After being fired as Walsenburg City Administrator Tuesday night, Gaye Davis was back at work Wednesday morning at her Main Street business, Serendipity, serving hot coffee — no vitriol added. Photo by Mark Craddock

In surprise move, Walsenburg City Council terminates administrator Gaye Davis

by Mark Craddock
WALSENBURG — In 2022, it took the Walsenburg City Council 49 days to hire Gaye Davis as interim city administrator, after the June 1 resignation of Administrator Dustin Stambaugh. It took another 96 days for the council to officially remove the “interim” from her job title.

But on Tuesday night, it took the council a mere 14 minutes and 8 seconds to summarily fire Davis, on a 5-2 vote, in a move apparently spark-plugged by new Mayor Gary Vezzani.

For the second time in just over a year, the City of Walsenburg woke up Wednesday morning with no administrator at the helm — and no immediate prospects for a replacement.

A Surprise Ending
The move came as a surprise ending to a meeting that, despite its fairly light agenda, already had its share of surprises – including a hack of its Zoom videoconference which peppered computer screens with pornographic video and a repeating soundtrack of shouted racial epithets.

Staff eventually killed the Zoom feed entirely, and council adjourned into executive session to discuss an IGA with Huerfano County over law enforcement.

Emerging some 30 minutes later, the council passed a motion to accept the temporary IGA proffered by the county last week, which extends the city/county contract through the first six months of 2024.

“Anything else that we want to discuss, bring up?” Vezzani asked.
“Yeah. I’m gonna make a motion,” Council member Nick Vigil said. “I’d like to make a motion to terminate Miss Davis’ contract tonight.”

Council member Fred Eccher quickly seconded the motion.
“I thought we were doing an evaluation,” Council member Veronica Maes said. “I just don’t understand.”

“I don’t think anyone over here understands,” Council member Don Martinez said.
“I mean, what is the plan?” Maes said. “You’ve got an election coming up in November. You’ve got five new seats and this council is going make this decision based off of, I don’t even know what. I thought we were going to have a discussion about performance. We were going to have it now.”

“We’re having a discussion,” Mayor Gary Vezzani said. “We had a motion and a second and now we can discuss. Miss Davis, would you be interested in doing the DOLA stuff and the grants and all of that?”

“A hundred-thousand dollars,” Davis shot back.

“The answer’s no,” Vezzani said. “So, noted.”

“I do have an issue,” Vezzani said. “We were out at the truck stop north of town, (it) was three months on porta-potties. I got the guy from Chicago, Ill., calling me as soon as I got elected and that’s going on. We got a lot of residents and people that tried to get answers from the city and it’s always said that they don’t get a call returned. I would love to see Gaye stay with doing what she’s good at. I think we’ve got to do something else on getting our utility departments to work, and all our departments.”

“We don’t have a plan,” Maes repeated. “Last time this happened we had notice the person was leaving and we made up a plan. This is ridiculous.”

City Attorney Katharine Vera warned the city might have some legal exposure if they terminate Davis without coming to some mutual agreement with her.

“If there’s not an agreement for Miss Davis’ resignation, she doesn’t have to sign certain releases of claims,” Vera said.

“Just business-wise,” Vera said, appearing to choose her words carefully, “it may make sense to have a long-term plan of having an interim city administrator come in. It could be very disruptive to go through with this.”

“So we fire the best administrator that we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Martinez said. “Whether she’s the greatest in the world, I’m sure she would agree that she’s not. She’s learning the job as she goes without being the administrator of any city anywhere before. She’s been doing a great job with what she has to work with.”

‘No Plan to Move Forward’
“I can’t support getting rid of her with no plan to move forward or at least no articulated plan to move forward,” Martinez continued. “Who’s going to run the city tomorrow? It’s just too much. We’re going to throw her job onto the employees we have, and that’s not fair to them. They don’t have the skill set to do that, and they’ve got a job to do already. They don’t have the time to devote to doing her job 40 hours-plus a week, and on Sundays.”

The council held a heated July 10 work session to express frustration with Davis over what Vezzani and several other board members saw as the slow pace of filling key city positions, including a water and sewer manager, and claims that Davis was not returning phone calls in a timely manner.

At that work session, Vezzani said “I have a past sewer and water person who would probably take the position if we made some administrative changes.” He later admitted he was talking about David Harriman, a former water and sewer chief who Vezzani said would not even apply for the position while Davis was in charge.

At Tuesday’s meeting, council member Jacque Sikes reiterated that theme, this time referring to the city’s vacant building inspector position.

