TOO EXTREME FOR PUEBLO

TOO EXTREME FOR PUEBLO

Paula McPheeters Wants to Ban Abortion In All Cases

Paula McPheeters is an anti-abortion extremist who wants to ban abortion in all cases, including in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life is at risk. McPheeters supported an ordinance to ban all abortion in Pueblo and is a threat to reproductive rights and freedoms of women in Pueblo County.

Citations

Paula McPheeters was one of the Founders of Forging Pueblo, a group that attempted to ban all abortions in Pueblo, under all circumstances, including rape, incest or when a mother’s life is at risk.

Pueblo Chieftain 10/24/23  “After mobilizing hundreds of churchgoers to ask city council to ban abortion services in Pueblo, people involved with Forging Pueblo are stepping up efforts to elect conservative candidates to local government.”

Pueblo Chieftain 12/12/2022 “The enforcement mechanism for the Pueblo ordinance is similar to the 2021, six-week abortion ban in Texas, through which citizens can sue providers for at least $100,000.”

Pueblo Chieftain, 11/6/2023 “McPheeters was a founding member of Forging Pueblo.”

PaulaForPueblo “That was the beginning of the idea of Forging Pueblo: Several years ago, a few of us were looking for a way to better engage citizens of faith within our community.”

Abusing TaxPayer Dollars

For over a decade, Paula McPheeters has been using her position as a public employee to push a right-wing agenda on the taxpayer's dime. Instead of serving the interests of the community, she's using taxpayer money to support extremist groups while on the clock.

Paula McPheeters is an employee of Pueblo Community College. She’s technically the director of grant compliance at Pueblo Community College. But, that hasn’t deterred her from doing her right-wing political organizing at the taxpayers expense. In 2015 as Paula was organizing right-wing efforts to re-criminalize marijuana in Pueblo, Tommy Giodone submitted a Colorado Open Records Request to PCC, that indicated that at least dating back to April of 2014, McPheeters has been illegally abusing taxpayer dollars to support her radical political agenda.

Citations

Chieftain 04/25/2015 “McPheeters and Hergert are doing this all on taxpayer time," Giodone said Saturday. "They should be doing PCC work."

CLICK HERE to review Paula McPheeter’s url search history at her taxpayer-funded job at PCC. This list of url searches was retrieved from Tommy Giodone’s Open Records Request to PCC in 2015. Viewing the link, you can see that over an eight (8) month period (April of 2014 to December of 2014) Paula McPheters used state-provided resources at least 130 times for political work on her own radical political agenda. She was even uploading files onto an extremist website while on the clock. That’s time and money the taxpayers were paying her to support extremist groups on the clock!

CLICK HERE to review emails Paula McPheeters sent from her government email address to support her right-wing agenda on the taxpayer’s dime. These emails were also uncovered from the 2015 Open Records Request Tommy Giodone submitted to PCC requesting documentation about Paula McPheeters illegal work.

THREAT TO FREEDOM

Paula McPheeters says that she wants to shape Pueblo County Government based on her Biblical Worldview to fit her personal religious beliefs. That's why she wants to ban books, ban abortion, re-criminalize marijuana and tell you how to live your life. Her agenda is too extreme for Pueblo and electing her would jeopardize our personal freedoms and rights.

Citations

Pueblo Chieftain, 11/6/2023 “McPheeters was a founding member of Forging Pueblo”

Pueblo Chieftain 10/24/24 Is an in-depth look at the right-wing organization McPheeters founded. In the story, we learn a lot, including:

  • Forging Pueblo introduced the ordinance crafted by Texas anti-abortion activists that could have effectively shut down all abortion services in Pueblo.

  • The principal office of Forging Pueblo is the same address as an anti-abortion activist organization.

  • Forging Pueblo wants to eliminate public education. The founder of Forging Pueblo said,  “We’d be far better off without public education. If we could get rid of the whole thing, we would be in a very different boat right now if it wasn’t for public education.”

  • Forging Pueblo was founded in 2018 to “impact Pueblo with a Biblical worldview.”

  • “Our goal is to influence all major areas of society, including government, education, business, religion, arts and entertainment, media and family.”

  • “Forging Pueblo's mission statement emulates the Seven Mountain Mandate, an evangelical movement to influence seven "mountains" of culture — religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment and business.”

  • “The Truth and Liberty Coalition is a 501(c)4 nonprofit led by televangelist and faith healer Andrew Wommack, who serves as the organization’s president. That status allows the group to be more involved in politics. Pueblo's representative in the U.S. Congress, Republican Lauren Boebert, has spoken at multiple Truth and Liberty events.”

  • “Election guides, which were “approved for use in churches” and “paid for by the Truth & Liberty Coalition” appeared to give candidates the option to “agree” or “disagree” with social studies curriculum. They confirmed that the voter guides arrived at Family Worship Center last week. He said many churches distribute such guides at their discretion.

  • “Forging Pueblo has set themselves up as a special interest group seeking to defund public schools. That could really harm Pueblo and I wouldn't accept funds or support from them for that reason,” Joe Latino said.

Forging Pueblo’s election guides encourage school board candidates to support censorship of teachers and classrooms and to prohibit the study of racism in the United States. Telling teachers what they can and can’t teach, study or read in the classroom is a book ban.

Watch a series of TikTok videos about Forging Pueblo from Rob Rogers, who studies hate groups.

Colorado Public Radio 10/4/2016 “McPheeters responded by helping force Question 200 onto the local 2016 ballot. Voters will decide whether to shut down all of the retail marijuana stores, grow operations and related businesses in Pueblo County by the end of October 2017. The question would also prohibit the county from approving any new licenses for these businesses.”

SUPPORTS HER RIGHT-WING AGENDA OVER PUEBLO JOBS

Paula McPheeters supported a ban on the sale of marijuana, grow operations and related businesses in Pueblo County. The ban was opposed by voters because it would cost Pueblo County over one thousand good-paying jobs and hundreds of small businesses — and it would reduce access for patients with seizure conditions that do not respond to any other medicine, veterans suffering from PTSD, and cancer patients. Plus, thousands of college scholarships would have been defunded if McPheeters had her way.

Citations

Colorado Public Radio 10/4/2016 “McPheeters responded by helping force Question 200 onto the local 2016 ballot. Voters will decide whether to shut down all of the retail marijuana stores, grow operations and related businesses in Pueblo County by the end of October 2017. The question would also prohibit the county from approving any new licenses for these businesses.”