Fire Commissioner resigns

Doug Avery, a 30-year veteran volunteer firefighter with Fire District 13 resigned his elected position as a Commissioner effective April 30.

Over the past three years, Avery has weathered battles with the commissioners and administrative staff in the district.

In 2011, the former commission “fired” him from his volunteer position as a battalion chief for alleged insubordination.

A few months later, he was elected to office, defeating and replacing one of the commissioners who “fired” him.

Throughout 2011 and 2013, Avery was usually the odd man out on the three-member commission, frequently at the bottom end of a 2-1 split vote with then commission majority Chuck Hedlund and Jim Grove.

Avery’s next big battle came as the 2013 election campaign season was heating up. Grove was being challenged by farmer Arne Fohn.

The day before the ballots were mailed to the voters, Hedlund and Grove released a “Confidential Investigative Report” upholding allegations by then district secretary Deborah McFarlane that Avery had harassed her. The lawyers who produced the report used information from interviews with people actively campaigning for Grove and meeting minutes compiled by McFarlane.

In November 2013, Fohn defeated Grove, and the dynamics of the commission were changed – Avery became the board chairman in January.

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting, Avery announced, “I’m going to do something for me. I’m going to retire from the district.”

He said he wants to get out while he still has his health. “I gave 30 years of my life to this district,” he said. He and his wife, “want to do some traveling,” and he wants freedom to do other things.

According to state law, Hedlund and Fohn have 90 days to appoint a replacement commissioner. Should they fail to do so, the task would fall to the County Commissioners.

Before he lost his bid for re-election last year, Grove was last defeated in the November 2007 election. He was re-appointed to the commission a few months later when the man who beat him resigned.