FOR IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
SENT FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHAFFEE COUNTY PATRIOTS, LTD. EMAIL.
DIGITALLY SIGNED BY THE MEMBERS OF ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
Dear Mrs. Wondra:
The Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd. asked Dan R., the radio personality to read your emailed prepared statement to the general public who attended the Town Hall Meeting, as you requested. The reading of your statement generated more questions by the audience. They inquired what examples support this alleged “platform of prejudice, hate, and discrimination”? Which members of the organization have made points of displaying what? What disinformation were you referring to? Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd. is a bona fide 501(c)(3) as supported here:
https://www.coloradosos.gov/biz/BusinessEntityDetail.do?quitButtonDestination=BusinessEntityResults&nameTyp=ENT&masterFileId=20211543923&entityId2=20211543923&fileId=20211543923&srchTyp=ENTITYThe Board of Directors of Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd., is responding to all four news outlets in the valley and the entire five member board is united in its response. We are emailing you directly as well as sharing the unfiltered reply with the other news agencies in our valley for the sake of uninhibited transparency. First, we will print your reply to Vice President Heap’s invitation as you replied to him, rather than use the edited one you posted on your news outlets website. The direct link for that edited reply is located below your verbatim reply to Vice President Heap:
‘Hello Dennis,
You are welcome to read this statement to those attending the event: Ark Valley Voice will not be participating in the Chaffee Patriots event next week. We discussed it as a newsroom crew, and together made the decision that your purposes and our mission to give truth a voice are incompatible. Our job is to investigate and factually report on stories of local, regional, and national news. As a daily, digital, nonprofit newsroom,our actions since our formation in March, 2018, are committed to public service to the community we serve. Our First Amendment role and our journalistic ethics require that with our words and coverage we stand up for democracy; that we confront disinformation, that we provide a path for truth to have a voice. We do not align with, nor do we platform prejudice, hate, and discrimination. Whether intentionally or not, your members have often made a point of displaying this behavior. Ark Valley Voice holds membership in the Colorado Press Association, the Institute for Nonprofit News, and the Colorado News Collaborative. As an award-winning newsroom, we have also been honored to receive Colorado’s First Amendment Award for journalism; for our work ensuring the public’s right to know In fact, we received that honor for our work exposing the less than upstanding underpinnings of the original Chaffee Patriots. It would be disingenuous of us to become part of your program given this background. Those who wish to know more about what we stand for are invited to read Ark Valley Voice.com.’Your post on your news outlet:
Ark Valley Voice’s View on Press Freedom and Mission – by Jan Wondra – Ark Valley Voice
In your February 2026 statement explaining why Ark Valley Voice would not attend a “Freedom of the Press” town hall hosted by the Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd., you, the publisher, Mrs. Jan Wondra delivered what you clearly intended as a mic-drop line: “In fact, we received that honor for our work exposing the less-than-upstanding underpinnings of the original Chaffee Patriots. It would be disingenuous of us to become part of your program given this background.” Your use of the qualifier: “original.” By using that single word, you, yourself concede the central point your critics have been making for years: the group that invited her in 2026 is not the same entity you skewered in your 2020 exposé. The current Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd. is a registered nonprofit with a public website, a different board of directors, named and affixed hereto below. All Chaffee County Patriots, Ltd. functions have a visible focus on First Amendment town halls, highway flag initiative, flag wavings, and community events.
The founder and central figure of the 2020 private Facebook group—Mark Wolfgang—does not appear in any current leadership role, event listing, or organizational document. Yet after admitting the distinction with the word “original,” you proceed to immediately ignore it. You and your news outlet treat the 2026 group as guilty by name association alone, refusing to share a stage or even engage in dialogue because of behavior documented five and a half years earlier under different leadership of a different organization entirely. That is not principled journalism. It is textbook guilt by name association—and your own phrasing proves you know it. Journalistic ethics, whether under the Society of Professional Journalists code or the Institute for Nonprofit News standards AVV claims to follow, demand evidence-based attribution of responsibility. If the current board includes none of the individuals who posted or tolerated the inflammatory 2020 content (“hunting season for Antifa,” “perfect targets” for BLM sign owners), and if the organization shows no similar rhetoric today, then holding them accountable for the “original” group’s sins is unfair and intellectually dishonest.
You could have said, “We have no evidence linking the current leadership to the 2020 posts, but we remain concerned about the name and potential continuity.” You did not. Instead, you leaned on a six-year-old controversy as a convenient shield to avoid debating or platforming with local conservatives. This selective memory is especially glaring given AVV’s frequent calls for nuance, context, and second chances in other contexts.
When Salida retained City Administrator Drew Nelson in 2018 despite a domestic-violence-related charge, AVV dutifully reported the council’s defense of rehabilitation and “people don’t want to be defined by their worst moments.” Yet when it comes to a conservative group that has restructured, changed leadership, and shifted focus, no such grace is extended. The same is true of conservative individuals who peacefully reside in the county and are an asset. Your “hit piece” on Brian O’Connell cost him his job, even though his “worst moment” was back in 2004. He has paid his “debt to society”, hides his past from nobody, and has been free for a decade without incident. The past is forever disqualifying—unless it’s someone AVV happens to like.
Small towns run on relationships, overlapping roles, and imperfect histories. If every organization were forever tainted by the worst actions of its earliest members, Chaffee County would have no functioning groups at all. Your refusal to distinguish between “original” and current is not about protecting democracy or confronting hate; it is about ideological comfort. By your own admission, the two are not the same. Pretending otherwise while using the past as a cudgel only erodes the credibility you and your news outlet claim to defend.
Truth may have no sides, as AVV’s motto insists. But journalism should, at minimum, have consistency. When the publisher qualifies her accusation with “original” and then acts as though the qualifier doesn’t exist, readers are right to ask: Whose truth is actually being given a voice here?
SIGNED,
Brian O’Connell, President
Dennis Heap, Vice President
Krystal O’Connell, Treasurer
Alan Seeling, Secretary
Pam Gonzales, Member-At-Large
CHAFFEE COUNTY PATRIOTS, LTD. BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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