Erica Torrey, who recently won election as town supervisor for the Town of Allen and has served for 15 months, resigned in a letter to the board on Tuesday.
The letter said she had great pleasure serving and meeting residents of Allen, but others in the town and on the board have “worked tirelessly to make me a public punching bag while holding me personally responsible for the poor decisions of my predecessors.”
Torrey when on to write, “I will no longer sit idly by while board members put their own interests ahead of the greater well-being of their constituents through frivolous spending and foolish financial decisions that the town, OUR town may never recover from.”
Then she made statements involving possible misappropriations of funds.
“I will no longer turn a blind eye to possible illegal activities or misappropriation of funds from both past and current board members as well as town employees; with that I have found it best to step away from the role as I will never be afforded the opportunity to serve in this position with the best interests of you, my constituents in mind.”
Torrey said she hoped the town could bounce back from past issues, but the current board is self-serving and she can’t serve.
“Unfortunately, this will never happen if the current corruption and self-serving members of the board are not stepped, this can only happen with your help both at the meetings and your next voting stations. It is my help that this will be a wakeup call to current board members to do better.”
The town is expected to hold an emergency meeting this week to accept the resignation letter and appoint an acting town supervisor from the remaining members on the board. Torrey’s seat could be filled as well at a later date.
On a Town of Allen social media page, there was support for Torrey.
One resident asked, “Wouldn’t you be more of a benefit keeping your position and outing the corruption? People need to be held accountable. Just sad to hear.”
Torrey answered, “I understand what you are saying for sure … however at the March meeting, I was screamed at and totally disrespected and nothing I have said or done in 15 months means anything to them.”
Another residents said it’s a sad day because they know what Torrey wanted to accomplish and Torrey simply responded, “I tried.”
Here is the letter of resignation in full:
