Tombstone Mayor Dusty Escapule said on April 14 that he is troubled with some of the current attitudes surrounding his mayorship.  

In the past several months, the mayor has come under fire for decisions made about street closures, handbill solicitations, dirt on the streets and potential business closures.

Additionally, some residents have called into question a potential conflict of interest between Escapule’s private business interests and his public policy making.  

Escapule said there is no relevance in these declarations.

In addition to being a part owner and the managing editor of the Tombstone News, Escapule’s family also owns Old Tombstone Tours, a stagecoach company that provides daily tours of Allen Street and its surrounding area.

“(People) feel that if there’s anything that is not going their way, the only way that they can attack me is through the stagecoaches,” Escapule said. “Whether the horses are wearing diapers or whether there’s rubber tires on (the stagecoaches), this has nothing to do with what my job is as mayor.”

A closure of Fourth and Fifth streets to motorized vehicles would directly affect the Tombstone Trolley Tours, which also provide tours of downtown Tombstone. The stagecoaches would be impervious to such closures. 

The conditions of these facts have provoked some citizens to question the mayor’s policy making.  

In an earlier interview, Lee McKechnie, owner of the Tombstone Trolley, explained his view of the situation by saying, “I don’t think we’re in competition with the stagecoach company, but people are coming up to me daily and saying that he is trying to run us out of town.”

Byron Newbauer, owner of the Cochise Trading Post suggested that the town should be able to vote on the street closing issue.  

“It should be up to the voters and everybody should vote on it. Everybody should have a say,” Newbauer said. 

Escapule stands by his decision to close Fourth and Fifth streets, citing his success with the closure of Allen Street during his first term as mayor. 

“I was the one that closed Allen street,” Escapule said. “Now everybody thinks that that closure is a fine thing. But I also didn’t do it without years of research and surveys and that was part of the process. And we will continue to develop this until we come up with a solution.”

Escapule’s colleague, Councilman Steve Troncale, said that conflict of interest is hard to avoid in a small town and that policy makers do the best that they can to balance their public and private interests.  

”You have to understand that we have a town a little over 1,500 people and that out of that 1,500, very few are willing to serve the welfare of the town,” Troncale said. “There’s very few people in this town that know it like he does. Whatever other businesses he has he is the best qualified man for the job.”

At Tuesday night’s city council meeting, Escapule was visibly short-fused by the presence of journalists. Media ranging from the Los Angeles Times to Tucson news stations have recently picked up on the bad blood flowing in Tombstone.

Various Tombstone Epitaph reporters have attempted to reach Escapule in office or via phone over the last month to get his side of the story, but Escapule has not returned phone calls or requests for interviews. 

Escapule explicitly mentioned that this publication had been biased and one sided in previous issues.  

“You guys have speared me two times in your paper in the past two weeks, and if you’re going to do a negative story on Tombstone, or on me or on the city council I will not talk to you,” Escapule said.

Aside from his views about the Epitaph, Escapule said that the only thing he is concerned about is his job as mayor.

“My job is to do what’s best for Tombstone,” Escapule said.  “And I will do what’s best for Tombstone.”