With a lawsuit’s defendants sitting with their plaintiff and an alleged harasser sitting with an accuser, the Board of Trustees meeting in Palmer Lake Thursday night was as fraught as one might imagine.

“I think we’re at a crossroads here, and everyone can feel it,” said Trustee Tony Beltran.

With the resignation of the town’s latest attorney, Kent Whitmer of JVAM Law, came an invoice for nearly $65,000 in legal fees presented at the meeting. Whitmer represented the town for less than two months before resigning over the town’s “strife and turmoil,” according to a statement. Some trustees contested the expenses and asked for more information.

The town’s legal troubles don’t end with representation. In May, Trustee Roger Moseley filed his third lawsuit against the town board on which he currently serves, two days after Whitmer’s resignation.

In the latest filing, Moseley claims the town withheld information he was entitled to regarding a harassment investigation into his alleged conduct toward town employees.

The town opened an investigation into claims that Moseley was creating a hostile work environment for female staff members, according to Glen Smith, interim town administrator and Palmer Lake police chief. In April, he said “multiple female employees are afraid to go to work and leave work.”

At a meeting on May 14, Smith told the board that an independent investigation by Employers Council, an employment law firm, had concluded.

The board has yet to codify its rules for handling alleged misconduct by public officials, including the removal process. Before his resignation, Whitmer drafted an ordinance for review.

Christi Birkeland, an employee with the town, read federal, state and local policies on the handling of harassment claims to the trustees during public comment. She did not specify any involvement in the investigation, but said the town had an obligation to follow laws that protect complainants.

“Employees leave when they feel unheard, unsupported and unsafe, and they take their skills, energy and integrity with them,” she said.

Whitmer is the third lawyer to pull away from Palmer Lake since Christmas. Longtime legal counsel Scott Krob was fired by the board after previously stating his intention to resign. The firm Wyatt Hamilton Findlay was briefly contracted but reneged this spring.

Without a lawyer to handle town business, Town Clerk Erica Romero suggested that Palmer Lake hire a special projects firm for priority issues, including land use applications that have been in limbo for months. Romero is named as a co-defendant in Moseley’s latest filing.

“I just want to make sure that we do what we can to help those applicants,” she said.

Former town Mayor Paul Olivier admonished the board in public comment, saying its conflicts could open the town to lawsuits by other parties.

“Take the high road and get out of the dirt,” he said.

As part of an attempt to stop what he called “distractions,” Beltran tried during the meeting to introduce a moratorium on new lawsuits. Fellow Trustee Beth Harris said the idea was not practical.

“As much as I admire the sentiment … we don’t have the power legally,” she said.

Martha Brodzik, co-plaintiff on a lawsuit she brought with Moseley alleging financial misconduct in the city’s budget from two years ago, said she was not willing to back down. The lawsuit was dismissed and later appealed.

“Am I supposed to turn a blind eye and turn away?” she said.

Brodzik said the debate over Buc-ee’s, a Texas chain of travel centers that wanted to annex a location into Palmer Lake, had exposed an “ugly underbelly” in the historic town known for its idyllic lake.

After contributing to regularly contentious meetings last year, two recalls of town leaders and multiple resignations, the Buc-ee’s debate ended earlier this spring when the company withdrew its application from Palmer Lake. Records show the company is still invested in the location and could be planning to build in the jurisdiction of unincorporated El Paso County.

Months after Buc-ee’s withdrawal, some of Palmer Lake’s issues have so far remained intractable.

“Every time that it seems Palmer Lake is heading in the right direction, something happens to derail the progress,” said Olivier.