The Chaffee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) will hold a special executive session at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, February 8 in the commissioners’ meeting room at 104 Crestone Avenue in Salida.
The executive session under CRS 24-6-402(4)(d) is scheduled for purpose of receiving specialized detail on a current investigation by the Sheriff and Department of Human Services. The obvious topic: the closure of the Chaffee Childcare Initiative (CCI) program at The Schoolhouse in Poncha Springs, and the misdemeanor citations issued to CCI Executive Director Amy Lovato and Schoolhouse Director Roberta Rodriquez.
A large number of Schoolhouse parents, many still struggling to find childcare, have indicated that they feel they were coerced into signing victims forms and do not want to be included on any charges against the Schoolhouse, Lovato and Rodriquez.
Coerced is no surprise. Our cops like to suggest that people press charges unnecessarily. Any reasonable officer or human would have realized that storming a childcare center when no threat is active and terrorizing the children is the act of a hostile and out of control police force who seems in this case to desire aggression for some reason. I worked in child care for many years and there is absolutely no excuse for this behavior or the justification of this force or the involvement of law enforcement given what we have been told and no reason for their overreaction. No reasonable person would choose to impose terror on the children as this group appears to have done not because of impending danger, but because of some enjoyment of storming schools. They seem to have declared this facility as the enemy for some reason we do not know. I have seen these officers show excellent control and judgment in the past. What has changed to make them so hostile toward this community and so willing to terrorize children with overreactions involving safe places they have a limited number of in the first place? Is our police force going to pay for counseling for the children present? They are not the only group in this situation requiring ongoing training. They seem to me to have escalated this situation unnecessarily as they did with the previous school incident.
Lovato is the correct last name
Fixed. Thank you for the correction.