Posted on 06/16/2012 10:02:37 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
In what has become one of the most corrupt small towns in the United States, the new Mayor-elect and the winner of a seat on the Town Council were prevented by that Council from assuming their newly won offices. On May 15th, Ed Foster won the municipal election for Mayor of Quartzsite, Arizona and Mark Orgeron won a seat on the Town Council.
But at its next meeting, the Council refused to seat either of the two winners. Foster was told he could not be Mayor because he still owed the City of Quartzsite court-ordered attorney’s fees from a prior suit against the town. And although Orgeron teaches at the local school and has lived in Quartzsite 5 days each week since 2009, the Council claimed he was not a “legal” resident of the town as he still owns a home in Yuma. (1)
In 2011, a video taken at a Quartzsite Town Council meeting was posted on the internet and immediately went viral. Jennifer Jade Jones, a local political firebrand and publisher of the Desert Freedom Press was manhandled at the Council meeting even though the...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
I live a bit up the road from Quartzite. I totally understand the BS going on there. Always has operated by their own rules. Makes lots of money from the snowbirds/swap meets.
What I will never get is how and why the state has allowed such absolute criminality to go on for so long. Granted, it’s a hole in the wall filled with eccentrics, but most are good people and all have the same rights we do...or should.
Who are the real criminals or crackpots -- or are both sides criminals and crackpots?
As for the councilman who wasn't seated due to the incumbents' claim he wasn't a resident ... well, if you read the linked AZCentral article, there is another detail reported there that makes me think he was, in fact, not a resident of Quartzsite.
That little detail is the fact that he was registered to vote last year in Yuma.
We had a funny little controversy in NJ over something like that. Some famous athlete, Carl Lewis, wanted to run for high office in NJ. Christie's Secretary of State refused to put him on the ballot. Why? Because Lewis had voted in California for the last 5 or so years, not NJ.
Carl Lewis sued; but the last word of the court was that his CA voting history was sufficient proof of his lack of primary residency in NJ.
My understanding is this - right or wrong, but I’d bet on right:
You have a bunch of people, good and bad, that wanted to get out of the cities or wherever they cam from, go out in the middle of nowhere to a nice little place and be left the hell alone...for the most part.
But a few figured out that running a town like a corrupt southern sheriff in a movie could actually work since people who want to be left alone aren’t likely to make a big stink. And SOME of those people are, shall we say, on the fringes of society to begin with?
So over time, things went from smaller to larger corruption and the people running the show grew bolder since they kept getting away with all their prior power/money grabs ect.
Honestly, it would make a great book, the stuff that goes on there, but it would have to be sold as fiction because no one would believe it could be real in 21st century America. It’s it’s own place with it’s own rules made up by a few to their benefit.
Escort the Council out by the police into jail cells.
Smells like he's a resident of Yuma. Wonder if he claims a homestead exemption on his propety tax in Yuma.
sounds like the citys of Bell and Vernon here in SoCal
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