Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Whistleblower Case

A missing email and a federal paper trail: Colorado weighs discipline in Guggenheim case
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A missing email and a federal paper trail: Colorado weighs discipline in Guggenheim case

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Rich Guggenheim says an email exists that would end his case. The Colorado Department of Agriculture says it does not. The dispute centers on a message Guggenheim says was sent to him in early December by Gabriel Leverance, a grant accountant at CDA, instructing him to approve a USDA-funded Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey report—the report he had previously kicked back and now at the center of the discipline the department is weighing against him. Guggenheim says he requested records twice under CORA that he believes should have included the email. At an April 15 disciplinary hearing, he told the department’s deputy commissioner: “I know it exists, because I’m the recipient of that email, and I’m not getting it in a CORA reques...
Caught between two governments: Whistleblower says Colorado’s DEI system collides with a federal ban
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Caught between two governments: Whistleblower says Colorado’s DEI system collides with a federal ban

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When managers in the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) logged into their Nov. 6 virtual meeting, the agenda read like a standard operational update. But on the list sat two items that created angst: the statewide EDI/Colorado for All report due in December and the launch of a 2026 Inclusive Leadership cohort.  Those initiatives, part of Colorado’s expanding equity and inclusion system, set the stage for a clash with a different set of requirements now coming from D.C. The moment in the meeting Rich Guggenheim, the program manager who oversees plant certification inspections for Colorado’s nursery and seed industries, signs off on several USDA pest survey grants. When Inclusive Leadership came up, he ...
Clear on camera, dismissed on paper
Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Clear on camera, dismissed on paper

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Inside the election case DA investigators said showed “clear violations”—and why the same office that prosecuted election fraud refused to touch it A fire chief knows what a five-alarm emergency looks like. When something is burning, he responds. He doesn’t wait for someone else to handle it. That was the mindset Erik Holt carried in 2023 when the security cameras inside his fire station began showing behavior that made him stop, rewind the footage, and stare. He believed he had uncovered an emergency worth reporting. He did not know that the alarm he pulled would be the only one the system refused to answer. The fire chief who didn’t look away Before Teller County voters ever heard his name, Holt was a fireman and a father. A caree...

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