disciplinary action that could include fines, suspension or revocation of your license. It is imperative that you take measures to correct the matters within your organization.”
The Mondragons submitted their complaint against Red Rock last October. Since then, many more Red Rock customers have submitted complaints about how Red Rock defrauded them.
If you review paperwork from your deal at Red Rock and find irregularities like forged signatures, charges for items you never agreed to like extended warranties, special coatings or detail packages, or if you check with your lender and find Red Rock lied to them about your gross income, monthly rent or mortgage payment or the features of the vehicle you were buying, file a complaint with the Auto Industry Division at this link. Be prepared to upload images of your paperwork to substantiate what you found that was fraudulent.
For this article, I drew from publicly available sources, including the candidates’ own websites and social media accounts, newspaper articles, the candidates’ financial disclosure statements filed with the City of Grand Junction, background-checks done on TruthFinder.com, and public records requests to the Grand Junction Police Department (GJPD) for records of any contact the candidates had with local law enforcement agencies. I felt the law enforcement piece was necessary after seeing Mesa County voters elect people to public office who were later involved in theft, falsifying time cards, embezzlement, assault, plagiarism, DUI, double-dipping, election tampering and other offenses.
These City Council candidates are asking voters to hire them for a job. City taxpayers pay their salaries. The candidates should be background-checked.
Mesa County’s many, many supporters of Donald Trump (pdf) must be super-bummed this week to find out Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has acknowledged that Fox News anchors Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and others knowingly lied to them by repeating Donald Trump’s fraudulent statements that the 2020 general election was “rigged” and he actually won.
Murdoch acknowledged under oath in a deposition in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Network, that Fox News hosts knowingly lied to viewers by endorsing false election fraud claims while at the same time they were privately ridiculing such claims. Murdoch further admitted he should have ordered Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who were lying to the public about the election, off the air, but didn’t.
Dale Sundeen (Photo: Auto News)
Dale Sundeen, the Colorado Department of Revenue Auto Industry Division’s criminal investigator who was investigating Grand Junction’s Red Rock dealerships, quit his job with the state and went to work for Red Rock as their “Corporate Director of Compliance.”
AID Investigator John Bulman (Photo: Golden Police Dept)
The Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry Division (AID) has assigned a second criminal investigator to help the with the Red Rock dealership cases.
The first investigator looking into Red Rock is Dale Sundeen, who’s been with the Colorado Department of Revenue since 2008 and has been the agency’s western slope investigator for over ten years.
The additional investigator is John Bulman, who joined the Auto Industry Division in 2022 (pdf) after working for the Golden Police Department, where he was awarded Golden Police Officer of the Year in 2020.
Tina’s new crowdfunding campaign on GiveSendGo, which has become a favorite fundraising site for far-right extremist groups like QAnon, the Proud Boys and anti-vaccine groups, which have been banned from GoFund Me.
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters is at it again, begging people to send her money while she awaits trials in March on obstruction charges (for recording in a courtroom and kicking a cop) and on multiple felony charges related to her election tampering.
Now Tina is using a free Christian crowdfunding website called GiveSendGo.com, that was originally created with the idea of helping religious people raise money for missions. GiveSendGo’s website says the “reason we started GiveSendGo” was “to share the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding with everyone who comes to our platform.”
Two western slope residents purchased 2022 Hyundai Kona EVs around the same time last year. They both shopped at Red Rock Hyundai in Grand Junction. One ended up buying their car from Red Rock, while the other went to Red Rock first, felt uncomfortable, and ended up buying from Ralph Schomp Hyundai in Aurora, Colorado. Neither buyer left the western slope to complete their purchase or obtain their vehicles. The two report having had two vastly different experiences, as well as incurring vastly different total expenditures for their purchases.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of their buying experiences:
Brantley Reade (far left end of check)
As of today, Brantley Reade, Platform Manager for Red Rock Nissan, is no longer with the Red Rock Auto Group. He was formerly the designated person to call if you had been victimized by a deal at Red Rock’s Nissan or Kia dealerships.
So now, if you were a victim of a deal at a Red Rock dealership in which your digital signature was added to a contract without your being able to first see and expressly approve or reject any charges added to it (like extended warranties, maintenance agreements, protective coatings, key fob insurance, GAP insurance or other items), or if you found your signatures have been forged on any documents from your deal, or if your gross income, monthly housing payment, description of your vehicle or any other information was misrepresented to your lender on your loan application and Red Rock got you into a loan too big for you to handle, contact Red Rock owner Bryan Knight at (801) 792-3711 or email him at bryank@tdauto.com to make an appointment to discuss your situation and give him a chance to make it right.
KREX-TV last night ran a 5 minute news segment about Red Rock dealerships, which are currently under investigation by the state for problems including forgeries of customers’ signatures on legal/financial documents like contracts, Powers of Attorney, title and loan documents, and the addition of thousands of dollars worth of extras to customers’ contracts without their knowing, like extended warranties and special coatings.
Below is the full statement of a former title clerk who worked at Red Rock. This person asked to remain anonymous. This statement was included in the KREX news segment, but it merits fuller attention because of its gravity. This person’s employment at the dealership has been verified, and they had experience with the Mesa County Department of Motor Vehicles before going to work for Red Rock:
Review of Red Rock Hyundai received from a reader via snailmail earlier this month, pg. 1
