Nucla, mayor at odds over resignation

NUCLA — Nucla’s on-again, off-again mayoral resignation is off again.

At least, if you ask Roxy Allex, who says she rescinded her letter of resignation after the town board declined to meet her conditions.

The town board begs to differ. It considers Allex to be Nucla’s former mayor.

“As far as the board is concerned, she has resigned,” Mayor pro tem Dawna Morris said Friday. “She resigned herself.”

“I say I am (the mayor); the board says I’m not,” Allex said.

Allex said in addition to being accused of rewriting a town ordinance to benefit her mother’s business, an ongoing personal dispute between her family and the family of another board member led to her being harassed.

The other family has reportedly leveled similar allegations against Allex and her mother.

“My leaving is not going to stop this,” Allex said. “I’ve decided that if I’m going to clear my name, I’m just going to have to stay and fight it out.”

She issued a letter earlier in the month, stating she would resign if the town board furnished her with letters she believed had been issued by the district attorney that cleared her of any wrongdoing.

The town board refused to accept a resignation with conditions. On Oct. 21, Allex wrote another letter, furnished to the Daily Press, in which she stated she ‘declined’ to submit a new resignation letter without conditions attached. Accordingly, in her mind, there was no resignation.

The town board voted at a recent meeting to accept the resignation, however, and considers it a done deal. Morris said the town’s attorney, Frank Woodrow, examined minutes from town board meetings along with Allex’s two letters and determined they constituted a valid resignation.

Woodrow could not be reached for further information.

Local attorney, Kathryn Sellars, whose firm represents the Daily Press, said that based on how the letters were explained to her, it appeared Allex revoked her original resignation.

That was a view shared by Nucla resident and former town board member Duane Butler. “I’ve been telling her to keep it all along,” he said. “If she backs out, she admits they have won. What they’re doing to the town is not right. That’s a personal affair, not a town business.”

The controversy revolves around the Sugar Patch, a secondhand shop owned by Allex’s mother, a 1957 ordinance that prohibited junkyards, slaughterhouses, and “secondhand salvage shops” within a quarter-mile of town limits — and whether Allex should have voted to amend that ordinance.

The ordinance was modified two years ago because the town didn’t have jurisdiction beyond its borders, Allex, Morris and Butler all said. All three were new to the board at the time and characterized the change as routine.

“It was all cut and dried as far as I was concerned, while I was still there on the board,” Butler said. “I thought everyone was happy with what we decided. Then all this came up. I’m all for the mayor. I think she has done the town, up to this point, the best she can with who she had to work with.

“I think she’s got the town at heart all the time.”

Allex said the ordinance change was discussed before she became mayor and the changes weren’t opposed.

Allex additionally said there is no clear definition of what the ordinance meant by “salvage.” The Sugar Patch does not engage in “salvage,” she said.

But the vote to change the ordinance might not have been valid. Allex said she voted in the good-faith belief that the mayor could be counted as part of the quorum — the minimum number of town trustees required to vote on an issue.

Allex said she, Morris, Butler and former trustee Kris Daniels were present for the ordinance vote, but Butler left early due to illness. Because she believed she was part of the quorum, Allex voted.

Morris said the town uses Colorado Municipal League rules, which, she said, do not include mayors in a quorum. (Municipalities may draft their own ordinances concerning mayoral powers and duties. Montrose, for instance, is home-rule and its mayor is included in quorums).

Nucla town ordinance restricts the mayor from voting on anything other than contracts, expenditures and to break a tie.

“I did not know until all this came up, other than this one time that has haunted me to this day,” Allex said.

“I have never denied that I made mistakes, but they were honest mistakes.”

She said the town board tied her hands, then complained she wasn’t doing her job. “Being as how I haven’t been allowed to do anything, I can’t abuse power they won’t let me have,” Allex said.

“My feeling is the town elected her to be mayor and I can’t see where the board has the right (to remove her),” Butler said.

He wanted to know where her detractors “got off” in saying she’d abused her power and that he and other residents were tired of the in-fighting.

“We told them we were tired of this bickering; they had town business to attend to. Evidently, they didn’t take the hint.”

Morris said, however, that the board was working well together to accomplish important things for Nucla, including improving handicapped access, a stair project and a water project.

She said she personally regretted the situation concerning Allex. “I don’t feel that she did anything wrong. ... It (her resignation) is not something I wanted, by no means. I thought she was doing just fine.”

Morris said the town has 60 days to choose a new mayor from its current four trustees on the six-person board. The town will then have to appoint another board member to fill the slot.

The trustees will also discuss the salvage ordinance at 6 p.m. Nov. 6.

Morris said no one has any plans to rewrite it in order to shut down the Sugar Patch.