Long-simmering chaos, counter-accusations, feuds, firings, recall elections and gridlock left the Silverton town government paralyzed this week, prompting town officials to close Town Hall just to be able to get some work done.
On Tuesday, Interim Town Manager Mark Garcia was forced to call San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad when one apoplectic Silvertonian arrived at Town Hall and started raging at Mayor Chris Tookey, refused to leave.
“A couple of citizens here are very critical of the mayor. Basically, one man came in here, very disruptive, to verbally abuse ... myself and the mayor,” Garcia said. “I asked them all to leave, and they refused. So we called the sheriff. Then I shut down city hall and sent the mayor home because she’s trying to help, but she’s just under a lot of duress.”
A sign posted on the front door Tuesday read: “Town Hall is closed until further notice.” Residents were directed to call a phone number and leave a message. “A town employee will return your call,” the sign read. Town Hall remained closed Wednesday. It was unclear Thursday if it had reopened.
A tumultuous council meeting Monday seemed to create a breaking point. The council met to select one person to fill a vacant trustee spot. Thursday’s edition of the Silverton Standard reports that at the meeting, “One by one, six applicants stood before the Town Council Monday night, Jan. 12, and explained why they wanted to serve on the board. Then, one by one, in 3-3 votes, the Town Council failed to select any of them.”
By Tuesday morning, the council’s inability to reach a deciding vote, as well as the looming recall election, stirred residents.
The current trouble began escalating in September, after the Town Council voted to investigate whether Public Works Director Gilbert Archuleta had spoken ill of Town Administrator Brian Carlson at a watering hole in the early-morning hours, thereby violating a niceness contract imposed on the two feuding men by the Town Council.
Since then, both workers have been fired; one town trustee quit in November, and another is facing a recall election Feb. 10 for several reasons, including “voting to waste town resources in pursuing an agenda to terminate ... Archuleta.”
Garcia said since Silverton’s “brand-new clerk tendered her resignation and quit under pressure and amid turmoil, it’s been a struggle just to keep Town Hall functioning.”
He said the place is so understaffed that the mayor has been forced to perform basic administrative tasks such as answering phones.
The political fault line seems difficult to identify.
“It’s hard to explain,” Garcia said. “There’s definitely a divide in the community. It just seems that certain citizens align with certain elected officials.”
Sheriff Conrad agreed. Asked what, exactly, the two sides were fighting over, Conrad said, “It’s hard to sum up.
“You probably have to come up here and spend a few days. It’s a complicated issue and a complicated community.”
Still, Conrad does not think the turmoil will last.
“It’s easy to look at what’s been going on in Silverton and see it as an implosion. But divisions like this are cyclic. We go through it, time to time, and we’ll be out of it shortly.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
