Latest news with #DawnCollins
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Palmer Lake lawsuit alleges mismanagement in finances and civic participation
(EL PASO COUNTY, Colo.) — An array of organizations and individuals are raising questions about the integrity of leadership in Palmer Lake, with some alleging suppression of civic participation, mishandling of funds, and disregard for open meeting laws ahead of the Buc-ee's annexation hearing on Thursday, May 29. A lawsuit, from two individuals who live in Palmer Lake, alleges the town has misused public funds and falsified reports to obtain $1.3 million in state and federal dollars. The complaint also states that the town administrators allegedly diverted grant funds into the municipal water utility. According to the lawsuit, there were various instances where funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, Fixing America's Surface Transportation, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and more were misused. The lawsuit further alleges that Dawn Collins, the appointed Town Administrator, 'did not understand the legal status of the Town's Water Enterprise and the distinction between it and the Town's General Fund' and had the two individuals become concerned that Collins had 'fraudulently created municipal financial statements and recordings.' 'We spent nearly three years trying to help the Town recognize and correct basic financial red flags,' said Marty Brodzik, a Palmer Lake citizen and co-relator in the fraud case. 'Instead of fixing the issues, they ignored us. Then the accounting firm quit, the auditor quit, the financial clerk quit—and the Town still did nothing. Our hope now is that the weight of this lawsuit will help level the field for the citizens attending the upcoming hearing.' The lawsuit further alleges that the city only has one bank account, even though the city's Municipal Code requires the annual budget to provide for revenues and expenditures into four separate funds for the Conservation Trust Fund, Water Enterprise Fund, the Water Enterprise Capital Improvement Fund, and the General Fund. Collins managed both the General Fund and Water Enterprise; however, the lawsuit states the General Fund's monthly checks register failed to identify missing checks, including those that were voided, voided and reissued, or issued and never entered. The lawsuit further alleges that the Water Enterprise fund revenues were misused. When asked, the Town of Palmer Lake sent the following statement: '…Now that this is a matter subject to pending litigation, the Town has no comment except to note that the assertions by the complainants appear to relate primarily to how funds received by the Town and expended for public purposes were allocated and accounted for in the Town's financial records. The Town's financial records are audited each year by independent auditors. Each year the auditors have issued the Town an audit opinion that the Town's financial statements in all material respects were in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The auditors routinely provide recommendations for improvement with which the Town has always complied.' Dawn Collins, Town of Palmer Lake Town Administrator Read the full lawsuit here: Palmer-Lake-TRO-Petition-Posting-Final-2Download Separate from the fraud case, Integrity Matters and various Palmer Lake community members have also filed a temporary restraining order looking to remove a publicly posted petition from the Town's website that contained full names, addresses, and partially visible signatures. According to court documents, various community members and petition circulators emailed the Town to redact or remove their personal information, and the Clerk had allegedly refused most requests. On May 21, the city refused to make any more redactions or remove the petition. The temporary restrictions order would immediately direct the town to remove all publicly posted petition documents containing personally identifying information from its website. Another temporary restraining order also asked the town to relocate the May 29 annexation eligibility as the current venue has allegedly excluded dozens and fails to meet the standards of the Open Meetings Law and the Municipal Annexation Act. 'Our hope,' said Integrity Matters Chief Legal Counsel, Kat Gayle, 'is that these developments—including the new lawsuit—finally push the Mayor and the Trustees facing recall to confront the truth: this is not how responsible government behaves.' FOX21 News has reached out to the Palmer Lake Mayor and is awaiting comment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bygone photos show life in Wales' oldest multi-ethnic community
"It wasn't whether we were black or white, Christian or Muslim or Greek Orthodox - it you lived in Tiger Bay, you were from the bay." Gaynor Legall and three of her life-long friends have been looking at old photographs and reminiscing about growing up in Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1950s. Tiger Bay is Wales' oldest multi-ethnic community and sprang up in the 1800s when sailors from around the world came to work around the city's prosperous coal trade. Gaynor and her friends Dawn Collins, Pauline Williams and Farida Mohamed are all granddaughters of men who travelled from their homelands and grew up in the close-knit dockland community together. "We never looked at people's colour, we never looked at people's race, we were one big happy family," recalled Pauline, 81. The friends have been selecting photographs of old Tiger Bay to be displayed at National Museum Cardiff. The black and white photos, taken by photographer Bert Hardy in 1950 for British Picture Post, will be shown at an exhibition about the photo-magazine. The publication, which ran in the UK between 1938 and 1957, captured everyday life and major events and reached 1.7 million readers at its peak. Seeing the images "just threw us back to childhood," said Farida, 81. Dawn, 78, said it had made her look at her childhood in a new light. "We thought that everything looked beautiful but when you look at some of the pictures you think they are kind of sad," she said. "We looked poor, even though we didn't feel poor because everybody was in the same situation around us." The women recalled a community where everyone looked out for each other. "If Pauline's mother didn't have something she could knock my nana's door and vice versa," said Dawn. "And you know what, you were glad to help, you always had somebody that you could turn to or just have a kind word." The friends all grew up taking part in each other's religious and cultural events. Dawn said at Eid all the children, regardless of religion, would go to the mosque wearing a headscarf and be fed. "We were taught to respect from when we were little children," she said. "We didn't feel threatened by other religions and other customs," added Gaynor. "We embraced them, we took them... we just got involved in whatever our friends were doing and we were never turned away and made to feel different." Tiger Bay was also a sanctuary from the racism the community experienced in various aspects of daily life. In the 1950s and '60s it was not unusual for rental listings to include signs that read: "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs." Black workers also often got paid less for the same work as their white counterparts. "My father worked as a welder for a big steel company and used to train the white supervisors that would come in for them to be his supervisor," said Dawn. "He would say at the table 'I trained another one today'." Pauline recalled being refused entry to clubs because of the colour of her skin. "Some of them would allow black women in because we are exotic and beautiful and so we would attract business," added Gaynor. "But they wouldn't let the men and boys in." She said there was a sense of "us against the rest of the world". The railway bridge acted as a buffer between their community and the rest of Cardiff, they said. "My father was chased home many, many, many times from different places and the minute he got under the bridge he could breathe a sigh of relief because the ones that were chasing him wouldn't come any further than that," said Dawn. "We were clearly not welcome in town," added Gaynor. "So the bridge was the sort of a barrier between us and them and there certainly was an us and them." Lockdown death prompts show about grief Traffic stops for The Girl from Tiger Bay Dame Shirley Bassey gets freedom honour In the 1960s, many of the original buildings, including Loudoun Square, were demolished as part of slum clearance projects. Older housing was replaced with new, modern developments and many families were moved out of Tiger Bay. Dawn had grown up with her parents and two siblings in her grandmother's house on Sophia Street and her family were moved to a council house in Ely. "My mother cried every single day," she recalled. "She would put all three of us in the pram and push us back down the bay every single day, looking around for somebody that would exchange with her because she absolutely hated being away from everything she knew." Farida and her family were also moved to Ely and she said she "cried to come home every day of the four-and-a-half years we were there". "It was horrendous because you had neighbours on either side with big hedges, so you were afraid to look over the hedge in case they thought you were imposing on them." Many Tiger Bay families were eventually able to move back to the area but it was forever changed, the rows of terraces replaced by a council estate of high rise flats and maisonettes. Farida said: "It split everybody up and even though we were still in the same area there was no sense of community really." Gaynor was the first black female councillor in Wales and has spent much of her life working for race equality and women's rights. She was approached by the curators of the exhibition Picture Post: A Twentieth Century Icon who wanted members of the Tiger Bay community to select photos. "We are involved in telling the story," she said. "It's not just pictures of some exotic person." So what drives her and her friends to keep telling the story of Tiger Bay? "It was a struggle for those men who came here early," she said. "They had a rough time and the white women that married them had a rough time but they struggled and they survived and they thrived. "We need to honour those people - we're here because of them." Dawn wants to make sure people don't forget. "My grandfather from Sierra Leone came to this country when he was 15 years old," she said. "I don't want my grandchildren to forget about where they came from." Picture Post: A Twentieth Century Icon will run at National Museum Wales from 24 May to 9 November
