Mayor of polygamist community resigns amid apparent power struggle
 
The Associated Press
 
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) --The mayor of a polygamist community straddling the Utah-Arizona line has resigned after apparently clashing with the leader of a renegade sect of the Mormon church that all but runs the town.

Dan Barlow, the only mayor in the 19-year history of Colorado City, submitted a one-sentence resignation letter Monday. The town clerk said a new mayor will be selected by the Town Council.

Barlow and about 20 men were ousted Saturday from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a maverick sect of the Mormon church, The (St. George) Spectrum reported Tuesday.

In an apparent move to solidify his position as church leader, Warren Jeffs also stripped the men of their wives and children, and their right to live in the town about 100 miles northwest of Flagstaff, the newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that among those Jeffs excommunicated were four of his own brothers and Barlow's son, nephew and three brothers.

Jeffs took over leadership of the church in 2002 after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs.

The excommunications, coming after months of an intensified power struggle between Jeffs and Colorado City's Barlow family, set anti-polygamists and law-enforcement officers on guard.

Four deputies from Mohave County, Ariz., were sent to patrol Colorado City. A deputy from Washington County, Utah, has been patrolling the neighboring polygamist town of Hildale, Utah.

The two communities, home to about 6,000 residents, are dominated by the Fundamentalist Church, a breakaway sect of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Fundamentalist Church still teaches polygamy as a central tenet, a practice the Salt Lake City-based Mormon church abandoned a century ago.

Police are relieved there has been no violence.

"It's been very, very quiet," Washington County Sheriff Kirk Smith said. "It's a community so different than we are used to dealing with, I really don't know what to expect. We're just waiting to see how everything goes."

As in previous excommunication cases, it's feared women and children could be "assigned" to other men.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said the state will establish a hotline for those who want to flee the polygamous enclave.
 
The Associated Press
Originally published January 13, 2004
 
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