Ignacio – Town Manager Miguel Sandoval has three volumes of Colorado Revised Statutes spread out on his desk in an attempt to understand what happens when the mayor and three town trustees resign.
“We’re down to our last three trustees,” Sandoval said.
That’s not a quorum, and so town business is frozen.
In the past few weeks, the small town of Ignacio, population 704, has experienced a governmental meltdown – a dozen town officials and employees have resigned – because of complaints swirling around Sandoval, a Texas transplant with 27 years of government experience. He came to work here June 8.
Former Town Treasurer Becky Dziarnowski, who quit Oct. 5, is among those who have publicly accused Sandoval of improperly giving himself an $11,000 raise without the full knowledge of the board of trustees. He also stands accused of making inappropriate comments to employees, of hiring the then-mayor’s husband as maintenance chief, of generally blowing the town’s $2.9 million budget and of bungling a land deal.
“If he has his way, this town will be bankrupt in two years,” Dziarnowski said.
Sandoval, who now earns $62,000 a year, said the allegations are baseless except for his hiring of John Gurule as maintenance chief. That’s not against town policy, because Gurule reports to the town manager, not to the board of trustees and the mayor, Sandoval said.
“We basically have some disgruntled employees who are taking their case to the street,” he said. “They don’t always take the facts to the street.”
Sandoval said the land deal, selling 30 residential lots, is now on hold but would have netted the town $300,000.
Mayor Katherine Gurule resigned after a rowdy Oct. 12 trustees meeting in which residents questioned her husband’s hiring as maintenance chief. In a statement released afterward, she said simply that “it is in the town’s best interest” that she quit.
Trustees Cindy Gallegos and Kasey Correia did not publicly disclose their reasons for stepping down at the same time. None of the three responded to requests for comments.
Trustee Lawrence Bartley, who quit at the end of September, could not be reached.
Three maintenance workers, unhappy with the choice of Gurule as their chief, have quit. Former maintenance worker Louis Martinez Sr. said Sandoval was rude to workers.
Two planning commissioners also have stepped down. The town manager’s assistant, Pat Senecal, quit a while back to do different work. She said Sandoval’s manner toward employees was demeaning.
The remaining three trustees have struggled since Oct. 12 to set up a special meeting to appoint the fourth essential trustee. With four, the board could appoint three more trustees to serve until the April election, Sandoval said.
The last two attempts at special meetings failed because Trustee Jake Candelaria, considered a Sandoval supporter, was absent. They hope to try again early next month.
Roughly 50 residents attended each of the previously scheduled special meetings – a big turnout in a town with maybe 350 adults, said Dziarnowski.
She is a part of a group called Concerned Citizens for Ignacio, which by early this week had gathered 69 signatures on a petition calling for Sandoval’s ouster.
She said that whenever she asked Sandoval about town finances, he ignored her or said it was none of her business.
“But it was part of my responsibility as town treasurer,” she said.
Sandoval said he is “most disheartened that this small group of people claim to speak for the whole town.”
Amid the uproar, Sandoval has had little choice but to fill in. He took drinking-water samples to Durango for testing and went door to door to post past-due utility notices. He says he’s a pretty good typist.
“This sounds crazy,” Sandoval said, “but aside from the distraction searching for documents and answering reporters’ questions, we’re … doing fine wearing multiple hats.”
Town trustees earn $75 a month to run this sleepy rural burg southeast of Durango that calls itself the tri-ethnic community. Ignacio is noted for being roughly one-third Hispanic, one-third American Indian and one-third Anglo.
“It’s been pretty intense,” remaining Town Trustee Anna- Marie Quintana said of the past few weeks.
Quintana would not discuss the current turmoil in detail but said she has questions about Sandoval’s substantial pay raise after only three months on the job. It slid through with a wage-scale adjustment meant to raise police pay, she said. She also said she has concerns about Sandoval’s disrespectful manner toward employees.
Sandoval said Ignacio had long planned to adjust wages to reflect averages for similarly sized towns, and all seven trustees approved all the increases.
Town Trustee Kirk Allen, who had applied for the town manager job given to Sandoval, said he saw most of the turmoil as a clash of styles.
“Miguel has a very professional manner,” he said. “You have to remember we’re in a very small town. Citizens were used to a certain level of personal communication with the town board.”
Ignacio normally has about 15 employees, with about half of those on the police force.
Three or four people usually work in maintenance, but three are gone, leaving a chief and a temp worker.
The town manager, town clerk and a new front-desk clerk make up what’s left of the town hall staff.
Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, said it’s rare, but not unheard of, for a town to find its government in shambles.
He pointed to the Western Slope town of Collbran, where several trustees and employees resigned during a political dispute this summer.
“It was a bit disruptive for a while, but now they’re pointed generally in the right direction,” Mamet said.
The tumult in Ignacio has been a hot and divisive topic, said Arielle Geist, a waitress at the The Patio restaurant.
“Most of the town has taken sides,” she said. “You hear a lot of gossip in here.”
But restaurant patron Terry Gillespie, a former town trustee, said he isn’t sure of the facts.
“I honestly don’t know what to make of it,” he said. “It’s a little scary … and a little ridiculous.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
