Small town drama is the best drama.

NEWBURG — Two of the village’s top unelected officials here resigned abruptly on Thursday.

Rick Goeckner, Newburg’s administrator and clerk, and Chrissie Brynwood, the treasurer and deputy clerk, stepped down this week, leaving Village Board members here trying to fill a pair of key government posts as quickly as possible.

“It has become apparent that my ideas as to the future of Newburg do not align with the current Village Board leadership,” Goeckner wrote in a letter addressed to board members and read aloud at an impromptu board meeting Thursday night. “It has been my true pleasure serving Newburg these past six years. With that said, I am giving notice of my resignation, effective immediately. I wish every one of the residents of Newburg well.”

“It is with a heavy heart that I, Christin Brynwood, ask you to accept my letter of resignation as of this May 16, 2019,” Brynwood wrote to the board in her own letter, which was also read publicly.

A sign on the Village Hall’s front door Thursday said Newburg’s government center was closed “until further notice,” and board members gathered on short notice to discuss filling the two jobs.

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The resignations follow months of upheaval in Newburg. Rena Chesak, Newburg’s recently installed village president, was censured by a local ethics commission last month after she’d been accused of violating village policy while serving as a village trustee last year.

Specifically, she’d been accused of taking part in discussions regarding a contract renewal with the local fire department where her husband is chief. Chesak has said she never voted on the matter, but Newburg ethics officials agreed she’d gone too far by even discussing it.