Bellaire Mayor Robert Dodrill has announced his resignation only three months after being sworn into office.

BELLAIRE – Bellaire Mayor Robert Dodrill has announced his resignation only three months after being sworn into office.

Dodrill said that the decision came after the village’s fiscal officer, Ginny Favede resigned after Thursday evening’s council meeting.

“I told her if you go then I’m going,” Dodrill said. “She didn’t deserve the stress and turmoil. There were a lot of bad things happening and people that were causing a lot of issues.”

He added that he believes both he and Favede received a lot of pushback and unfair turmoil from certain council members. He declined to identify those council members. Favede could not be reached for comment.

“There’s things that we had found that I, if you don’t mind me saying, findings for recovery that have already been issued by the State Auditor’s Office from things that happened previously in a previous administration,” Dodrill said. “The 2022 audit is moving forward to look into the water department and the police department funds.”

When contacted Friday, Village solicitor Paul Stecker said that he is unaware of any finding for recovery audit from the state.

“I don’t think it had to do with an audit. Our annual audit is ongoing, but I think it was just the transition to the new fiscal officer but I’m not really sure,” Stecker said. “The mayor did not give a reason for his resignation to me at least.”

He added that he is unaware of any issues with the annual audit and has not heard anything in regards to the water and police departments funds.

Dodrill said that despite only serving the village for three months he tried his best to make Bellaire the “All American Town.”

“I want to thank all the patrons and the people of the village for giving me the opportunity to try and turn it around and make a concerted effort to make the village great again,” Dodrill said. “But I’m not going to apologize for the hard work that I put in there, because we busted our tail, but I apologize. I feel I let you all down, but with all these findings and stuff like that, I just want everybody to know what’s going on.”

Dodrill’s last day will be April 15.

He added that he appreciates all of the residents putting their faith in him trying to turn the village around.

“For a lot of years, it’s been deteriorating and going downhill. I thought I could come in and make a difference, and I really tried. I want everybody to know that I really tried,” Dodrill said. “I thought we had the right team to really make a change, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.”

He added that it got to the point where he felt like he was stuck in quicksand where it was a constant fight with council to the point that nothing was getting accomplished.

Dodrill said that since the time he got into office he’s felt that certain council members have undermined him.

“It’s just not worth the fight when people don’t want to change,” Dodrill said.