“One of the things that I hear, OK, I don’t know, I’m just telling you that I hear this; that you are very set in who you will or will not work with,” Sikes said. “OK, they were crucified last meeting because somebody said that somebody didn’t want to work with another person. Now I understand that there are people that are qualified, that have stepped forward and said they would want to, they would help us out. And you have said I won’t work with them, because of so and so and so and so…”

Davis questioned the source and accuracy of Sikes’ comment, which appeared to be in relation to the city’s search for a building inspector, not a water and sewer supervisor.

“I think I know where that source is,” Davis said. “I think that there is a whole basis there. But if a person completes an application…”

“You don’t have it on, you don’t have it listed, You don’t have it advertised,” Sikes interrupted. “So how can you hire somebody when you removed it from the website? How do they apply? Why would you remove a job that is vacant from the website?”

“I don’t remove the job descriptions from the website,” Davis said.

Davis explained that the city contracts with an outside firm  for building inspection services on projects whose size or complexity warrant the expertise. Meanwhile, staff members and she have been handling the day-to-day efforts. And she said she is interviewing an applicant right now for the full-time position.

“So there is an opening for a building inspector?” Sikes said.

“Yes, until this person steps into the position. So I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I would ask that you just call for the vote.”

Maes strongly disagreed with the direction the discussion was going.

“I thought that we would have a performance evaluation tonight,” she said, “in that we could maybe come to some terms like maybe some probation or something that would make people on council happy. But to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and end up in a worse position than we were when Miss Davis came here to us? I’m appalled.

“Who’s gonna do it now? You think the volunteer’s going to stay? I’d be surprised if other people are going to stick around. Who’s going to pick up day-to-day operations? What happens when there’s a water break tomorrow? You think our two water people are going to be able to go out? Who are they going to call? Who’s going to make sure that every little thing is in order?”

Amid audience members talking over each other to express their displeasure, Vezzani tried to gavel the room to order.

“Let’s just vote,” Sikes said. “I’m tired of listening to this.”

“Jacque, I have a right to speak,” Maes shot back. “And what I’m saying is you guys come here new on council. You got two people who are appointed to this council that were not even elected by the people of Walsenburg. Yes, I only won by one vote (in the recall) but I stood my ground because I’m just here for the right reasons. And I’m not here to send the city back into the turmoil of what I had to step into when I first got on.

“You’re telling me that TA came to you and said this has happened and that has happened. Why haven’t they come to council and told us that? Whenever people come to me to complain (I tell them to) come to council and tell everybody.

“And, like I said, in November you’ve got five people up for election. So, please, people, take a petition out and run for office.”

In the end it came down to a 5-2 vote, with Vigil, Eccher, Vezzani, Sikes and Mayor Pro Tem Rick Jennings (via Zoom) voting yes.

Maes voted “hell, no.”

Martinez voted “absolutely not.”

Amid shouts from the roughly half-dozen citizens still in the gallery, Sikes made a motion to adjourn and Vezzani quickly gaveled the meeting to a close.

“I really hope you’ve got somebody to open the doors tomorrow,” one audience member yelled as she left the council chambers.

The Aftermath
In the hallway after Tuesday’s meeting, Vezzani said he already had plans in the works for Davis’ replacement.

“I know Mike Valentine in Trinidad, he’s a retired administrator,” Vezzani said. “I asked if he would do me a favor if I had to. He said no, but I’d just as soon not talk to the press about it.”
Valentine, who has alternatively served as public works director and city administrator over a long career in Trinidad, retired in 2022.

He could not be reached for comment by deadline Wednesday.

When asked if council members had discussed the night’s course of action in advance, since the proceedings seemed somewhat choreographed, Vezzani said “Hit and miss.”

“Yeah, I’ve talked to them,” he said. “Councilmen complained to me. Customers complained to me. We are privvy to the Open Meeting Act, so we kind of, ‘we’re going to have to do this as a consensus,’ and that consensus came together tonight.”

At City Hall Wednesday morning, staff members were generally still in shock at the turn of events, unsure of what the future held.

Caroline Robb, who has volunteered with the city since late 2022, assiting Deputy City Clerk Richard Colander, said unequivocally she was leaving. Other staffers said they are waiting to see what happens.

One early cassualty of the firing is the cancellation of a series of community meetings slated for today regarding city law enforcement.

Human Resources/payroll technician Sharon Miranda said Vezzani came to City Hall Wednesday morning, saying he wanted to organize a meeting with city staff early Wednesday afternoon.

Early that morning, Davis was working her “other job,” as owner and proprietor of Serendipity on Main Street.
Between pulling shots of espresso and answering her phone, Davis answered a few questions.
“I saw this coming when Gary was elected,” Davis said. “Well, you know, what do you say? What do you say?

“It’s unfortunate. There’s a multitude of things that have to occur in a very short period of time to keep the city operational.”

Around 9 a.m. Wednesday, Davis arrived at City Hall, cardboard box in hand, to pack up her things.