Pecos: Fire chief, volunteers almost quit

Pecos Fire Chief Ralph Lopez and about a dozen other Pecos Volunteer Fire Department firefighters tried to resign last week. But Mayor Tony Roybal refused to accept their resignations.

Roybal said he’s since smoothed things over with Lopez, but village Clerk Jim Dimas will ask the Village of Pecos Board of Trustees to consider accepting Lopez’s resignation in an executive session at the board’s Aug. 13 meeting.

Lopez, the only paid member of the department, said Dimas is the reason he wanted to quit. He said the $500 he earns monthly as fire chief isn’t worth the aggravation of dealing with him.

“It’s just been a nightmare with this guy,” Lopez said. “He’s just too demanding. He’s on a power trip.”

Lopez said he and the clerk have argued over what decals should be applied to the new fire truck and whether volunteers should have to pay if they lose radios issued to them by the department. The two men have also had words over paperwork Lopez had not completed and a complaint the village received from a woman who alleged the fire crew acted unprofessionally and used profanity in front of her child after a recent structural fire in Ilfeld.

“I tried to talk to him,” Lopez said. “But he slammed the door and started standing over me and yelling at me to be professional and stuff. I looked straight up at him and kept my cool, and I said, ‘Jim don’t stand over me and yell,’ and he backed off.”

Dimas did not return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

Roybal said Dimas is a smart man but is very demanding and needs to “back off a little bit.”