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Witnesses bring emotional testimony for, against Second Look Act
Anthony Muhammad talks to the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland about his support for the Second Look Act, which got a hearing later in the day Thursday from the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) Deborah Haskins' son, Joseph, was shot and killed in Baltimore City in 2013. A year later, her nephew, Rueben, was killed in Baltimore County. But Haskins said she believes in second chances for everyone, which is one reason why she was in Annapolis on Thursday to testify in support of the Maryland Second Look Act. Senate Bill 291 would allow someone in prison to petition courts for a sentence reduction. 'Not all victims are the same. We are not monoliths,' Haskins, a licensed therapist, told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. 'I decided that, for me, not to pass on generational trauma. I have to heal. Part of my healing includes forgiveness, and forgiveness is not an overnight process.' But for Dawn Collins, the bill would 'undermine the small justice' she won with the conviction of her son's killer. Collins gave tearful testimony as her husband, Richard Collins Jr., stood next to her and slowly turned 360 degrees to show committee members and the hearing audience a large, framed picture of their son, Richard W. Collins III. He was visiting a friend at the University of Maryland, College Park, when he was fatally stabbed in a racially motivated hate crime in May 2017, just days before he was set to graduate from Bowie State University. 'I am urging all lawmakers to oppose SB 291, and the no-limits approach to how it would benefit mass murderers, serial rapists, child sex offenders and those who have committed hate crimes, like the one who took my beloved son,' Dawn Collins said. 'The bill would undermine the small justice that was given in the case of my son's murder. I need to be able to continue to know that my son mattered.' Medical and geriatric parole bill back before Senate panel The bill, sponsored by Sen. Charles Sydnor III (D-Baltimore County), would allow a person who has served at least 20 years of a prison sentence to petition the court for a sentence reduction. If denied, they could petition again after three years. An inmate could not file more than three petitions. A written decision would have to include the inmate's age at the time of the offense, whether they had participated in any education or vocational programs and 'whether the individual has demonstrated maturity, rehabilitation and fitness to reenter society sufficient to justify a sentence reduction.' A victim or victim's representative would be able to attend a court hearing on the petition, or submit a written statement. 'Victims will have full agency and autonomy on whether or not they want to participate in this process. For some it is a part of their healing process,' Sydnor said. 'Not everyone just wants people to be thrown away and forgotten about or feel revictimized. For some people, it is a part of that process.' But Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger (D) called the bill 'The 14th Look Back Act,' since it would repeatedly force victims like Dawn Collins to come back to court and relive the tragedy of a loved one killed. 'There needs to be some finality. I need to be able to say to tell Mrs. Collins, 'It's over. You don't have to come to court anymore and tell your story,'' Shellenberger said. Sydnor asked Shellenberger if there's 'a true finality' under the current criminal justice system. 'The answer is no,' Shellenberger said, 'But that doesn't mean we should add another [post-conviction remedy] every three years.' Criminal justice advocates have said everyone deserves a second chance, especially those who've shown they are rehabilitated. Anthony Muhammad talked about his second chance at life Thursday morning to the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland in Annapolis. Muhammad, who was arrested in 1993 at age 15 on two homicide charges, was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX After serving 29 years, 7 months and 29 days, Muhammad was released from prison in September 2022. Today, he's employed with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and is a youth mentor with an organization known as Baltimore Brothers. 'I am just one of many of long-term returning citizens, people who have served two, three and four decades of incarceration here in the state of Maryland that are now doing amazing and wonderful things,' he said at the caucus meeting. 'I want to thank this caucus for making this piece of legislation a priority.' The measure, sponsored last year by former Sen. Jill P. Carter, passed the Senate then but stalled in the House. Del. Cheryl Pasteur (D-Baltimore County), who presented the bill last year, is sponsoring the House version this year. It has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, but a hearing date has not been set.
