Rebuttal to Aimee Tooker

By John Brown

In the July 27th Mirror edition, Aimee Tooker, claims that the Central Committee of the Montrose County Republican Party should have vetted Scott Mijares and Sean Pond.  She conveniently overlooks or ignores the fact that the Central Committee was not responsible for vetting Mijares.  He was in fact vetted by the registered Party members in the 2024 Primary who elected him due in part to his success as an entrepreneur or business owner, creating and managing budgets, conservative values, platform, and he invested his “own money” in the community (did not accept one penny or tax break by the City that a few other businesses accepted) over his Primary opponent who had existing Federal Tax Liens going back years, filed bankruptcy, and had no demonstrable successful business experience.  The choice for County Commissioner that involves developing and implementing a multi-million dollar county budget clearly demonstrated that Mijares was the far better candidate for the Montrose County Republican Party.  His opponent with the above mentioned Federal Liens, however, was supported by Commissioner Sue Hansen.

Sean Pond was the one elected by the Central Committee to fill a vacancy under State statute and the Party’s By-Laws.  He had an opponent, and again Commissioner Hansen endorsed him too, yet her guy lost!

Aimee Tooker apparently overlooks too or ignores the fact that Mijares replacement, Kirstin Copeland, was not vetted.  We hardly knew of her record and platform, yet she was elected with far less votes than Mijares.  This was not democratic and violated the will of the people that elected Mijares.  In Monty George’s letter printed on July 20th in the Mirror, he stated the recall that removed Mijares was a COUP!

Tooker also states that “good people are bullied or falsely accused”.   She is correct on this one, because the group behind the Mijares recall aligned themselves with those that falsely accused Mijares and his supporters, during 2024 Primary violated the Party members First Amendment right to peacefully assemble with violent outbursts and verbal assaults, violated pre-Primary neutrality By-Laws (e.g. their beloved Sue Hansen) etc etc. 

As for Hansen, David White’s July 27th article on her is just the beginning of shining the light on her real record and conduct. This is what Mijares was up against.  Sue Hansen opposed him during the Primary as previously stated and opposed him for the General Election.  The latter was far worse since Hansen was a registered Republican (at that time) who failed to support the Party’s candidate.  In fact,  Hansen and her colleagues rushed through hiring a new County Manager who was not qualified rather than allow the newly elected Commissioners make that decision as well as rushed to sign-off on the North Campus.   This has already resulted in the financial boondoggle even before construction is completed that Mijares tried to prevent.   

Unfortunately for him and our community his style or abrasive manner resulted in the recall.  The substance of the issues he raised for making our County a better community and being fiscally responsible were overlooked.  But then his opponents never accepted his election victory and thereby his platform, so he had to be removed not by the ballot but again by a COUP.   

Today some of the same players are calling for the removal of our newly elected School Board President and Town Mayor, because again they will not accept the election results.