With the latest shenanigans from Jim Mageau and Lisa DiBello and on-going fussing and feuding in town, it’s reasonable to wonder how crazy a small town can get. With only 7,827 permanent residents, we sure do seem to have our share of controversy.
But if there’s one that you can always count on, whenever you think things are really bad, there’s always a way it could be worse.
And I think I’ve found another small town – actually half the size of Charlestown with only 3,692 people – that is WAY crazier than Charlestown
There’s a three-way war going on in Quartzsite, pitting Mayor Ed Foster and his supporters in one camp, the Town Council and town managers in a second camp, and the Chief of Police in a third. It’s a struggle over control and over the future of the town.
While there has been feuding and in-fighting going on for years, the pot boiled over a week ago on June 28th when a local political blogger Jennifer Jones (OMG, like Progressive Charlestown!) stepped up to the podium and, with permission, began to speak against the Town Council’s recent actions. She was promptly arrested and hauled away - and injured in the process - igniting an uproar in the town.
Police Chief Jeff Gilbert declared a “state of emergency” in the town and told the news media that Quartzsite was under “martial law.” Three days later, Chief Gilbert retracted his claim about the state of emergency and martial law. He also suffered a no-confidence vote where 80% of his police officers voted against him.
County sheriffs deputies and police from nearby Parker, AZ went into Quartzsite as a precaution.
But the Town Council has also declared its own state of emergency after it removed Mayor Foster in a secret session Monday night. They named embattled Chief Gilbert as the town’s acting chief executive.
The way things stand, the town remains in turmoil with calls for ousters or resignations for the Council, the Mayor and the Police Chief.
As an outsider, I don't feel qualified to judge on the merits of each side's position - to me, they all look like idiots. But I'm also not sure if we can take comfort in seeing that our local squabbles are minor by comparison, or whether we should see Quartzsite as a cautionary tale.
Here is the YouTube arrest video that set off the Quartzsite civil war:
