War of words continues in Quartzsite

QUARTZSITE, AZ - Dozens of residents gathered at the Quartzsite City Hall Tuesday, anxious to find out what's going on with their local politicians.

"I want to see open government, not running behind locked doors like they did on Sunday," Quartzsite Mayor Ed Foster said.

Foster claims the town council met in an illegal closed door meeting on Sunday to kick him out of office after he called for investigations into city staff.

"They don't think I should have freedom of speech," Foster said.

The political mayhem stems from a video showing a woman getting arrested during public comment at a recent city council meeting.

Town Manager Alex Taft says the clip doesn't show the whole story. She claims the woman is an activist who supports the mayor.

"The prior history is that this woman has been cited between 10 and 12 times for disruption for failing to obey rules," Taft told ABC15.

Taft read some of the threats that were made online against city leaders.

"Take your own town back. If they won't listen to reason, run them out of town or kill them," one person posted online.

Taft said despite claims to the contrary, the town is not under marshal law, and not in a state of emergency.

"At some point, we have to draw a line and what we did was rescheduled the meetings and eliminated the call to the public. All of which is temporary," Taft said.

Taft claimed the mayor is actually encouraging disorder during public meetings.

"We will [probably] have to address that because it is maligning our town, and maligning what we have achieved and giving the wrong impression," she said.