Free Republic

Local news outlets in Colorado Springs received a shocking email in late April of last year: A photo and video of a burning cross and a campaign sign of mayoral candidate Yemi Mobolade, a native of Nigeria, defaced with the N-word in red spray paint. “What has this city come to?!” read the email, signed only by “Citizens of Colorado Springs.” This, according to the email, was “another one of their tactics to keep Yemi out.” The writer then opined on who was likely behind the racist message: supporters of Mobolade’s opponent, center-right Republican Wayne Williams. “Candidate Wayne Williams is...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Three people are now facing federal charges for allegedly staging a hate crime during the Colorado Springs mayoral race in 2023. In the early morning hours of April 23, 2023, a burning cross in front a campaign sign for then-candidate Yemi Mobolade was found at the intersection of Union and Fillmore. The sign had been defaced with a racial slur. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado (USAOC) now says the entire scene was a hoax, intended to make citizens think that there was a group of racists in Colorado Springs strongly opposed to...

Colorado’s election chief was shot down by her own party leaders after demanding the Democrat-controlled legislature adopt a measure to chill future recount efforts. Adding insult to injury, the Democrats added what we like to call the “shut up and sit down” provision telling Secretary of State Jena Griswold to stop using taxpayer dollars to promote her own vain self for reelection. We’re giving Colorado Senate President Steve Fenberg a rare standing ovation on this one. PeakNation will recall that Griswold blew more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars to fund a blatantly political reelection TV commercial last year featuring...

Over the past few months, we’ve asked Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) questions about how they spend ratepayer dollars on advertising and sponsorships. Stay tuned for a future Springs Taxpayers United article about sponsorships. Right now, we’ll focus exclusively on the CSU advertising budget. We wondered why a monopoly utility needs to advertise at all. No one in their service area has a choice on which utility to use. The local advertising company Vladmir Jones handles the advertising account for CSU. Through a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request, we asked for all of the 2022 advertising expenditures. Vladmir Jones invoices...

Today, a Mesa County Court Judge ruled in favor of removing Tina Peters as the Designated Election Official (DEO) and has granted the Secretary of State’s requests that Wayne Williams is appointed as the DEO and Sheila Reiner be appointed as the election supervisor for Mesa County. A Designated Election Official is a person responsible for running elections for a local government, like a municipality or a county. They make determinations regarding elections issues for their municipality or county. The Court’s decision legally bars Peters from serving as DEO, after she allowed breaches to election security, disregarded election rules and...

ATLANTA - Lawyers for convicted killer Wayne Williams, blamed for the murders of two dozen boys and young men in the Atlanta area during the 1970s and '80s, are casting suspicion on a child molester they say lived or worked near where many of the bodies were found. In court papers made public Friday, the defense asked a federal judge for access to police files on the molester. The papers do not identify the man by name but say he is a multiple child molester serving time in a Georgia prison. They also allege that investigators knew the man was...

ATLANTA (AP) -- A police chief has reopened an investigation into four of the child slayings that terrorized the Atlanta area more than two decades ago, saying he believes the man suspected in most of the killings is innocent. Altogether, 29 people - all of them black, most of them boys - were killed in the Atlanta area between 1979 and 1981. Wayne Williams, 47, is serving a life sentence for the murders of two young men. After his conviction, authorities blamed him for 22 of the other slayings but never charged him. Dekalb County Police Chief Louis Graham said...