We’ve written about the goings-on in Quartzsite Arizona, including the YouTube video showing the arrest of a local woman who was authorized by the mayor to speak at a recent town council meeting. Now the council has ousted Mayor Ed Foster from power and declared a state of emergency.
Mayor Foster asserts that the town council held a last-minute meeting that was closed to the public — in violation of the open meetings law — Sunday night, after declaring a state of emergency in the 3,600-person western Arizona town.
Compounding matters, the council issued a declaration putting controversial police Chief Jeff Gilbert in charge. Foster referred to the act as making him the “deputy chief executive of nothing right now.” The declaration also allows the five-member council to meet without public notice and suspend all public comment at the meetings until they declare the state of emergency over.
The videos have gotten thousands of views and have people near and far sending messages of support to Foster and messages of outrage to the council. Foster’s supporters have launched a Facebook page and website.
Foster was elected in May 2010 on a campaign promise to investigate allegations of corruption in the La Paz County town.
He said since being in office, he has discovered that every pay period, eight to 10 paychecks go to unnamed people and that he has been denied access to financial records to find out where the money actually goes. He said that’s been happening since 1991 and amounts to $250,000 every year. “That’s literally millions of dollars,” Foster said.
Read the Quartzsite News accounts of the political battlefield in the area previously known as a haven for snowbirds.
Seeing Red AZ 
One of the tea party groups has sent out an email alert that the previously scheduled evening meeting has been changed to 10:00 this morning. It should be getting underway right about now. No doubt another closed meeting in violation of the open meetings law. Let’s hope it’s being monitored!
Apparently, the corrupt Quartzsite city council is very afraid of free speech. Why else would they turn their town into a police state?
Although I am nervous to tell the my story at this juncture, It is a recount of the rapid growth of corruption in Quartzsite which must be told. My first hand experience of the rise and fall of Quartzsite’s Emergency Airstrip can be read on my Blog at
http://quartzsite-thoughts.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1759457263
Quartzsite is generating the worst publicity for a wide spot in the road that depends on tourism for its survival. Who’d want to end up in a position where they had to depend on this rogue government for any recourse? It sounds like a communist regime has taken hold.
The town council has “declared a state of emergency?” What exactly is the source of an “emergency”that suspends the rights of the citizenry?
This is obscene! Martial law is being imposed in a burg that is little more than a truck stop, and the chief of police takes over when the duly elected mayor is stripped of his duties by councilmen in a closed door meeting? What’s going on in this wide-spot in the road? Where are the citizen voices raised in protest? How much more of this can we expect to see across the country when people stay in their seats while a woman is arrested for speaking after being recognized by the mayor to say her piece?
What is obscene is that if the citizenery allows this, IT WILL SPREAD! This is exactly how Adolf Hitler got the ball of nazi-ism rolling.
Seen It All, you’re the 2nd person in as many days that has used the term “Martial Law”.
We’d better be paying attention, here.
Wow, this has occurred in the U.S. of America. Red flags are flying high right now amid significant violations of the Constitution as well as possible violations of the law (missing money…checks made to unnamed people). That police chief will never be able to get another job in law enforcement so that is probably a good thing. I am a Texas Peace Officer and can tell you that the order issued by the chief to his subordinates were unlawful and a breach of the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics. Job be damned, I would have refused to follow the chief’s order. What a clown.
The mayor is obviously facing an uphill battle if the State of Arizona doesn’t step in to assist the townspeople in regaining their civil rights. Power to the people!! That clown calling for a motion to remove the speaker “Jennifer” should be recalled and jailed on civil rights violations. Where in hell is the FBI? I pray that this incident isn’t downplayed to let the matter fizzle out. An example needs to be made of all of the clowns in charge. Wow, this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
Did you see the video of the people in the meeting, moaning a bit, but not a single one rising from their chairs in protest? (That video is linked in the first sentence of this post.)
To me they are as frightening as the jack-booted uniformed thugs who hauled out Jennifer Jones as she was speaking. Had they all stood in unison and protested, there would not have been enough police manpower to arrest them all. But they sat like cows and watched as the woman who was rightfully speaking was cuffed and hauled out. Can you imagine our Founders sitting on their hands in the face of such tyranny? This is what the government schools and unionist teachers have produced….passive and wide-eyed fools who stand for nothing. They are as shocking as the imbeciles on the council and the police who might as well have been clicking their heels and saluting with outstretched hands as Doc so rightly states.
To an outsider, it seems like the only “Emergency” is for the corrupt to block justice and the common good.
How soon can the town get a new council and become for the people rather than for the criminals?
i was there today, drove from mesa to go to this illegal meeting, not all the people are silent. acting out during the town meeting WILL get you arrested for disorderly conduct.
http://twitter.com/AZbeerPresident
They can’t arrest them ALL, Troy. There aren’t enough police on that town’s force.
I do commend you for traveling to the meeting. I’m sure many of us would be interested in hearing what actually occurred.
[…] https://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/political-tyranny-in-quartzsite-az/ Category: US Constitution / […]
[…] SeeingRedAz.com […]
It;s about time for Wyatt Earp to ride into town and rescue it from the corruption gang that are holding the townsfolk hostage. Looks like the rats are scrambling cause they know the ship’s going down. The towns people are caught in a law abiding trance and are feared to get the treatment that the one’s who are speaking out have and are getting from the deputy dog and the super glued city council who ain’ t a gonna give up their seats unless pried from them. I heard they are all terrorists and the FBI oughta get over there ASAP. What a tourism advertisement from the hole in the wall gang. Pity the poor mayor,after all, he was only “elected” not “selected” to be one of the business as usual gang.Guess they don’t understand how that process works over there with election.
Somebody had better intervene from State level or they are gonna be picking up bodies. Those power tripping politicos are out of control and trying desperately to hang onto the control of the purse strings which likely they are all tied together on.
Hey, I live in Mississippi and watching this stuff in Quartzsite is like Jerry Springer meets the Hatfield and McCoys- But not at all funny.
I can find no mention of this MAJOR NEWS on cnn or msnbc. What is up with that? Complicity?
Tom CNN is too busy making sure we all know what Kate Middleton is wearing.
There is little doubt that the Quartzsite Council thinks martial law means Wyatt Earp.
I got news for you Wyatt Earp was the marshal here at one time.
Look it up, them were the good old days.
ta ta ole frog Quartzsite Arizona
People need to realize that martial law means that the city has declared war on the people. The people need to make it a war indeed. It wouldn’t take but a few well armed men to fix what the law has refused to fix.
In how many small towns do you think the local government has become a criminal enterprise funneling tax money to “unnamed persons” or groups, like the mayor claims he may have discovered here? The last thing they expect is for the town people to elect a mayor on a platform of investigating corruption. When will these town council members next be up for election? Easiest thing would be to wait and vote them all out of office.
Here’s one of Quartzsite’s new hires.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2011/07/the-arizona-presiding-disciplinary-judge-has-reprimanded-a-county-attorney-and-his-chief-deputy.html
[…] in the Quartzsite News. At this point, that’s likely an accurate reporting source as the outlandish activity continues to unfold. Here in The Mineshaft, Mayor Foster writes a commentary in which he introduces […]